Empowerment Training for Grandparent Caregivers: A Pilot Study

Grandparents raising grandchildren face immense challenges including facing poverty, caring for children with behavioral difficulties, and barriers in accessing resources that can assist them. These challenges were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Empowerment training is an intervention that builds resiliency in developing skills that can increase the support that grandparents receive via services and from others. This pilot study evaluated the potential influence of empowerment training on grandmothers raising their grandchildren. The findings here indicate that these caregivers benefited from the virtually delivered program, where empowerment and negative affect toward the grandchild increased and decreased, respectively pre-versus post-program. Moreover, program benefits varied across participant sociodemographic characteristics. These pilot study findings support the importance of empowerment training in enhancing the lives of grandparent caregivers. [ FROM AUTHOR]