Update 5/25/22: Due to the rising COVID-19 numbers, the Commission has postponed the June 8 luncheon to a later date. 

The Commission on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren will award MLRI Senior Policy Advocate Patricia Baker the 2020 John Lepper Advocacy Award on June 8, 2022 (award ceremony delayed due to the pandemic), in recognition of her successful advocacy on behalf of children with severe disabilities who are being raised by grandparents and other relatives.

In 2018, Ms. Baker was contacted by a group of grandparents raising grandchildren with severe disabilities who had been denied free school meal status. Although the children received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) based on their disabilities and financial need, school districts denied them automatic free school meals under the state’s Medicaid “direct certification waiver.” Instead, schools were requiring kinship families to fill out the National School Lunch Program applications, and count the grandparent or kinship caregivers’ income toward the child.

Ms. Baker led the charge to convince Governor Baker’s Administration to petition the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to change the federal policy in order to directly certify SSI children for free meal status, and not count their caregiver’s income. She provided policy expertise to the state and USDA on how SSI and Medicaid confirm financial eligibility to qualify these children. Free school meal status also allows children to access pandemic food assistance benefits during Covid and, in many schools, waives school athletic and bus fees. When this policy change occurred in early 2021, over 2,600 children with disabilities became eligible for these crucial supports. Sister states with SSI children in kinship families are also benefiting from this USDA federal policy change.

“These grandparents and all the kinship families are the true heroes here: raising their disabled grandkids, nieces and nephews at home, especially during the pandemic. Kinship families in Massachusetts and across the country need access to all available benefits to raise the next generation, including free school breakfast, lunch and Pandemic EBT benefits,” said Patricia Baker in a joint press release with the Baker Administration after the policy was changed.

The Commission on the Status of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, created in 2008, is a resource to the Commonwealth on issues affecting grandparents raising grandchildren, and relatives, other than parents, raising kin. They will be honoring award recipients from 2020, 2021, and 2022 at a luncheon on June 8, 2022.