Delaware Financial Help for Kinship Caregivers

Your Income Stays Out of It. The Child Gets the Money Delaware Already Set Aside.

You didn't plan to raise another child. But here you are — stretching a retirement check across a second set of groceries, school fees, doctor visits, and shoes they outgrow every three months. Delaware has cash grants, food benefits, childcare subsidies, and full health coverage specifically for this child, and the law says your income doesn't enter the calculation for the cash aid. The problem is that the ASSIST portal doesn't separate the child-only workflow from the standard means-tested application, and entering your Social Security on the wrong screen can trigger a denial before anyone reviews what you actually filed for.

The Delaware Kinship Benefits Navigator is the independent roadmap that organises every public benefit a relative caregiver can claim for a child in Delaware — program by program, form by form, with the exact documents to bring and the exact steps to follow when navigating the ASSIST portal or walking into a State Service Center in Wilmington, Dover, or Georgetown.

What the Guide Covers

• Child-only TANF cash grants — when a non-parent relative applies solely for the child, Delaware regulations exclude the caregiver's own income and resources from the eligibility calculation. The grant is based on the applicable standard of need and countable income after disregards, looking only at income received by or for the child. The guide walks you through the ASSIST portal steps that keep your pension and savings out of the determination
• The Kinship Care Program (180-day window) — emergency transition funds for clothing, beds, safety items, and school supplies when a child first moves in. Eligibility requires the child to have arrived within 180 days of the application date, household income below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, kinship within the fifth degree, and the biological parents not residing in the home. The guide includes a date calculator and the document checklist so you don't miss the window
• Medicaid and the Delaware Healthy Children Program — health coverage for the child through the ASSIST portal, with income rules that focus on the child's circumstances rather than the caregiver's household wealth
• SNAP household rules — when a relative caregiver purchases and prepares food separately from the child, federal and state rules allow establishing a separate SNAP household for the child. The guide explains the separate-household strategy and how to structure the ASSIST application so your retirement income doesn't count against the child's food benefits
• Purchase of Care childcare subsidies — Delaware's POC programme provides subsidised childcare for eligible families, including a copayment waiver when TANF applies to a child cared for by a nonparent. The guide covers the application process and waiting-list priority rules
• Subsidised guardianship assistance — monthly payments for children who entered care through the Division of Family Services and whose relative caregiver has taken legal guardianship, funded at negotiated rates. The guide explains the eligibility path and how it differs from informal kinship care
• School and Medical Authorization Affidavits — how to use Delaware's statutory affidavits under Title 14 (school enrollment) and Title 13/16 (medical consent) to get the child into school and to a doctor without filing in Family Court or waiting for a custody order
• Fair hearing appeals — what to do when a benefit is denied or reduced, how to request a hearing by email, and your right to inspect and copy the records the State will use at the hearing

Who This Is For

• Grandparents on Social Security, a pension, or SSI who are paying for a grandchild out of savings they can't replace — and who need to know that the state cannot count those savings on a child-only TANF application
• Aunts, uncles, older siblings, and family friends who took in a child with no notice and need to find out what the child is entitled to before the next bill arrives
• Relatives who were told they need a court custody order to get benefits or enrol the child in school — they don't, and the guide explains the alternatives
• Caregivers within the 180-day window who may qualify for the Kinship Care Program's transition funds but don't know about the deadline
• Adult children or community advocates researching benefit options on behalf of an older relative caregiver in Delaware

Why Not Just Call the State Service Center?

You absolutely should call — with the guide open in front of you. DSS caseworkers administer the programmes, but they are not required to tell you that a child-only TANF application excludes your income, or that the 180-day Kinship Care Program window is about to close, or that you can enrol the child in school using an affidavit instead of a court order. The ASSIST portal collects income information in a standard flow that does not clearly separate child-only cases from household applications, and one wrong entry can pull your pension into the eligibility test.

The guide doesn't replace free services — it prepares you to use them without costly mistakes. Community Legal Aid Society (CLASI) handles court guardianship. The ADRC helpline at 1-800-223-9074 handles referrals. The guide handles the part nobody else covers: which path protects your retirement savings while getting the child every dollar Delaware law already set aside for them.

Not Right for Everyone

This guide focuses on public benefit applications and financial help. It is not legal advice, and it does not cover contested custody disputes, dependency court proceedings, or advice on whether to pursue guardianship. If you are involved in an active Family Court case, a legal aid attorney through CLASI or Delaware Volunteer Legal Services is the right first step. If you or the child are in immediate danger, call 911 or the Delaware Child Abuse and Neglect Report Line at 1-800-292-9582.

What You Get

The download includes the complete guide, a quick-start checklist (also available as a free standalone download), a benefit comparison matrix, an agency communication log, a document-gathering checklist organised by programme, and a deadline and renewal tracker — ready to print, fill in, and bring to your local State Service Center.

Full refund, no time limit. If the guide doesn't help, email [email protected] and we'll send your money back.

Get the Delaware Kinship Benefits Navigator →