How to Apply for Grandchild Benefits on Colorado PEAK

What Colorado PEAK Does

Colorado PEAK (Program Eligibility and Application Kit) is the state's online portal for applying to public assistance programs — Colorado Works cash assistance, Health First Colorado (Medicaid), CHP+, SNAP food benefits, and LEAP heating help. You can reach it at peak.my.site.com or through the MyCOBenefits mobile app.

For grandparents and relatives raising a child, PEAK is the fastest way to get a child-only Colorado Works grant and health coverage started without an in-person county office visit.

Before You Start: Documents to Have Ready

Gather these before logging in, because the portal times out and you'll lose progress:

• Child's identity: birth certificate, passport, or hospital birth record
• Social Security numbers for both you and the child (if the child's SSN hasn't been issued yet, you can submit the SS-5 application receipt)
• Proof of Colorado residency: lease, mortgage statement, utility bill, or Colorado driver's license
• Relationship documentation: birth certificates connecting the generations, a court guardianship order, or school/medical records listing you as the primary contact
• Child's income information: any survivor benefits, child support payments, or trust distributions the child receives (if the child has no income, you'll note that)

You do not need the biological parent's signature, tax return, or Social Security number to submit the application.

The Household Section: Where Most Mistakes Happen

PEAK's intake form asks about your household and everyone's income. This is where grandparents accidentally disqualify the child.

For a child-only Colorado Works grant, the assistance unit is the child alone. Your income — retirement, wages, Social Security, pension — is excluded. But the portal doesn't make this obvious. When it asks for household members, list yourself as the caretaker and the child as the person applying for benefits. When it asks for your income, enter it honestly, but know that for child-only TANF, the system is supposed to exclude it from the child's eligibility calculation.

If PEAK's automated logic returns a denial that seems to count your income, that's a known issue with how the portal routes non-needy caretaker cases. Contact your county Department of Human Services directly and ask for a child-only Colorado Works case review. The county eligibility worker can manually process the application under the correct income unit rules.

Applying for Multiple Programs at Once

PEAK lets you apply for several programs in a single session. For most kinship caregivers, it makes sense to check all that apply:

• Colorado Works (for the child-only cash grant)
• Health First Colorado / Medicaid (free health coverage if the child's household income is at or below 142% FPL)
• CHP+ (if income is between 143% and 260% FPL)
• SNAP (food benefits — note that SNAP uses different household rules, and the caregiver's income does count here)

Each program has its own eligibility determination, so checking multiple boxes doesn't slow anything down.

After You Submit

Your application routes to the county where you live. Processing times vary — some counties schedule a phone interview within a week, others take longer. You can check status by logging back into PEAK.

If you need technical help with the portal (password resets, account linking, or system errors), call PEAK Technical Support at 1-800-250-7741, Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

For a complete walkthrough of every benefit program available to Colorado kinship caregivers — and the specific documents each one requires — see our Colorado Kinship Financial Help guide.

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