American Indian Grand Families: A Qualitative Study Conducted with Grandmothers and Grandfathers Who Provide Sole Care for Their Grandchildren

Abstract

A qualitative study was conducted to determine the rationale for 31 American Indian grandparents' who provide sole care of their grandchildren, the impact of historical trauma on their decision making process in accessing services, the value of American Indian Child Welfare policies in addressing care issues, and custody status of the grand families. Indian Outreach Workers, Community Health Representatives, Elder Program Directors, and tribal community leaders were key in the recruitment of participants. The grandparents were informed of the purpose of the study and participated in face-to-face, paper and pencil, individual interviews. The subjects included 29 grandmothers and two grandfathers; age 43-86 years, with 20 who lived off reservation land and 11 who lived on reservation land in Michigan. A phenomenological approach of the "world of the lived experience" informed the design of the study. The researchers recorded the subjects' responses via field notes, conducted a comparison of responses to assess internal reliability, and entered the responses into the qualitative data analysis Nvivo program. Findings included; (1) reasons for providing sole care of grandchildren (2) stressors and rewards of providing sole care (3) grandparents decisions affected by historical traumas which focused on the boarding school issues and the removal of children from their homes due to cultural differences causing a reluctance to seek and access national and state programs (4) grandparents preference was to seek and access services provided by their Tribal Nations, and/or American Indian urban agencies (5) most lacked legal custodial status which is an indicator the grandparents' may have benefited from knowledge of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

Family structure and adolescent alcohol use problems: Extending popular explanations to American Indians

“…For example, American Indian youth have been found to be less likely to reside with both biological parents than non-Hispanic whites (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007; Sandefur & Liebler, 1997) and more than twice as likely to live in a residence with a grandparent present (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). In a study of American Indian/Alaskan Native grandparents in Michigan, Cross (2010) found that grandparents became primary caregivers for their grandchildren for a variety of reasons including parental substance use, parental death, or because parents wanted to focus on advancing their education. There are also reasons to suspect that the role of extended families in terms of youth care and behavior modeling may be different than the extended family role for other racial and ethnic groups because American Indian family structure and family relations have been impacted by experiences of relocation and residential schools (Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2005; Harrison, Wilson, Pine, Chan, & Buriel, 1990).…”

Alaska Native Grandparents Rearing Grandchildren

“…Similar to other GRG, study participants reared their grandchildren to help their own children get jobs, stay in school, get on their feet, and parental separation, and more (Cox, 2000;Cross et al, 2010;Henderson & Cook, 2005, 2006Mullen, 2000). Values, culture, and traditions were in the context of the support Alaska Native GRG gave to their children via rearing their grandchildren.…”

A New Mentorship Model: The Perceptions of Educational Futures for Native American Youth at a Rural Tribal School

“…Accordingly, building the youths' confidence could increase their selfefficacy which could motivate the youth to learn and process how to achieve their goals. By increasing the youths' self-efficacy through interactions with undergraduate students who role model positive behaviors and teach related knowledge and awareness could possibly motivate the youth to navigate the challenging social problems in their lives as they focus on their achievement goals [19].…”