{"id":197698,"date":"2026-03-19T12:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197698\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:18:07","slug":"kinship-care-helps-local-families-raise-a-relatives-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197698\/","title":{"rendered":"Kinship care helps local families raise a relative\u2019s child"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Inside the Noble household, care of the noblest kind is being given.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Children’s Home Network<\/a>‘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
\n
The program combines traditional social work, resource navigation and peer support to help family members take on guardianship
\n
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
\n
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<\/p>\n

Sherri and Donnie Noble are not just grandma and grandpa to Aubrey and Isabella \u2014 they are mom and dad, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSince they were one,\u201d said Sherri. \u201cBoth, since they were, were really, really young.\u201d<\/p>\n

They took the girls in when they were very young. Aubrey and Isabella\u2019s mother is Sherri and Donnie\u2019s daughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was not able to take care of them,\u201d said Donnie. \u201cShe 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\u2019re safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t think about them being in a system when they could be with us,\u201d said Donnie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing 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\u2019s going to be a better outcome for the kids,\u201d said\u00a0Children\u2019s Home Network Executive Vice President Larry Cooper.<\/p>\n

Cooper said CHN has been nationally recognized for its Kinship Navigator Program<\/a>, which has been in place in the Tampa Bay area for more than 25 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said other cities nationwide are duplicating their program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor about a decade we replicated it in the Orlando area,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nobles recently moved to Florida and were connected with kinship care through CHN.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told us about tutoring. They told us about some counseling,\u201d said Sherri.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both girls live with autism and the kinship program has been a big help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCould we have made it without them? Sure. You know, you could have, but they just made it that much easier,\u201d said Donnie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact is, raising kids can feel like a young person\u2019s game. It is much harder to raise kids in your 60s than it is in your 30s, when it comes to energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the Nobles wouldn\u2019t have it any other way when it comes to their granddaughters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that terms, it\u2019s a win-win. We watch out for them and they keep us young,\u201d Sherri and Donnie said with a smile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The kinship program helps families in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties. It is free to families in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Inside the Noble household, care of the noblest kind is being given. What You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[767,3075,115,596,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-197698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-community","tag-erin-murray","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}