Built from lived experience, for families carrying real responsibility.
Building GRAND-Families grew from the experience of grandparents raising grandchildren and the recognition that too many caregivers were trying to navigate complex systems on their own.
Our roots are in lived experience
Building GRAND-Families grew from the experience of grandparents who found themselves raising children again and discovering that many systems were not designed with their family structure in mind. Founder Donald Avery began organizing around grandfamily issues in 2015, and Building GRAND-Families Inc. was incorporated as a nonprofit in 2020.
The organization has since worked with caregivers, community organizations, researchers, educators, health professionals and government to improve understanding and support for grandfamilies across Prince Edward Island.
Lived experience
Caregivers are experts in the realities of their own families. Their experience should inform services, research and policy.
Dignity
Families should be able to ask for help without being made to repeatedly justify or defend their family structure.
Practical action
Support should help families solve real problems, not simply describe them.
Partnership
No single nonprofit, government department or professional can meet every need. Better outcomes require a network.
Our name began with grandparents, our work recognizes a wider circle of kin.
A grandfamily is commonly understood as a family in which a grandparent is raising a grandchild. In practice, children may also be raised by great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult siblings, cousins, family friends or other trusted people.
That is why this website also uses kinship caregiver and alternative caregiver. The goal is to help the family that stepped forward, not make them fit a label first.
New to kinship care? Start hereFrom a grassroots support effort to research, education and family programming.
2015: grassroots beginnings
Caregivers began connecting around the realities of grandparents raising grandchildren and the need for better recognition and support.
2020: nonprofit incorporation
Building GRAND-Families Inc. became an incorporated nonprofit organization.
2021-2024: major mental well-being project
A $295,000 PEI Alliance for Mental Well-Being grant supported a three-year project built around research, education and community building.
2022: published research
Building GRAND-Families became a named partner and contributor in published PEI grandfamily research with UPEI and national family-research partners.
2023 onward: family programming expands
Family camps, peer support, caregiver learning, counselling partnerships and equine-assisted learning broadened the practical support available to families.
Today: operating a kinship support navigation network
Building GRAND-Families now combines Guided Help, a Support Navigator, practical resources, professional warm referrals and peer connection with family programming, professional education, research partnerships and advocacy.
Donald Avery
Don brings both lived experience and decades of management and community experience to the work. Published research describes him as a grandfather who has raised a grandson and great-granddaughter and as a long-time advocate for grandfamilies across PEI.
His role has consistently focused on making family experience visible, bringing caregivers together and pushing institutions to understand what grandfamilies actually need.
See the UPEI research partnershipOur work is bigger than one organization
Building GRAND-Families has worked alongside the University of Prince Edward Island, the Vanier Institute of the Family, the PEI Alliance for Mental Well-Being, community service providers and other partners. That collaborative approach remains central to how the organization works.