Meet Norma Hatfield
I didn't start out to become an advocate.
I'm a grandmother who stepped in to raise my grandchildren when they needed me. That experience changed the course of my life. I learned firsthand the joys, the heartaches, and the everyday realities of kinship care — and I learned I wasn't the only one living them.
I was a caregiver first. The advocacy came later.
Navigating the child welfare system myself — and meeting so many other kinship caregivers who were struggling — made me realize I had to say something. I had to do something.
I've spent the last decade advocating for greater support for kinship families. That work has taken me across Kentucky, where I've listened to and used my voice for thousands of grandparents, relatives, and other kinship caregivers. Their circumstances may be different, but their stories share many of the same threads: love, sacrifice, determination, and the need to be heard.
Along the way, I also served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Executive Director, giving me another perspective on children, families, courts, and the child welfare system.
I know kinship care from both sides — not only from the systems and policies that affect families, but from living it myself.
Today, my advocacy includes showing up at the Capitol, testifying before legislative committees, writing opinion editorials, talking with the media, and speaking up when policies fail to provide what kinship families actually need.
Those experiences are why The Kinship Voice exists.
Kinship care matters. We need more conversation, greater understanding, stronger support and services, and meaningful change. And one way change begins is by talking honestly about what kinship families are experiencing.
That's what The Kinship Voice is here to do.