Coaching five-year-old Alex how to play catch, is just part of the daily lessons taught by Charles and Ruby Griffis. Grandparents by name, but guardians by law, due to fear of the State taking Alex and his two siblings away from their daughter.

"She was leaving them alone and wasn't taking care of them so I said I might as well keep them myself cause I didn't want them in the streets with the company she keeps. They were really in danger," says Ruby Griffis.

About four-thousand grandparents in Winnebago County like Griffis are raising children again. Many, earning the title well before senior age. Today, folks learned about available resources such as how to obtain legal guardianship and where to get financial help.

"It could be a problem for the seniors cause they're on fixed incomes they are older they don't realize the things kids get into nowadays when they raised their children," says Sue Sklar, Program Services Director for Lifescape Community Services.

Griffis says there's much more peer pressure now compared to when she raised her own kids, so it's important for her to stay with the times.

"We try to screen his friends and say you can't have em for friends and he gets mad at us, I don't care. That saves us from going downtown or to visit him in prison," she says.

Alex often gets to see his parents. Bait, Griffis says, to get them to quit drinking and doing drugs. Because a once teen mother herself, Griffis knows what it's like to have mom take over.

Lifescape Community Services was at today's event. They'll be hosting a seminar in the fall, on how to recognize gang signs and signs of child abuse for grandparents who raise grand kids.