Support and Satisfaction: Perspectives of Older Grandparent Caregivers About Faith-Based Communities

ABSTRACT

Older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren are a hidden caregiving population. Religion serves as a protective factor for many older adult caregivers. The caregiving and religion literature often excludes exploration of caregivers’ satisfaction with social support provided by faith-based communities. Nineteen older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren participated in in-depth qualitative interviews regarding the lived experiences of their social support and satisfaction woth faith-based communities. Research questions were: (1) describe, if any, what types of support you receive from church or religious groups? and (2) how satisfied are you with the support from church or religious groups? The diverse sample of grandparents were White (n = 10), Black/African American (n = 7), Native American (n = 1), and Filipino (n = 1). Respondents were primarily married (58%), white/nonHispanic (53%), grandmothers (84%), with some college education or college graduate (79%). Older grandparent caregivers identified key people, situational circumstances, and tangible goods that enhanced their wellbeing and posed opportunities for more support. Five themes characterizing social support and satisfaction with older grandparent caregivers’ perspectives of their faith-based communities were emotional support, activities and resources, stopped attending church, attended church but did not seek support, and mixed satisfaction with religious support. Implications are presented for social work education and social work practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Grandparents raising grandchildren
• older adults
• religion
• social support
• satisfaction

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.