Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Grandpa does more than baby-sit, By Michael Winerip, December 10, 2009, New York Times: “In May 2006, Tom Kust discovered that his two grandchildren, Monica, then 6, and Nathan, 2, were about to be adopted by a foster-care family in Florida. He had hired a lawyer to help his daughter, the children’s mother, get the children back. But his daughter kept dropping out of rehab programs, unable to shake her addiction to cocaine and heroin. Mr. Kust wanted Monica and Nathan, but grandparents have limited custody rights, their legal status varying state to state. As a result of working full time as a machine shop manager 1,000 miles away here on Long Island, tension with his daughter over her years of drug use and the lack of coordination between social workers in two states, Mr. Kust had trouble tracking his grandchildren’s case…”