8 Kinship Care Benefits That Some Ohio Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Never Claim

A grandparent with legal custody of an Ohio grandchild can apply for a $525 payment within weeks.

Not everyone does.

These are the Ohio kinship care benefits that get left on the table, even by grandparents who qualify for every one of them.

Note: This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Program rules, payment amounts, and income limits are subject to change.

1. Ohio Works First Child-Only Cash Assistance

Ohio Works First sounds like a program built for parents, and that assumption is exactly why grandparents skip it.

Close to 4,000 grandparents in Licking County alone live with a grandchild, and many have never opened this kind of case.

A grandparent raising a grandchild can apply for a child-only case, and the caseworker looks only at the child’s own resources, which are usually zero.

Your Social Security check, your pension, your part-time job: None of it touches the grant amount.

A child-only case also skips the rules that trip up parents on regular Ohio Works First: No work requirement, no three-year lifetime clock, and no cutoff until the grandchild turns 18 or moves out.

You need to show you’re related to the grandchild, and your county caseworker can tell you exactly what documentation that takes.

Skipping family court doesn’t disqualify you: Blood relation is enough to open the case.

Nothing else is required.

2. Kinship Permanency Incentive Payments

The Kinship Permanency Incentive program pays an Ohio grandparent who holds legal custody or guardianship of a grandchild.

You need a court order granting you custody or guardianship, a home assessment from your county’s children services agency, and background checks on the adults living in your home.

Your household income also has to fall at or below 300% of the federal poverty level.

Meet those, and the first payment runs $525 per child, with another $300 every six months after that, up to eight payments total.

That adds up.

Here’s the part grandparents miss: You can collect these payments on top of Ohio Works First, not instead of it.

Winning custody through probate or juvenile court on your own, without Children Services ever stepping in, is the most common way to miss this program entirely.

Nobody at the courthouse hands out the application.

3. Free Medical and School Authority

Ohio grants a grandparent legal authority over a grandchild’s medical care and school enrollment through one form: The caretaker authorization affidavit.

It lets you enroll a grandchild in school and consent to their medical, dental, or psychological care, all without filing for custody.

You sign the affidavit, get it notarized, and file it with your county’s juvenile court within five days.

That’s it: No hearing, no attorney, no waiting months for a spot on a judge’s docket.

Schools and doctors have to honor it under Ohio law, unless they already know a parent made a different decision for the child.

It costs nothing to file, and many grandparents go years without it, assuming full legal custody is the only way to make these calls for a grandchild.

It isn’t the only way.

4. Your Grandchild’s Medicaid Eligibility

Your grandchild’s Medicaid eligibility runs on its own track, separate from yours because Ohio treats a grandparent differently than a parent.

Under the state’s Medicaid rules, Ohio counts a child living with a relative who isn’t their parent as their own small household, just the child and any siblings, when it decides if they qualify for coverage.

None of your own income counts toward that decision, whether it’s Social Security, a pension, or a paycheck.

A grandchild with no income of their own almost always clears that bar easily.

Many grandparents skip the application anyway, assuming their own retirement income or paycheck disqualifies the household.

Their own Medicaid eligibility might depend on their income.

Their grandchild’s doesn’t.

If your grandchild landed with you through a Children Services placement, Medicaid coverage already started automatically, no application needed.

5. Federal Child Tax Credit

The Child Tax Credit treats a grandchild exactly like a son or daughter, as long as you meet the same tests any parent would.

Your grandchild has to live with you more than half the year, and you have to cover more than half of their support.

Meet both, and you can claim up to $2,200 per child on your own federal return.

Legal custody, a guardianship order, or an adoption: None of that is required to claim it.

What you need is the grandchild living under your roof and named on your tax return.

Many grandparents who never formally adopted or took custody assume the credit belongs to whoever holds the legal paperwork, but it belongs to whoever raises the child.

Paperwork isn’t the test.

6. Head of Household Filing Status

Head of Household status drops your tax rate below what Single filers pay, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) lists a grandchild as a qualifying person for it.

You need to be unmarried, pay more than half the cost of keeping up your home, and have that grandchild live with you more than half the year.

Meet those three, and you file at the Head of Household rate instead of Single, with a bigger standard deduction built in.

Nobody at the courthouse or the pharmacy counter mentions that a grandchild counts the same as a grandparent’s own child would, so many keep filing Single for years without knowing better.

It’s one box to check.

7. Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit still works for a grandparent who has a job and a grandchild living with them, even well past 65.

The IRS has reminded working grandparents directly because so many assume a credit built around “kids” stops applying once the kids in the house aren’t their own.

That assumption is wrong, and it’s an expensive one to hold onto.

The credit is refundable, so it can wipe out what you owe and still put money in your account.

For a family with three or more qualifying children, it rises to $8,231 for the 2026 tax year.

You still need earned income from a job or self-employment to qualify, and Social Security alone doesn’t count toward that.

A job still counts.

8. Bigger SNAP Benefits From Household Counting

Ohio caregivers can qualify for a bigger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit simply by how the state counts their household.

A caseworker can count your grandchild as part of your own household when calculating your SNAP benefits, or count the two of you separately, whichever produces a bigger monthly payment.

You get to pick whichever count works out better for your family.

The same choice affects how the state figures your own Medicaid coverage too.

Ask for it.

Many caregivers don’t realize this is a choice at all, and end up stuck with whatever the default calculation produces, which isn’t always the option that pays the most.