HALOS Receives $10,000 Grant for Pilot Peer Mentoring Program

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NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – HALOS has received a $10,000 grant from Pisgah Investments Foundation, Inc. to help fund a pilot peer mentoring program for kinship caregivers. Kinship caregivers are grandparents or other relatives raising children to keep them out of foster care. When relatives take in children unexpectedly, they confront financial, emotional and physical challenges. New caregivers desire connection with others in the same situation who understand those challenges. To meet this need, HALOS began a pilot peer mentoring program in January 2023.

HALOS’ Executive Director, Jed Dews, explains, “Peer support helps caregivers connect with someone who understands their situation—the joys and the challenges—and who can provide useful insights, parenting strategies, and other expertise. It normalizes the experiences of children, teens, and caregivers as they make connections with others living in similar circumstances.”

Peer mentoring services can reduce isolation and stress and provide caregivers with hope and encouragement even as their children continue to face challenges. There is often an increased level of trust with people who have walked a similar path and know the challenges that can occur when parenting children and youth who have experienced abuse, trauma, and neglect.

For more information about HALOS and the programs and services we provide for kinship families, visit charlestonhalos.org.

ABOUT HALOS

HALOS serves kinship families in the Charleston region. Kinship care occurs when a child cannot be with their parents and an adult with a relationship to the family steps in to raise the child. Kinship caregivers are grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, older siblings, neighbors, teachers, and family friends who don’t want to see a child they care about enter the foster care system. So, they volunteer to take in the child themselves.

There are 57,000 children in kinship care in South Carolina compared to approximately 4,000 in foster care. Because kinship caregivers typically are not licensed foster parents, they do not receive any financial assistance for caring for the children.