The story of how Bernice Smith’s grandson became her son is a story told by documents.

Some of the ones she flips through in the living room of her Decatur, Georgia home are official looking, covered with stamps and seals. Others are more informal.

“This is his autobiography that Stephen wrote himself,” Smith says, holding a printed page.

“It says, ‘God Works In Mysterious Ways.’”

Smith’s grandson, Stephen, is the first son of her oldest son and one of her eight grandchildren.

Stephen ended up living with Smith when he was just five years old, because his father’s living situation wasn’t stable.

“He’s been with me ever since,” Smith says.

Smith says the Division of Family and Children Services wanted Stephen to live with her. 

Doing so would keep him out of Georgia’s foster system, which would save the state money and give Stephen a better chance at a normal life.

However, Smith says she didn’t receive much financial support from the state: not even enough to cover the cost of childcare.

“It was hard on me to do it, but I took care of him,” Smith says.

Her story’s not uncommon. 

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national children’s advocacy group, says Georgia was home to more than 100,000 kinship caregivers in 2012.

Some of those were like Smith and had contact with the child welfare system, but some weren’t and likely received no support.

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Kinship caregivers can give children better childhoods and save Georgia money, and one group of lawmakers led by House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams feels it’s time the state does something in return.

“We’ve had lots of anecdotal conversations, but we’re going to put a stake in the ground by offering legislation,” she says.

That legislation aims to establish subsidies for kinship caregivers that match those that foster parents receive and to give kinship caregivers more help finding financial and emotional support services that are already available.

The push comes from the Kinship Care Study Committee, led by Minority Leader Abrams, which has spent the last few months travelling around the state listening to kinship caregivers.

At their final hearing in Atlanta, caregivers, including Bernice Smith, stood and told their stories.

They said they want to care for their family members, and that they need more help doing so.

Minority Leader Abrams feels some of that help might come out of the 2016 legislative session.

“I’m not naive enough to believe that we will get everything we want for these families in a single cycle,” she says.

“But if we can start the conversation, what I’ve seen in my 10 years in the legislature is that if you keep up enough attention, you will eventually get to the solutions that you need.”

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“The push Georgia is making is a very positive one,” says Robert Geen, who works on kinship care issues with the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

“I would say Georgia’s just a tiny bit behind the curve even.”

He says all children experience trauma when they’re separated from their parents, but that living with kin can help reduce the force of that trauma and give children better education and health outcomes.

“All you have to do is put yourself in that position,” Geen says. 

“How would you react if all of a sudden someone came to you and said, ‘Can you care for a child?’”

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“I said, ‘Well, I guess I’ll just have to take care of you, boo.’ And that’s what I did,” says Bernice Smith.

Back in her living room, Smith flips through other documents that tell her story, like the adoption papers that officially made her grandson Stephen her son.

“I always told my grandson there are four things I will always be to him: his mother, his father, his grandmother, and his friend,” Smith says.

In 2008, Stephen graduated from high school. Now, he’s in the Air Force and married with a family of his own.

Smith says she cared for her grandson, because she felt she could give him the best chance of a normal life.

That’s exactly the kind of outcome Minority Leader Abrams and her Kinship Care Study Committee hope Georgia lawmakers will support come 2016.

This story also appears on Medium.

Tags: Kinship care; Foster care; DFCS; Stacey Abrams; Annie E. Casey Foundation;