Young parents in Maine are increasingly turning to family members to help raise their children. Grandparents, aunts and uncles frequently become the safety net for children when parents struggle with lay-offs, divorce, mental illness, drug abuse issues or incarceration. A new legislative task force on so-called "kinship families" met for the first time today in Augusta to look at the special problems they face.

Diane Loranger of Saco allowed one of her children and spouse to move in with her, at least for a while. When the marriage floundered, the two young parents left -- and the grandchildren stayed. But as part of the divorce decree, custody of the children was awarded to Loranger as well as the parents, and Loranger told the Task Force on Kinship Families that she is now facing numerous custody challenges from the financially beleagured parents.

"We get verbally abused, get vilified, get blamed by the biological parents," she said. "They cannot do the job. They are unable to accept responsibility and so they turn their anger onto those of us who are providing for the children."

The response from Jim Beougher of the state Department of Human Services, who sits on the new task force, was empathetic, but he offered little specific advice. "I do not personally have an organizational framework for the state to systemically intervene in those situations or provide resources," he said. "So I'm sorry, I just don't know."

According to the U.S. Census, more than 12,000 children in Maine are living in homes in which the head of the household is more likely to be someone other than mom or dad. The actual numbers may be higher, as the figure is now 10 years old. And child welfare officials believe that the downturn in the economy and rising drug abuse levels among young parents are combining to push the statistics even higher this year.

"We hope to become informed as legislators about what the issues are regarding kinship," says state Rep. Patricia Jones, of Mount Vernon, the co-chair of the Task Force on Kinship Families -- a panel created by the Legislature to study issues facing these newly constituted families and possibly develop new state policies that can help. "There are a number of issues involved in all of this, where if this happens, who decides who gets this child, what are the laws regarding it, how do we support the families who take them on financially?" she said.

Task force co-chair Sen. Margaret Craven, of Lewiston, says she hopes her panel can find solutions to help caretakers like Diane Loranger, who fall outside of the protections offered to licensed foster care providers or legal guardians. "One of the things that we struggle with is reimbursement, because a family has to be licensed to qualify for federal funding and MaineCare," she said. "So it's 100 percent state dollars if the home isn't licensed -- and so that's another thing that we're going to be looking at is licensure for kinship folks."

The task force must report back to the full Legislature with its findings by Nov. 3.