OhioKAN Kinship Navigator: How to Use Ohio's Free Support Line

What OhioKAN Actually Does

OhioKAN — the Ohio Kinship and Adoption Navigator — is a free statewide service run in partnership with the Department of Children and Youth. You call one number, 1-844-644-6526 (1-844-OHIOKAN), and a trained navigator helps you figure out which programs you qualify for, which agency handles your situation, and where to find emergency help in your county.

The service is available to both formal and informal kinship caregivers. You don't need a court order, a PCSA placement, or any legal paperwork to call. If you're a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or family friend raising someone else's child in Ohio, OhioKAN is designed for you.

Navigators conduct an individualized family assessment over the phone. Based on your situation — the child's age, your legal arrangement, your county, your income — they connect you to specific programs: Ohio Works First child-only cash assistance, SNAP, Medicaid, Publicly Funded Child Care, Prevention Retention and Contingency emergency grants, and local community resources.

What OhioKAN Can and Cannot Do

OhioKAN navigators are resource connectors, not caseworkers. They can tell you which county JFS office handles your application, explain what documents to bring, and refer you to legal aid if you need custody help. They can also distribute direct flexible funds through regional OhioKAN sites for immediate expenses like bedding, clothing, and utility relief.

They cannot organize your physical files, prepare application packets, or track renewal timelines for you. That's why it helps to have your own tracking system — a checklist of which programs you're applying for, what documents each one needs, and when recertification is due.

How to Prepare Before You Call

You'll get more from the call if you have a few things ready:

• The child's age and how long they've been with you. This determines which programs apply.
• Your legal arrangement. Are you caring for the child informally, with a power of attorney, through a court custody order, or through a PCSA placement? Each arrangement opens different benefits.
• Your county. Ohio's 88 counties administer benefits differently, especially PRC emergency funds.
• Whether you've already applied for anything. If you've been denied OWF or Medicaid, the navigator can connect you with resources about next steps and legal aid.

The navigator will walk through your options and give you specific next steps. Write them down — names, phone numbers, which forms to request — because one call can surface three or four programs you didn't know about.

When to Call OhioKAN vs. Going Straight to County JFS

If you already know what you need — say, you want to apply for child-only OWF and Medicaid — you can go directly to your county Department of Job and Family Services or apply online at ssp.benefits.ohio.gov. OhioKAN is most valuable when you're not sure where to start, when you've been bounced between agencies, or when you need emergency help fast.

OhioKAN also serves as a second opinion. If a county caseworker tells you that your pension disqualifies the child from cash assistance (it doesn't — OWF child-only grants exclude caregiver income entirely), ask a navigator to help you confirm the rule with county JFS or connect you with legal aid.

Getting Organized Beyond the Call

OhioKAN gives you direction, but staying on top of applications, renewals, and deadlines is on you. Our Ohio Kinship Financial Help guide walks through every major program — OWF, KSP, KPI, KGAP, Medicaid, SNAP, PRC, and PFCC — with document checklists, income rules, and a renewal calendar you can print and pin to the fridge. It pairs well with OhioKAN: the navigator tells you which doors to knock on, and the guide helps you walk through each one prepared.

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