Accounting for grandparent headed households with children under 18 began in 1980 revealing an alarming discovery that led to a flood of research, reports, and ultimately legislation in the child welfare system.

In 1990, over three million children were living in the homes of grandparents without their parents, up close to 30% from 1980. This information necessitated more research based on an awareness of the impact on grandparent families, including a need to know how many other relatives were raising children in their extended family, how many children were in the child welfare system, and why was this happening.

By 2000 the accounting of relatives including grandparents caring for related children had increased another 30% from the previous decade. What will the new U.S. Census of 2010 reveal and why do we care?

Though the U.S. counting of the population has been a project of the government since 1790 originally for the purpose of establishing representative legislative districts, the evolution of our complex society helps us to know who we are, where we are, and how we can improve our collective community strength. That’s the altruistic reasoning.

When the nation’s nearly 4 million relatives, mostly grandparents, commit to the care of the children, they also face the other complex parts of our society – authority to make decisions for the children, financial support, and personal exasperation with children in the trauma of separation from their parents for whatever reason. The census helps us to know these families and funnel funds to their communities in support of kinship care.

In the past we learned many important things about relative care:

• that the majority of the children living with grandparents were over 6 years of age
  
• the majority of grandparents responsible for the care of the grandchildren were female, average age 52
  
• that over one-fourth of grandfamilies lived below the poverty level
  
• that 1 of every 12 children in classrooms across the country were living in relative homes.

The new technologies have helped us to up the ante in the detailed census information available.

The American Community Survey (ACS), for instance, tallied in targeted communities, gives far more specific information between the census decades. The ACS is a big reason that the new 2010 Census is comprised of 10 simple questions on a mail in form. We all may have a better picture of the kinship situation when the tallies come in later this year. For more information and answers to questions about the U.S. Census go to http://2010.census.gov.

Contact Helene LaBrecque Ellis via email at hellis7@msn.com or by phone at 517-256-3277. For informtion on how to purchase her book, "A Kinship Guide to Rescuing Children For Grandparents and Other Relatives As Parents," email info@chicagoroadpublishing.com.