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Indian Child Welfare Act, three interviews; part one
By Stephanie Woodard
Excerpt:
Native parents face extraordinary hurdles in keeping
their children—including cultural misunderstandings and legal barriers that are
unimaginable to many non-Native people. In this second decade of the
21st century, American Indian children in states across the country
are still taken from their families and placed in foster care or adoptive homes
at a much higher rate than other kids—just as they were before the passage of
the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal statute intended to help keep
Native families intact.
In Alaska, Native
children make up 20 percent of the child population but 51 percent of those a
state agency has placed in foster care; Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, North
Dakota and Washington also have highly skewed numbers. In Minnesota, the
percentage of Native children in foster care isn’t just high, it’s gotten worse
in recent years. “Disproportionalities exist nationwide at every stage in the
process, starting right from the initial reports of possible abuse or neglect of
a Native child,” says Kristy Alberty, Cherokee, spokeswoman for the National
Indian Child Welfare Association.
As those who read this blog are aware, the removal of Indian Children was supposed to end with the ICWA of 1978 and sadly, it's still a crisis and unacceptable. Poverty is a powerful weapon and is still being used against Indian people. Trace
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