Research Update: May 2003

We would like to welcome you to the Grandmothers Caring for Grandchildren Research Project website. Since, we received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council to gather and document stories of grandmothers who are caring full-time for their grandchildren; we have had an exciting and busy two years. As such, we wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how things are going with the research and to give you an opportunity to give us feedback on our work to date.

In the beginning, we really wanted to reach out and to provide information about our project to grandmothers, who might be interested in sharing their stories and to elicit interest of social workers and others who provide services. Our first outreach activity resulted in the development of this website. Since we would be limited in the number of face to face interviews we could conduct, we wanted to give grandmothers another way of sharing their stories with us. On the contact page of our website, we included a list of our interview questions and invited grandmothers to respond to the questions in writing. This way, grandmothers, outside of the Victoria, BC area, could participate in the research without leaving their homes. We are pleased to say that six grandmothers have taken this opportunity to forward their stories in writing to us.

Another key aspect of our research, and in keeping with our outreach objectives, involved our desire for an Advisory Committee. As such we invited non-First Nations and First Nations grandmothers, community social workers and others who worked with grandmothers caring for grandchildren to participate in an advisory capacity to the research. We wanted a committee who would provide us with advice and feedback about the research, to keep us focussed on grandmother's stories and to connect us with grandmothers in the local community. The Advisory committee was quite helpful in the development of our research questions and in connecting us to grandmothers.

Our third outreach effort was reflected in the development of our information brochure, with the assistance of our Advisory Committee. The brochure has been forwarded to community agencies, and distributed by members of our Advisory committee to grandmothers who have expressed interest in our project. The brochure was our way to connect with grandmothers and to encourage grandmothers to share their story with us.

Our project had an unexpected and yet interesting turn of events early in the fall of 2001. As part of the University of Victoria Research Program, our project was featured in the UVic KnowlEDGE: Research and discovery at the University of Victoria, section of the Times Colonist newspaper here in Victoria, BC. The article titled " Back on the (grand)mommy track: UVic social workers study the surge in "Grannycare" informed the local community about our project, and provided contact information for how grandmothers could contact us.

We were quite surprised to learn that the Times Colonist article brought our project to the attention of CBC Radio, who contacted our office and asked that we participate in their "Cross Canada Afternoon Check-In" show. This was such a great opportunity to share with others across Canada that we were gathering stories about grandmothers, and also brought public attention to this caregiving arrangement. Barb Whittington, one of our researchers, was interviewed and grandmothers, sisters, and daughters living in Charlottetown, Quebec City, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Winnipeg, Regina, Yellowknife, and Whitehorse heard about our project and the phone started ringing.

Over the course of a couple of weeks, we heard from over 25 grandmothers who were involved in a variety of caregiving relationships with their grandchildren. Grandmothers from Saskatchewan, Alberta, mainland British Columbia and Vancouver Island called our office and asked that their stories be included in the research. Many grandmothers talked about how they thought they were the only ones, and how relieved they were that finally their stories were being acknowledged. Out coordinator spent hours on the phone talking to grandmothers who were excited to share their stories and seemed to want the process to being immediately. For us as a team, this response showed that grandmothers caring for grandchildren have been ignored in the public discourse, and that our research was meaningful.

In May 2002, we participated in our first workshop. Our presentation titled " Grandmothers Caring for Grandchildren: A Grounded Theory Study" was offered at the Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work Conference in Toronto. We received positive feedback and inspiration from those who attended.

After receiving such a positive response from grandmothers, we enthusiastically began our interviewing process in March 2002. By October 2002, we had completed 9 interviews with grandmothers, and spent the next couple of months immersed in the analysis of these grandmother's stories.

We are committed to interviewing First Nations and non-First Nations grandmothers for our study. In February 2003, we hired a First Nations interviewer to interview local First Nations grandmothers, and to assist in our analysis of their stories.

We hope to have all our interviews completed by the end of August 2003, and to spend the fall analyzing and developing our findings. Once, we have completed our analysis, we will be inviting the grandmothers to two focus groups, one for First Nations grandmothers and a second for non-First Nations grandmothers, and presenting how we made sense of their stories. Grandmothers will be asked to consider our findings and to identify whether they resonate with their own experiences.

We have a lot of work to do before we are ready to present our findings and we hope that you will check in on us again over the coming months for further updates, and information. Thank you.

Publications:

Callahan, Marilyn, Brown, Leslie, MacKenzie, Pat, and Whittington, Barb. (2003)
"Knitting up the raveled sleeve of care: Grandmothers making families with their grandchildren" in Leslie Bella (editor) Family Making . In press.