Children Service Society’s Grandfamilies program comes to Logan

Children Service Society’s Grandfamilies program, a service focused on providing counseling, understanding and other assistance to those involved in kinship care, became available to Logan residents at Bear River Metal Health on March 10.

Support Services program director Patricia Totterer said she saw a need for the Grandfamilies program to expand to Logan with 2,082 children in Cache County being raised by grandparents and other relatives.

“These children have gone through horrific things—neglect and abuse—so these children come with a lot of problematic behavior,” Totterer said. “Grandparents need to understand where this behavior is coming from and what to do to help them.”

Recently retired program director Jacci Graham said one of the main reasons Grandfamilies was pushing for a location in Logan was because there was not a program available to help families in Cache County facing these types of situations.

“There was no agency that provides counsel for these families,” Graham said. “A lot of them don’t understand the needs, or how to go about getting guardianship over them and Grandfamilies will help them.”

In addition to benefiting families in these situations, the program offers the state of Utah $2.9 billion in savings yearly by keeping these children out of the foster care system according to Totterer.

Totterer said though the services are now available, Grandfamilies has yet to recruit anyone in Cache County to participate in the program.

“The minute somebody signs up, we are ready to go,” Totterer said.

According to Totterer, Grandfamilies is striving to get the word out about the program to those in the community who may benefit from these services.

“We are working very hard to spread the word,” Totterer said. “We’re working with community partners, Logan hospitals and schools and we are planning to do presentations.”

To learn more about the Grandfamilies program, visit http://www.cssutah.org/grandfamilies-main-page