ORONO – Grandparents who provide homes for grandchildren at risk in their parents’ homes face a patchwork of confounding financial issues if they accept those children before state human services agencies intervene.

And if children are removed from homes by the Maine Department of Human Services, grandparents may be denied guardianship entirely.

Families and Children Together, Family Connections of Bangor and the University of Maine’s Center on Aging in Orono hope to help reverse that inequity for grandparents. In conjunction with about a dozen agencies or organizations involved with children, senior citizens or foster care programs, they are cosponsoring a public forum on Friday, March 26, in Augusta. Its theme and title is “The Grandkids Come to Stay: How Maine Supports Families.”

The public forum, being held at the University of Maine at Augusta’s Jewett Hall, is free and will run from 8:30 to 11 a.m. From 11 a.m. to noon, the program will provide resource information for families. Members of the public are invited to attend. More information is available by calling the Center on Aging at 581-2382 or Barbara Kates at 941-2347. The UMaine Center on Aging Web site, www.umaine.edu/mainecenteronaging, also has details in the UMCoA scrolling news.