This book focuses on two particular contexts of grandparenting in Newfoundland and Labrador, an island community: grandparents as full time carers and sandwich generation grandparents. We are very much aware of the current global contexts and how grandparents navigate the many different realities and contexts today. Technological, political, economic and social forces have shaped this community as it currently exists. Island communities such as Newfoundland and Labrador are no longer isolated by water masses but have been transformed as part of the global reality and have changed our sense of community. With outmigration of families to other parts of the country and internationally, grandparents and grandparent-grandchild relationships are adapting, in part, by using technology to develop and enhance those relationships through medium such as Skype, "What's App", texting, email and so on. In addition grandparents often embed, as part of their travel plans, regular visits to their adult children and grandchildren to maintain those relationships, oftentimes being available to provide extensive levels of care for critical times in the lives of their adult children and, subsequently, their grandchildren. Grandparents are the transmitters of culture, values and knowledge within families and within community.

"There are millions who, because of personality conflicts, custody issues, distance, or consequences of choices made long ago, have no way to pass values and memories to those who mean the most to them. Born of one woman's quest to become part of the lives of two grandchildren she has been kept from seeing, Invisible Grandparenting provides a blueprint for "virtual grandparenting." Using letter writing as a primary tool, it is a handbook for communicating tangible and intangible gifts to our young ones. Discover how to transcend invisibility, heal separation, and transform negative energy to forgiveness."--Page 4 of cover.

[RETRACTED] This book offers collective and individual voices of grandparents and grandchildren of diverse backgrounds who live in Hawaii. Its focus is on the significant roles grandparents’ and family members’ legacies play in promoting social justice and the well-being of all.

An understudied aspect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is the creation of hundreds of thousands of grandparent-headed households that have become home to children bereft of one or both of their parents. Such "skip-generation parenting" presents a host of challenges to the families involved and the social programs designed to assist them. Despite this unprecedented caregiving responsibility, older surrogate parents remain relatively invisible, hidden in the shadows of HIV care and the demands of raising a child. The primary goal of Invisible Caregivers is to generate, support, and guide program and policy initiatives designed to meet the needs of elder surrogates and their families. Most social service programs are not able to identify the needs of older surrogates, often because these surrogate parents in HIV-infected families are reluctant to make their needs known for fear of social stigma or possible reductions of benefits. Multiple systemic barriers to case management and other services also frustrate attempts to bring available resources to elder caregivers. These barriers include professional ignorance or denial that HIV affects surrogates, eligibility restrictions through CARE, limited funding and age restriction on OAA, and a fragmented health and human service system. Because the issues facing elder caregivers are many and varied, this collection covers a host of issues: community health, aging, HIV services, child welfare, education, public policy, and mental health.

This exciting collection presents an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the unprecedented phenomenon of increasing numbers of grandparents worldwide, co-existing and interacting for longer periods of time with their grandchildren. The book contains analyses of topics that have so far received relatively little attention, such as transnational grandparenting and gender differences in grandparenting practices. It is the only collection that brings together theory-driven research on grandparenting from a wide variety of cultural and welfare state contexts - including chapters on Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia - drawing broad lines of debate rather than focusing at a country level. Building on the success of ‘Contemporary grandparenting’, edited by Virpi Timonen and Sarah Arber, this book further deepens our understanding of how social structures continue to shape grandparenting across a wide range of cultural and economic contexts. The book is essential reading and reference for researchers, students and policy-makers who want to understand the growing influence of grandparents in ageing families and societies across the world.

The study of LGBT aging is in its infancy. In the absence of federal data on this often hidden population, community groups and organizations from across the country have taken it upon themselves to understand and assess the needs of this first cohort to reach later life in a time of LGBT public consciousness. Eight papers are included in this compilation: three from the east coast (Boston, New York, and Washington, DC), four from the Midwest (Chicago, Bowling Green and surrounding areas, St. Louis, and the twin cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul), and one from the west coast (Palm Springs area). Together, these reports provide a community-based and regionally nuanced image of the strengths of, and the challenges faced by, older LGBT persons—local snapshots that together form a partial tapestry of LGBT aging in the U.S. They also serve as a source of lessons learned in the field—efforts that may be seen to parallel those undertaken by LGBT communities, then forming, during the 1980s and 1990s to address the growing health crisis of HIV/AIDS, a time when formal responses were slow and treatments still being developed. As such, the voice of the communities represented herein—the voices of these older adults—is clear, strong and apparent. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality.