Article: Crises give rise to 'grandfamilies'

Pat Partee took her daughter to court to gain custody of the two grandchildren she has raised for nine years.

"I said to my mother, 'If I don't do something to get them on the right road, they're going to end up in jail,' " said Partee, 58, of Canonsburg.

Partee, a retiree who is fighting to gain custody of her third grandchild, is part of a national trend.

The proportion of grandparents who cared for their grandchildren for three or four years jumped from 4.5 percent in 2006 to 8.1 percent in 2007, according to the Census Bureau. While the bureau called the jump statistically significant, it warned that the

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