Indian Child Welfare Practice Within Urban American Indian/Native American Communities.

2006 ◽  
pp. 33-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessa Evans-Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Indian Child ◽  
Urban American Indian

scholarly journals Tribal child welfare practice in the United States

Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Byers ◽  
Dallas Pettigrew
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Alaska Native ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Federal Policies ◽  
State Compliance ◽  
Tribal Nations

Tribal child welfare in what is now the United States encompasses hundreds of tribal nations engaged in a government-to-government relationship with the United States. Please note that tribal, native, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Native American are used interchangeably. Each tribe has distinct languages and customs. Within this diversity the factors that bind tribal nations to make a discussion of tribal child welfare meaningful are communal childrearing, colonization, trauma, contemporary disparities, sovereign status, and detrimental federal policies. Communal cultures provide children with multiple caregivers that assure the youngest are cared for daily. This web of relations combined with high levels of respect for children within the life cycle guarded against abuse and neglect prior to colonization. The establishment of the United States, and federal-level assimilation policies created immense trauma and cultural disruption for tribal nations and child welfare. Government-funded boarding schools and the practice of placing tribal children in non-native homes are two specific assimilation practices that explicitly targeted children. The ability of tribal nations to protect their children and maintain their cultures has been strengthened by a federal law designed to give tribal nation’s a stake in child welfare proceedings. Many tribes now have their own child welfare programs, courts, and other services. State compliance with the law is an ongoing issue. Increased collaboration, respect for the sovereign status of tribes, and evaluation with clear implications for noncompliance needs to ensue are necessary to fully empower tribal child welfare. In addition, truth and reconciliation related to the separation of children from family and culture based on past federal policy practices is necessary to foster communal and generational healing for American Indian and Alaska Native peoples.

scholarly journals Native Family Law, Indian Child Welfare Act and Tribal Sovereignty

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zia Akhtar
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Foster Parents ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Indian Child ◽  
Indian Child Welfare Act ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
American Children ◽  
The U.S

There has been historical abuse of Native American children in the U.S. which began in the late 19th century in what is known as the residential school movement. It led to their forced integration on pain of removing and eradicating traces of their Indian heritage. The lack of protection for Indigenous children in being transferred from the reservations to non- Indian foster parents caused the U.S. Congress to use their legislative power and enact the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 [ICWA]. This has intervened in a process that is aimed at keeping Native American children within the tribe of their parents over the last 35 years. The result of the ICWA is that it has led to the greater supervision by tribal courts over children but it has caused a conflict to arise with the state courts due to jurisdictional reasons that allows guardianship and supervision to non-Indian parents. The Arizona Court of Appeals has recently ruled in Navajo Nation v. Arizona Department of Economic Security (2012) CA-JV 11-0123 that an Indian child can stay with his non-Native foster parents despite the protests of the tribe that it was infringing the provisions of the statute. This article is intended for the practitioner and policy makers and brings to the fore the issues of the preservation of children on reservation lands, and the need for a greater care consideration in the determination if they should be transferred to foster parents outside the tribe’s jurisdiction. It also conducts a comparison with Canada where First Nations children have also suffered abuse and where there is an ongoing debate about the course of action to prevent the appropriation of children from the reserves to live with the non-Native foster parents.

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