Healing bittersweet legacies: revisiting contextual family therapy for grandparents raising grandchildren in crisis.

Over the past decade, grandparents have become primary caregivers for their grandchildren at an unprecedented rate. Drug/alcohol abuse, poor mental health, financial instability, chronic illness, and early death have left parents unavailable for childrearing, leaving their elder generation responsible for tending vulnerable children. While grandparents' resources have been overtaxed with this arrangement, family therapists have been caught off guard in adapting traditional family therapy methods to this population. This paper revisits Contextual Family Therapy for what it has to offer grandparents in crisis. The purpose is to restore appropriate "give and take" while compensating for a "skipped" parenting generation.