Family Friends, a program of the Intergenerational Center, is expanding its services by early 2018
to include workshops for grandparents and other kinship caregivers who are raising children/youth - an
issue that affects an estimated 13,000+ grandparents in the city of Philadelphia (http://www.pcacares. org). The kinship caregiver workshops are anticipated to occur on Temple University's Main Campus in addition to sites across Philadelphia. These supportive, educational sessions to help empower kinship caregivers are made possible by a new grant from the Brookdale Foundation. The Family Friends Program will collaborate with vital community partners to implement this project as part of Brookdale Foundation's Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP).
Key community partners include: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA), the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (Community-Based Prevention Services), the Temple University Pan-African Studies Program (PASCEP), the Temple University Institute on Disabilities, and Grand Central, Inc.
Patience Lehrman, M.Ed., M.B.A. (Co-Executive Director of the Intergenerational Center at Temple University) stated that these sessions will be "…focused conversations that span the gamut of issues faced by kinship caregivers". Lehrman and Alysia Williams, M.A. (Family Friends Program Manager) will attend a conference in Denver, CO in October 2017 with other grant recipients from across the U.S. to discuss emerging best practices in working with kinship caregiving families as well as to receive further grant guidelines.
About the Intergenerational Center at Temple University (Temple IGC)
Founded in 1979, the Intergenerational Center at Temple University strengthens communities by bringing generations together to address critical concerns and create opportunities for lifelong civic engagement. The center's respite support division provides services for families with special needs, children/youth who might be considered at-risk and elders whose health is frail. For more details, please contact Patience Lehrman (215-204-0266, patience@temple.edu) or Alysia Williams (215-204-3199, alysia.williams@temple.edu).