Standing Strong for Native Families
A website from the Native American Rights Fund
Six Tribal Nations with children currently involved in dependency proceedings in Arizona state courts — the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Gila River Indian Community, Navajo Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and Tohono O’odham Nation — have filed an amicus curiae brief with the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, supporting the … Read more
The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled in the case of two white foster parents that they do not have standing to argue the bedrock Indian Child Welfare Act violated their constitutional equal protection rights. The federal law known as ICWA, and a state version of the law, prioritizes tribal children’s connection to kin. Read the full story … Read more
For the fourth year in a row, Native American children made up more than 70% of children in the South Dakota foster care system at the end of the state’s fiscal year. That’s six times higher than Indigenous children’s representation in the state’s population. White children, by comparison, make up 70% of the state’s population and 23% … Read more
After a two-year legal battle, the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria and one of its tribal citizens, former foster youth Madison Fisher, have settled a lawsuit with state and county officials that will improve young adults’ access to financial help and housing. Read the full story at The Imprint.
Hoping to inform child welfare agencies about what Indigenous children in foster care need most, the Center for Native American Youth is completing a survey that gives voice to the youth themselves. The center’s staff say that Native youth are overrepresented in the child welfare system, yet underrepresented in conversations about their needs, which are … Read more
Read the full opinion at the National Indian Law Library.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe purchased the Simply Smiles Children’s Village last month, allowing the tribe to reopen one of the few foster care villages in the state meant to serve Indigenous children. Read the full article at the Bluestem Prairie website.
Black children are twice as likely as white kids to be removed from their parents. For Native American kids, the disparities are even more stark. Read the full article at the StarTribune website.
“This was not just a win for me,” she said. “It was a win for everything and everyone I represent — tribes, young people who have experienced foster care … kids who have been involved in juvenile justice. This felt like a really, really positive step for me.” Read the full article at AOL.com or … Read more
Native American children are overrepresented in South Dakota’s child welfare system — accounting for nearly 74% of foster children in the state at the end of fiscal year 2023, despite making up 13% of the state’s child population. Read the full article at the Argus Leader.
A quarter of all foster children in 2021 were placed in kinship care, with Native American children accounting for 53% of the kinship placements, according to the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect. Bruner and other kinship families say the lack of support is a massive barrier preventing others from accepting a kinship placement. Foster … Read more
Read the full order at the National Indian Law Library website (pdf).
Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s FireLodge Children & Family Services welcomed DeAnna Voeks as its new foster care and adoption specialist in June 2022. She knew from her first day that working for the Tribe and FireLodge would be different than any of her previous jobs — in a good way. Read the full article at Potawatomi.org.
The Biden administration proposes spending $20 billion over a decade to help some of the most vulnerable families in the country, including relatives suddenly thrust into child rearing. Read the full article at The New York Times website.
CYFD, in an effort to align with the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — a congressional law that aims to keep Native American children with Native families — created an all-woman, all-Native American ICWA unit within the child protective services division. Additionally, the state’s first — and only the nation’s sixth — ICWA court officially … Read more
Simply Smiles, Inc. is seeking Native American foster parents for the Simply Smiles Children’s Village on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation (South Dakota). … Native foster parents at the Simply Smiles Children’s Village will ensure that Native children who have been removed from their homes on Cheyenne River can remain with their “kin and … Read more
A 5-year-old Native American boy at the center of controversy for more than a year will remain with his Coshocton County foster family, for now. Last week, the Ohio Court of Appeals reversed an earlier juvenile court ruling that would have sent the preschooler 2,000 miles from his home to a reservation in Arizona. The ruling stated the juvenile court should … Read more
In recognition of the tireless advocacy of the many child welfare workers, foster parents, volunteers and family members who care for Native children in state custody, tribal nations have been promoting National Foster Care Month to raise awareness about the need for more Native foster homes in the United States. Read the full article at … Read more
With the number of American Indian children in Minnesota foster care reaching “unacceptable” levels, the state pledged Thursday to spend $400,000 over the next three years to reduce those numbers. The announcement comes after a Star Tribune report found that Minnesota has more Indian children in foster care than any other state, including those with … Read more
Local Native American tribes are creating their own child foster care system in response to problems statewide in implementing the Indian Child Welfare Act, put in place to ensure native children are placed in Tribal homes. The Yurok Tribe and Tolowa Dee-ni Nation are developing a Title IV-E program that would allow them federal funding … Read more
Targeted News Service 2016/09/09 WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 — The Government Accountability Office has issued a report on the Department of Health and Human Services assistance to tribes in implementing the another planned permanent livin… Read the article here. Read the report here.
Minnesota has more American Indian children in foster care than any other state, including those with significantly larger Indian populations, according to a Star Tribune analysis of federal and state data. Less than 2 percent of children in Minnesota are Indian, but they make up nearly a quarter of the state’s foster care population — … Read more
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a measure meant to bolster protections for Native American children placed into the tribal foster care system. The law, which comes years after serious flaws were uncovered in the child welfare system of a Native American tribe in North Dakota, requires background checks … Read more
Legal Topics: Indian Child Welfare Act – Foster Care Supervision Read the full decision at the National Indian Law Library website.
When children are taken out of their homes due to neglect or abuse, they’re under the responsibility and jurisdiction of the State Office of Children’s Services. Now, through an agreement signed Wednesday night at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall between the State of Alaska and Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, … Read more
Wyandotte Nation hosted all nine Oklahoma Indian nations for a workshop to recruit native families to become foster families for native children. Read more at the KOAM-TV website.
The Pala Band of Mission Indians is the first tribe in California to receive clearance to conduct LiveScan background checks for tribal foster homes under new State law (Senate Bill 1460). The tribe is also the first to apply to the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS) program, Purpose Code X, to … Read more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded the tribe a $300,000 grant to create an independent tribal-run family services program for enrolled Omaha members. “We know what’s best for our children and our youth,” Omaha Tribal Council Chairman Vernon Miller said Thursday. “The federal government recognizes that.” Read the full … Read more
May 13th, 2015. The Lakota People’s Law Project released a 35-page report today that reveals how private institutions and their cozy relationships with those in the highest seats of power in South Dakota are responsible for the daily violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act and the systemic human rights abuses against the Lakota population … Read more
Washington tribes and the country’s largest group representing Native Americans are asking for state and federal help in getting background checks when a tribe needs to place a child with a foster parent in an emergency situation. The state’s Children’s Administration, a division of the Department of Social and Health Services, had conducted the criminal … Read more
The removal of indigenous children from their cultures by colonial governments is recognized by the United Nations as a form of cultural genocide. The trauma is recognized, pervasive, and long term. Yet the practice continues in the United States despite federal laws designed to end it. It would seem that the routine removal of Native … Read more
Synopsis provided by Westlaw: Department of Social Services (DSS) filed petitions for foster care plans with the goal of adoption and to terminate parental rights of father and Indian mother. Indian tribe filed a motion to intervene and filed a motion to transfer jurisdiction to tribal court under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The … Read more
Lac du Flambeau hopes to provide more support for families and kids in its foster care system. The state of Wisconsin has signed an agreement allowing the tribe to access a new stream of federal funding. The Title IV-E program is the federal government’s foster care program. Until recently, funds from that program have gone … Read more
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has included South Dakota’s persistent and alleged illegal seizure of Lakota children in a report it is scheduled to present to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in August. Read the full story at the Indian Country Today website.
On Friday, June 27, the Navajo Nation made an historic pact with the U.S. Department of of Health and Human Services to execute a direct funding agreement through the Title IV-E program under the Social Security Act that will reimburse the tribe and its child welfare agencies for federally eligible foster care, adoptions and guardianships. … Read more
Since 2011, the NCJFCJ has published Disproportionality Rates for Children of Color in Foster Care Technical Assistance Bulletins, which identify the disproportionality rates for all state and select Model Courts across the Country. See: Disproportionality Rates for Children of Color in Foster Care Technical Assistance Bulletin. This Bulletin, released May 2013, utilizes the most current … Read more