ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Inside the Noble household, care of the noblest kind is being given.
What You Need To Know
Children’s Home Network‘s Kinship Navigator Program works to keep families together when parents are unable to care for their children by placing the children with relatives and providing ongoing support and community for these families
The program combines traditional social work, resource navigation and peer support to help family members take on guardianship
It is a free program and open to anyone within Hillsborough, Pinellas or Pasco counties who has either officially or informally taken in a relative’s child
Sherri and Donnie Noble adopted two of their grandchildren. They have found the kinship program very helpful when it comes to questions on tutoring, school questions, mental health and more
Sherri and Donnie Noble are not just grandma and grandpa to Aubrey and Isabella — they are mom and dad, too.
“Since they were one,” said Sherri. “Both, since they were, were really, really young.”
They took the girls in when they were very young. Aubrey and Isabella’s mother is Sherri and Donnie’s daughter.
“She was not able to take care of them,” said Donnie. “She loves him, in fact, loves him so much in the house. She kind of put it where I love him enough to put him where I know they’re safe.”
This kind of care is called kinship care, which is when relatives or friends step in before a child is taken away by the courts and put into foster care.
“We couldn’t think about them being in a system when they could be with us,” said Donnie.
“Going into foster care can be a pretty scary time for a kid, especially after a crisis has happened in the family. And so any time we can keep them with their family, it’s going to be a better outcome for the kids,” said Children’s Home Network Executive Vice President Larry Cooper.
Cooper said CHN has been nationally recognized for its Kinship Navigator Program, which has been in place in the Tampa Bay area for more than 25 years.
He said other cities nationwide are duplicating their program.
“For about a decade we replicated it in the Orlando area,” said Cooper. “We have a team down in Miami. We actually do training and consultation in the state of Delaware, so they actually are copying our model statewide.”
The Nobles recently moved to Florida and were connected with kinship care through CHN.
“They told us about tutoring. They told us about some counseling,” said Sherri.
Both girls live with autism and the kinship program has been a big help.
“Could we have made it without them? Sure. You know, you could have, but they just made it that much easier,” said Donnie.
The fact is, raising kids can feel like a young person’s game. It is much harder to raise kids in your 60s than it is in your 30s, when it comes to energy.
But the Nobles wouldn’t have it any other way when it comes to their granddaughters.
“In that terms, it’s a win-win. We watch out for them and they keep us young,” Sherri and Donnie said with a smile.
The kinship program helps families in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties. It is free to families in need.