A little more than a decade ago, Glenda Weaver and her husband, Jerry, found themselves starting the parenting process all over again.

“My daughter became terminally ill, and we had to raise two of our grandchildren, and there wasn’t anything here for us. We had to go through the fight of the Health and Welfare system, and we found out we couldn’t get them on our insurances,” said Glenda. “It made me realize that this needed to be fixed.”

Soon after she helped found the Relatives as Parents North Idaho support group, or RAP.

“Sometimes we discuss problems, sometimes we do training, sometimes we have speakers there to talk about things like autism or ADHD or IEPs (individualized education plans for children with special needs) for the school — different topics that the grandparents might be struggling with. We also find resources for grandparents.”

The group holds monthly meetings in Coeur d’Alene and Rathdrum, and about 12 people on average attend each.

The meetings include free child care and a potluck. They are a chance for support, sharing resources, and learning about their rights.

Next month Weaver will attend a gala event in Washington, D.C., spearheaded by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. She was nominated by U.S. Sen. Jim Risch for Angels in Adoption, a program that allows members of Congress to recognize individuals and organizations making extraordinary contributions on behalf of kids in need of stable, nurturing homes.

The event, which runs three days, includes a tour of the U.S. Capitol, an advocacy fair, a congressional breakfast, a legislative seminar, and meetings with members of Congress. Weaver joins the ranks of roughly 2,500 people from around the nation who have received this honor since the program began in 1999.

Leading to her nomination, Weaver was in D.C. in May as the Idaho representative for Generations United, another advocacy group she is involved with. Generations United uses an intergenerational approach to create agendas to support youth and older people by connecting resources and creating dialogs with government agencies. Weaver presented to senators and congressmen legislation for S.1901 — the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act. Its intention is to create a federal task force led by the Department of Health and Human Services, to collaborate and communicate information and resources effectively to support grandparents or relatives raising children. This legislation is in response to the rising opioid crisis in the U.S. It is estimated more than 80 percent of people older than 65 are the primary caretakers for children, with more than 2.5 million grandparents raising their grandchildren in the U.S., and numbers still on the rise.

Weaver’s main goal in the work she does is to keep kids away from the foster care system. Children who are placed with relatives are more likely to succeed when they are in a stable environment with relatives who love them, Weaver said. It is also more cost-effective in the long run.

“It is the Health and Welfare goal right now to eliminate as many as they can out of foster care, and it is a state law that they seek out relatives first. That was a long time coming that we worked to get that,” Weaver said.

Her Relatives as Parents support group has another challenge it offers support for. Often, grandparents are not just raising their grandchildren, but dealing with their own grown children who may be using drugs or are incarcerated, or may be dealing with serious health or mental health problems.

“Because there’s an opioid crisis across the country, more and more kids are coming into the system and being placed with relatives because the system wants to get them to the relatives because that’s less cost for them, but it’s more burden on grandparents, so our RAP groups are becoming overwhelmed with the amount of people coming and the kids that are coming into the care.”

Relatives as Parents North Idaho has an active Facebook page with links to community events and articles of interest. Visit the page at facebook.com/RAPNorthIdaho or call Weaver at (208) 769-7096 for meeting information.