Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Carole Cox, Professor of Social Work at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service
1:27:13
ยท
148 sec
Carole Cox, a professor of social work at Fordham University, provided testimony about her work with the Grandparent Resource Center (GRC) in New York City since 1998. She developed the Grandparent Empowerment Program, which has received recognition and awards. The program, offered by the GRC until February 2023, focused on empowering grandparents raising grandchildren.
- The Grandparent Empowerment Program is a teaching group, not a support group, offering a curriculum of 7-14 classes.
- The program addresses challenges faced by grandparents raising grandchildren, such as dealing with children's loss, grief, and communication issues.
- Cox emphasized that the program is accessible to participants with low literacy or even illiteracy, focusing on skill development through discussion and practical exercises.
Carole Cox
1:27:13
Thank you.
1:27:14
I'm Carol Cox.
1:27:15
I am a professor of social work at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service.
1:27:20
I began working with the Grandparent Resource Center in the city of New York in 1998 when I had the good fortune to have wonderful supports, and I developed what we call and continues the grandparent empowerment program.
1:27:35
Actually, I should have gone in the video.
1:27:38
Sorry about that.
1:27:39
So in fact, there is a book on the program that came out along with many, many papers.
1:27:44
The the program has won several awards over the lifetime that I've given it.
1:27:50
It's one and it was recognized in 02/2010 by the the Administration of the Association Area Agencies on Aging.
1:28:00
The program was offered by the GRC until 02/2023, which is a long time, on and off, not continually.
1:28:10
There was a break, and then it came back again.
1:28:13
Originally, it's an empowerment program.
1:28:16
And by looking at empowerment, it is saying that grandparents are already resourceful.
1:28:22
They have taken on the role of raising grandchildren.
1:28:25
And as I've you've heard many times, they often have many issues, many, many challenges that they've never expected.
1:28:31
They take this role, and then they become become really paralyzed.
1:28:36
They don't know what to do.
1:28:38
How do you deal with children's loss?
1:28:40
How do you deal with children's grief?
1:28:42
How do you communicate with kids?
1:28:44
How do you communicate with a teenager, which we know is very difficult?
1:28:48
The empowerment program is not a support group.
1:28:51
It is actually a teaching group, an empowerment group.
1:28:55
And every participant in the program receives a whole curriculum of seven or classes, 14 classes originally, then we brought it down to seven.
1:29:05
I was very taken by one of the questions you just asked about whether people who were had very low literacy could do this.
1:29:13
Yes.
1:29:14
I have even had grandparents in the program over the years who were illiterate, but we do so much in terms of talking and going through the skills and what they have to do and having them work with children to develop these skills.
1:29:30
One woman said to me, she was from Puerto Rico and she was illiterate in English, barely, you know, had very little
Sharon Brown
1:29:38
His time's expired.
Carole Cox
1:29:41
Sorry.