Delaware Kinship Care Legal Handbook and Grandfamilies Resources

The DHSS Legal Handbook for Grandparents

Delaware's Department of Health and Social Services, through the Division of Services for Aging and Adults with Physical Disabilities (DSAAPD), publishes a Legal Handbook for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children. It's the state's own guide to the legal framework for kinship caregivers — the statutory affidavits, the court options, and the support programs available.

The handbook covers the two administrative affidavits (school authorization under 14 Del. C. § 202(f) and medical consent under 13 Del. C. § 708), Family Court guardianship, standby guardianship, and financial assistance programs. It's free and available through the DSAAPD website at dhss.delaware.gov.

What the handbook does well is lay out the legal landscape. It explains which statute governs which type of authority, who qualifies, and where the boundaries are between administrative affidavits and court orders.

Where it falls short is practical execution. The handbook reads like a legal reference, not a step-by-step workflow. It tells you that you need Column A and Column B proof documents but doesn't walk you through gathering them. It mentions notarization requirements without covering where to find free notary services in each county. And it doesn't include worksheets, escalation letters, or scripts for when a school registrar says they've never seen the form before.

GrandFacts: Delaware

Generations United's GrandFacts project provides state-specific fact sheets with support from The Brookdale Foundation Group and partners including AARP. The Delaware GrandFacts PDF, updated in February 2021, is an 11-page reference that summarizes school enrollment authority, medical consent, guardianship options, and financial assistance programs.

GrandFacts is useful as a quick reference. If you're helping a relative in Delaware and need to understand the broad strokes in ten minutes, it covers the territory. But it's a summary, not a guide. It references the statutes without explaining the evidence requirements, the absent-parent procedures, or the renewal timelines. It is a state-specific fact sheet, but not a walkthrough for completing the affidavits.

Grandfamilies.org and Generations United

Grandfamilies.org, a collaboration among Generations United, the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, and Casey Family Programs, hosts a searchable national legal database of state kinship care laws. You can search by state and topic — education, healthcare, guardianship, financial assistance — and get summaries of what each state's statutes provide.

The Delaware entries cover the education authorization, medical consent, and guardianship statutes. The database is particularly helpful for understanding how Delaware's approach compares to neighboring states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, or New Jersey, which matters if a child moved across state lines into your care.

Generations United's National Center on Grandfamilies also advocates for federal policies that support kinship caregivers. Its national reports on the state of grandfamilies provide context for why these laws exist and where the policy gaps remain.

What These Resources Share in Common

The DHSS handbook, AARP GrandFacts, and Grandfamilies.org all describe the legal framework. They tell you what the law says. None of them are designed to walk you through the actual process of completing the paperwork, gathering evidence, getting documents notarized, submitting them to a specific school district, and handling the situation when something goes sideways.

That's the gap between knowing the law exists and actually using it. The statute says you need proof of relationship and proof of caregiving. The handbook lists examples. But when you're sitting at your kitchen table trying to figure out whether a bank statement counts as proof of caregiving or whether your cousin's birth certificate establishes the right family link, a list of statutes isn't enough.

Getting From Knowledge to Action

If you've read the handbook and the GrandFacts sheet and you understand the basics, the next step is preparation — organizing your evidence, getting the right form (the official DSAAPD version, not a generic power-of-attorney template from a document website), finding a notary, and knowing exactly what to bring to the school district office.

Our School and Medical Consent Guide for Delaware Relatives bridges that gap. It takes the statutory framework described in the handbook and builds a working workflow around it — evidence checklists, preparation worksheets, and escalation steps for when institutional staff aren't familiar with the affidavit process.

See more Delaware guides →