It’s a side of the opioid crisis may people probably never thought about. A Brevard County group is reporting a sharp increase in the number of grandparents raising their grandchildren, as the middle generation struggles with addiction, incarceration and overdoses.
Investigative reporter Karla Ray found out it’s a national trend, playing out in Central Florida, that’s forcing family members to take on new roles, instead of readying for retirement.
A ride to school should be a safe space for any child, but for 13-year-old Nautica, that wasn’t always the case. She said her younger siblings’ mother was addicted to heroin.
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“She’d do it in the car sometimes, but, like, I didn’t pay attention,” Nautica said.
The drug use forced the girl to play the role of a parent, while in middle school. Now, her grandmother, Mary Ann, is the guardian of her three grandkids.
“I knew DCF was not going to give them back to their mothers. Nautica has a different mom [than her siblings], and she was addicted to heroin at the time, also,” Mary Ann said.
“When you’re on drugs and doing stuff, you’re not really focused on a child. Your mind isn’t focused,” another grandmother, Michelle, said.
Michelle has raised her 9-year-old grandson, Tyshawn, since he was 9 months old.
“I think he would’ve probably gotten hurt out there, because she was going from house to house,” Michelle said.
They are two in a growing number of grandparents, who aren’t retiring or spending their time relaxing. Instead, they’re taking over parenthood, as a generation is gripped by the opioid crisis.
Census data shows 2.6 million Americans are raising their grandchildren, and advocacy groups expect that number to soar.
“It’s growing every day,” said Mary Ann Sterling, executive director of the Brevard-based organization Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.
GRG is a one-stop resource to help grandparents navigate the legal, financial, and emotional obstacles that come from gaining custody of grandchildren.
Binders inside the GRG office tell the story. Intake sheets fill huge binders in the last few years. Just in the months of March and April, 2018, 133 families joined the organization.
“We served 1,500 kids last year, and I would say 1000 of them came to us due to drugs,” Sterling said.
DCF statistics show 50 percent of children removed from the parents in the Central Florida region, are done so because of drug use. That’s higher than the statewide average of 45 percent.
A nationwide advocacy group, Generations United, says about 51 percent of Florida kids in out-of-home-care due to drug or alcohol abuse, live with relatives.
“I was shocked, and then I started noticing more and more grandparents at school every day, dropping the kids off. At the ball games, it's the grandparents that are there,” Mary Ann said.
Despite challenges, the alternative of foster care, is not an option for these families.
“Once you're a mother, you're always a mother. The natural instinct comes, anyway,” Michelle said.