NEWS and UPDATES from Trace

Ellowyn's Lakota doll

REBLOG from 2011 AND EDITED:

 

I thank everyone for reading this BLOG and for signing up to get it via email (top box).
 

Back in 2011:
On average I hear from three new adoptees each week. That is good. That was and is my prayer. That is why I am a journalist who blogs about adoption news and being adopted. I will help anyone who contacts me and I will get them the help they need if I cannot do it myself.
I have been working all year on a brand new second edition of ONE SMALL SACRIFICE and it should be out in a few weeks. It's the same book with a few more chapters. It has two prefaces, four major chapters and an epilogue.  Also, there is a new WARNING to readers that this is NOT a chronology but written as I was learning and remembering my own childhood and doing the search for my family.  My book has Indian history born of pain and experience, history you won't read in newspapers or mentioned in North American classrooms.
 

One of the best comments I hear is I did a lot of research. Yes, indeed. Over five years and counting and I am still learning.
Book 2: TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects is ready and we are looking for a publisher.  This new anthology goes further and tells individual adoptee stories, in their own words. This book will change hearts and exposes more of our history! I will let you know when we do get it published.
The ultimate goal of this blog is to find new adoptees (Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects) and to have a group of adoptees testify before Congress to expose how we were adopted and erased from our tribal nations - deliberately.  Some of us were physically and sexually abused (YES) and in many states we are STILL denied access to adoption records so we cannot go home to our tribes and families.

 

A few days ago I made a new relative in South Dakota, Evelyn Red Lodge, also an adoptee and a journalist at Native Sun News. Evelyn is working to make these hearings happen, in the not-too-distant future. She helped NPR do their three-part investigation (posted on this blog in November) which made headlines across the globe. 
Adoptees like Evelyn and Sandy White Hawk at First Nations Orphans Association are rewriting history and helping others to heal with their activism. Here is a link to Evelyn's story on Indianz.com: http://64.38.12.138/News/2011/003731.asp
Evelyn is helping to organize a rally for residents in South Dakota to stop the adoptions of Indian children in her state. More happen each day, in violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act. 32 states are in violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act, according to recent NPR reports.
As I wrote on this blog, our governments in North American made us orphans and sealed our records so we'd disappear completely. But they can't erase our blood or our memory.
If erasure was the intention of the Indian Adoption Projects - to separate families and ensure adoptees would lose contact with their tribal relatives - in many ways they succeeded.
Now, today, our major task is to expose this attempted ethnic cleansing and rejoin our families and our nations.
Until all adoption records are open, in particular the Indian Adoption Projects and Indian Programs, conducted secretly in many states, I will not rest.
And neither should you...

Feds pay for kidnapping in South Dakota

South Dakota Kidnapping Native American Children While Making The Federal Government Pay For It (AUDIO)

Author: Nathaniel Downes 

 

 The history of Native American relations in the United States is at best abysmal. From intentionally introducing disease, village massacres, and widespread racism against the native population, the United States has not been a friend of our indigenous people. Those of native culture have had their lands stolen, treaties ignored, and been subject to humiliating and degrading treatment for centuries.

The most horrifying, however, has been the systematic attempt to exterminate them as a people entirely; new light has come out that, despite laws to the contrary, these policies continue to be in effect, as recently covered at the Great Plains Indian Child Welfare Act Summit from May 15 through May 17 2013 in Rapid City, South Dakota. At the conference, a report by the Indian Child Welfare Act directors in South Dakota made a huge splash. The total population of South Dakota under the age of 18 is around 200,000, according to the U.S. Census taken in 2010. Of those children, approximately 23,000 children are Native American. And of those children, the state of South Dakota have seized approximately 750 every year from their immediate families. This statistic alone is troubling, especially when combined with the issue of tribal authority (the state of South Dakota does not have authority over the tribes), but even more so is what happens next.

 What the study found was that rather than place these children with other tribal members or relatives, as required by law, the state instead places them almost exclusively with white families, away from their cultural heritage.

In so doing, South Dakota is running afoul of a definition, that of genocide. While in traditional thinking, genocide refers to a direct attempt to exterminate a racial or cultural group through direct extermination, there is another form of genocide, that of cultural elimination. The definition of genocide, according to the United Nations General Assembly’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is as follows: … any of the following acts commit with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The Native American population is the poorest in the nation, with an astounding 50% poverty rate. There has been a targeted effort to forcibly sterilize Native American women.

And here we find South Dakota with a system which has resulted in over half of the children in their foster care system being from Native American families. NPR covered this heavily for their report “Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families” in 2011.

Here’s the audio: LINK

But for those in power within South Dakota, this program brings with it a double benefit. Not only do they contribute to exterminating the Native culture, they get to have Uncle Sam pay for it. Every Native American child within the foster care system is paid for by the federal government, to the sum of almost $80,000 per child, per year, of which South Dakota only pays out under $10,000. This $70,000 surplus, which is intended to go into anti-poverty programs, healthcare, and family support for troubled children, instead goes right into the general fund for the state. It is a calculated scheme to defraud the United States government of tens of millions per year. It is a tragedy, how we as humans have allowed the systematic persecution of the Native population. To see such a program in this day and age makes the tragedy even more real. The forced sterilization programs, in which thousands of women were sterilized, either by force or through trickery, dropped the average child-per-Native woman from 3.29 in 1970 to 1.30 in 1980. The damage done by this program was so severe that even decades after its official end, the fertility rate remains dangerously low. And now the implementation of a program to take away what few children they can have is almost too much to bear.

This abuse of power has put the entire child welfare system in South Dakota in danger, making every child taken in to the system’s care suspect. Situations where true abuse have happened are dwarfed by those where it has not. The state is in danger of having its system called into question, potentially dismantled, all due to the systemic abuse of Native people. There is no room for racism, for this culture war, in a modern society. South Dakota should be ashamed of itself, and return those children taken illegally immediately to their families. Following this, a complete and thorough policy audit should be mandated, along with the termination of the management who enacted and enforced this policy.

Lastly, the money which was defrauded from the federal government should be turned over to the families as restitution. A culture survives through its children. We are the United States, a multi-cultural melting pot of people. This attempt by bigoted people to undermine the very principle of the United States, of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, brings shame to this grand nation of ours, and it must end now.

Author: Nathaniel Downes is a native of New Hampshire, now living in Seattle Washington developing the next-generation super-powered MMORPG, City of Titans. He has just released his first book, available in Hardcover, Paperback, and Kindle.

NPR Coverage of DOJ’s Commitment to Enforcing the Indian Child Welfare Act

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Turtle Talk

Here is “Justice Department Vows To Fight States That Violate Indian Child Welfare Law.”
An excerpt:

This summer the Justice Department intervened for the first time in its history in a federal district court case in South Dakota, concluding that the state has violated the rights of Native American parents.
Two of the state’s largest tribes argued that the state has removed children in hearings where parents were rarely allowed to speak and often lasted less than 60 seconds. The children were then placed indefinitely in largely white foster homes.
Stephen Pevar, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit along with the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes, called the hearings “kangaroo courts.”
“There was nothing — nothing — that any of the parents did or could have done,” Pevar said. “It was a predetermined outcome in every one of these cases.”

Janice Howe fought the state of South Dakota for a year and a half to bring her grandchildren back home after they were placed in foster care.

 

 

2011 coverage: READ MORE

Sadly, the comments on NPR in 2014 are stunningly bad, racist, belaboring the same myths about alcoholism, but not poverty or real concentration camps, and absolutely nothing about the reality and loss we face as children removed from our tribes...Trace

Justice Department Supports Native Americans In Child Welfare Case : NPR

Justice Department Supports Native Americans In Child Welfare Case : NPR

The Justice Department has weighed in on a class-action lawsuit inSouth Dakota pitting Native American tribes against state officials, and come down resoundingly in support of tribes.

It's the first time the department has intervened in a federal district court case involving the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law meant to keep Native American families together. The department filed an amicus brief in the case concluding that the state is violating the rights of Native American parents.

In the suit, tribes claim the state is failing to abide by the 36-year-old federal law, removing hundreds of Indian children from their families in court hearings where parents are rarely allowed to speak, and that often last less than 60 seconds.

South Dakota tribes to reinvent foster care

I have been in touch with Lakota officials to offer information about other tribe's foster care systems - and what is working in Indian Country. This conference is great news. We need to help families stay together and if not, use kinship care for all our Native children... Trace

 

As fears mount over state misconduct, tribes focus on creating their own foster care systems

Daniel Simmons-Ritchie (RAPID CITY JOURNAL)

Following mounting anger over charges that the state has routinely and illegally placed Native American children with non-native foster parents, South Dakota tribes gathered Monday in Rapid City to discuss how they could form their own tribal-run foster care systems.

The discussion, hosted by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe at the Rushmore Plaza, marked the first day of the three-day Oceti Sakowin Conference. The meeting is the third in a series of quarterly summits between the state’s nine Lakota tribes to discuss common concerns.

While the afternoon discussion touched upon preservation of sacred sites and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, the morning was dominated by debate over alleged abuses by the state of South Dakota under the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Following a report by National Public Radio in 2011, concern has been building that the Department of Social Services has repeatedly violated ICWA, a law enacted in 1978 to ensure the preservation of Native American culture by ensuring that native children taken by social workers are placed in Native American foster homes. The NPR report found that 90 percent of native children in South Dakota are placed in non-native homes.

Since a conference held by the tribes in Rapid City in May, attended by Kevin Washburn, the U.S. Interior Department‘s assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, the Lakota have focused increasingly on steps to wrestle away federal funding from South Dakota and create native-run foster care systems.

The $56 million that’s going to the state of South Dakota should be coming to us so we can keep our families together,” Chase Iron Eyes, a private attorney and member of the Standing Rock Sioux, told attendees. “That’s the bottom line.

Speaking during a recess, Dan Sheehan, chief counsel for the Lakota People’s Law Project, a non-profit that has provided expertise to the Lakota since 2006 about ICWA violations, said that it is looking increasingly likely that the tribes could attain that federal funding.

Sheehan, an attorney who was involved in cases surrounding the Iran-Contra scandals in the 1980s and the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, said that his group had recently met with officials in the U.S. Department of the Interior that favored creating an application process to give funds directly to Lakota tribes.

“The money will be taken away from the state and given directly to the tribes,” Sheehan said, adding that he was reasonably confident that could happen within the next two years.

Monday’s discussion also focused on potential models for native-run foster care systems. On the Pine Ridge Reservation, the Oglala Sioux have a tribal-run foster care system that is partially funded by the state of South Dakota.

The administering agency, called Lakota Oyate Wakanyeja Owicakiyapi (LOWO), only handles cases on the reservation and still must follow South Dakota rules that have been criticized by Native American advocates. Still, with a focus on traditional Lakota culture like purification ceremonies, reformers see it as a path to repair a system that has failed natives.

That doesn’t mean starting their own systems will be simple for tribes. Emily Iron Cloud, executive director of LOWO, said that the planning work alone was hugely time consuming.

“You need to have the community’s voice, their vision for what kind of agency they want to see, and there’s a lot of work that needs to happen,” she said.

Related articles

• Sioux tribes to discuss foster care, sacred sites (rapidcityjournal.com)
• South Dakota commits shocking genocide against Native Americans (intrepidreport.com)
• Lakota to File UN Genocide Charges Against US, South Dakota (earthfirstnews.wordpress.com)
• Author, teacher of endangered Lakota language dies (khou.com)
• Lakota People’s Law Project Supports Historic Lakota Sioux Oceti Sakowin Development Conference (prweb.com)

Radio Lab: Baby Veronica

Veronica at duck pen (courtesy of John Nichols)

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2013/may/30/adoptive-couple-v-baby-girl/

This is the story of a three-year-old girl and the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is a legal battle that has entangled a biological father, a heart-broken couple, and the tragic history of Native American children taken from their families.

When producer Tim Howard first read about this case, it struck him as a sad but seemingly straightforward custody dispute. But, as he started talking to lawyers and historians and the families involved in the case, it became clear that it was much more than that. Because Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl challenges parts of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, this case puts one little girl at the center of a storm of legal intricacies, Native American tribal culture, and heart-wrenching personal stakes.

Background and Reporting from a range of different perspectives

"Couple forced to give up daughter"
An introductory article by Allyson Bird, for the Charleston, SC Post and Courier
Comprehensive coverage of the case by the Charleston Post and Courier
"Supreme Court Takes on Indian Child Welfare Act in Baby Veronica Case" 
A report for Indian Country Today by Suzette Brewer, who has also written a two-part series on the case.
"Supreme Court hears Indian child custody case"
Tulsa World article by Michael Overall which includes Dusten Brown's account of his break-up with Veronica's mother, and his understanding about his custodial rights. Plus photos of Dusten, Veronica, and Dusten's wife Robin in their Oklahoma home.
Randi Kaye's report for CNN on the background of the case, and interviews with Melanie and Matt Capobianco: "Video: Adoption custody battle for Veronica"

Nina Totenberg’s report for NPR: "Adoption Case Brings Rare Family Law Dispute To High Court"
Reporting by NPR's Laura Sullivan and Amy Walters on current ICWA violations in South Dakota.
Dr. Phil's coverage: "Adoption Controversy: Battle over Baby Veronica"

Analysis and Editorials

Colorlines report "The Cherokee Nation’s Baby Girl Goes on Trial:"

Americans remain dangerously uninformed about the basics of tribal sovereignty, and what it means for the relationship between the United States and Native tribes and nations.

The Weekly Standard's Ethan Epstein argues that ICWA is "being used to tear [families] apart]: "Mistreating Native American Children"
Andrew Cohen considers the trickier legal aspects of the case for the Atlantic in "Indian Affairs, Adoption, and Race: The Baby Veronica Case Comes to Washington:"

A little girl is at the heart of a big case at the Supreme Court next week, a racially-tinged fight over Native American rights and state custody laws.

Marcia Zug's breakdown of the case (Marica Zug is an associate professor of law at the University of South Carolina School of Law who she specializes in family and American Indian law) "Doing What’s Best for the Tribe" for Slate:

Two-year-old “Baby Veronica” was ripped from the only home she’s known. The court made the right decision.  

Marcia Zug for the Michigan Law Review: "Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl: Two-and-a-Half WAys To Destroy Indian Law"
From Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies: "The Constitutional Flaws of the Indian Child Welfare Act"
Rapid City Journal columnist David Rooks poses a set of tough questions about ICWA: "ROOKS: Questions unasked, unanswered"
From Johnston Moore, an adoptive father of six children, three of whom are part Indian. (Moore is director and co-founder of Home Forever, and a founding member of the Coalition for the Protection of Indian Children & Families. NewsOK): "Some different talking points about Indian Child Welfare Act"
Editorial coverage from The New York Times:
"A Wrenching Adoption Case"
"Adoptive Parents vs. Tribal Rights"

Contemporary, Historic, and Legal Source Materials

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl on the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) Blog
Audio from the oral arguments in the Supreme Court

Official website for ICWA (the federal Indian Child Welfare Act)
1974 Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs "on problems that American Indian families face in raising their children and how these problems are affected by federal action or inaction." PDF
The National Indian Child Welfare Association
SaveVeronica.org

The First Nations Repatriation Institute, which works with and does advocacy for adoptees

Guests: Tim Howard

 

I will be posting about this case ...Very disappointed that AN ADOPTEE PERSPECTIVE was not a part of this RADIO LAB discussion. Adrian Grey Buffalo, Patricia Busbee and I were interviewed by Tim Howard but apparently we didn't make the final cut... Trace 

NPR update: Maine, Tribes Seek 'Truth And Reconciliation'

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

3 min 50 sec

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In Maine, an unusual and historic process is under way to document child welfare practices that once resulted in Indian children being forcibly removed from their homes. Many of the Native children were placed with white foster parents and with white adoptive families.  Chiefs from all five of Maine's tribes, along with Gov. Paul LePage, have created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the wounds.

Read the entire transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080043/maine-tribes-seek-truth-and-reconciliation

Sandy WhiteHawk is correct - we do not know how many children were taken. You can visit her website here: http://wearecominghome.com/Sandy_White_Hawk.html
Contact her organization, First Nations Repatriation Association!NS REPATRIATION INSTITUTE  

NPR: SD Tribes accuse state of violating ICWA

Listen to the Story

All Things Considered

4 min 59 sec

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For years now, council members of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota have watched as the state's Department of Social Services removed children from the reservation and placed many of them in white foster homes, far from tribal lands. Many of the children were later adopted, losing their connection to their families and heritage.

"I've seen it firsthand," says Brandon Sazue, chairman of the Crow Creek tribe.

Derrin Yellow Robe, 3, stands in his great-grandparents' backyard on the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. He was taken off the reservation by South Dakota's Department of Social Services in July 2009 and spent a year and a half in foster care before being returned to his family.

John Poole/NPR

 

 

Sazue says the state has long overstepped its authority.

"That would be like United States going into a foreign country and saying, 'Hey, I'm taking your kid because of this or that,' " he said. "I mean, this is within the boundaries of the Crow Creek Sioux Indian reservation, and as far as I'm concerned, we are the government."

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2013/02/06/171310945/south-dakota-tribes-accuse-state-of-violating-indian-welfare-act

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/05/1184630/-Laura-Sullivan-of-NPR-to-Air-Story-Tomorrow-on-Report-to-Congress-by-South-Dakota-s-ICWA-Directors

NPR: Lack of ICWA Compliance, Genocide

Bryan Brewer, Tribal Council Chairman, Oglala Sioux Tribe (Pine Ridge)

It has to be exposed nationwide what [South Dakota is] doing to our Lakota people. It’s a form of genocide (Chairman Brewer).

NPR: South Dakota Tribal ICW Directors’ Studies on State’s Incredible Lack of Compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act

Here, via Pechanga.
An excerpt:

South Dakota’s Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) directors have issued two reports to Congress: “Reviewing the Facts: An Assessment of the Accuracy of NPR’s ‘Native Foster Care – Lost Children, Shattered Families,’” and “Is South Dakota Over-Prescribing Drugs to Native American Foster Kids?” The first of these reports cites evidence that South Dakota’s Department of Social Services (DSS) is placing 87% of Indian children into non-Indian homes or group care, even while anywhere from 20-43% of licensed Native American foster homes in the state sit empty. This, according to the authors of the report, is in clear violation of the federal ICWA law which requires states to keep Native foster children with their extended families and tribes whenever possible. The study also affirms NPR’s assessment that the state’s ICWA violations are partly motivated by the tens of millions of federal dollars that South Dakota receives for placements of Native children each year.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/NPR-s-Laura-Sullivan-to-Report-on-Congressional-4251417.php#ixzz2K80xREPN

 

This is HUGE NEWS! Good movement forward! I am so honored to share this with you... Trace

Lakota Child Rescue Project: SD violates ICWA each year

Archive photo

For 100 years, Native American children have been removed from their families. It began in the 1880s under a US government policy of assimilation: children as young as five were taken from their homes, shipped to boarding schools, and instructed in the ways of white culture. Today, a generation of children is once again losing its connection to its traditions. This time, it's through state-run foster care. Every year in South Dakota the state takes nearly 700 Native American children, when some 95% of them are placed in non-Native foster and state-run care—in direct violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
Why? Each year the state receives almost $100 million in federal money for foster care services.

Watch The Lakota Child Rescue Project -  on YouTube (Posted by Lakota Law)

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=JDMiWmI_ bwE&feature= channel&list= UL

#####

Janice Howe receiving letters of support:
The response to Janice Howe's story on NPR was overwhelming. This video shows her receiving the first 1200 letters of support from around the country. Danny Sheehan, the chief counsel for Lakota People's Law Project personally delivered the letters.

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=gji9F23ssUY

NICWA Conference Addresses Challenges of the Indian Child Welfare Act

NICWA Conference Addresses Challenges of the Indian Child Welfare Act

Excerpt:
"Increasing national and state compliance with the ICWA law includes getting accurate information out to the public about the real story of the act and how it impacts Indian children and families, said NICWA Executive Director Terry Cross. To that end, much of the conference focused on strategies in working with the media.
“The media plays a crucial role in telling this story,” Cross said. “Typically the mainstream press picks up a story regarding ICWA only when a non-Indian family has somehow been injured.”
Conference attendees were encouraged to work with the press and alert the NICWA office about local stories involving the ICWA law. “We are finding that it’s possible to defuse an explosive situation by simply getting factual information out to the press,” Cross said...."

Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/04/27/nicwa-conference-addresses-challenges-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act-110270 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/04/27/nicwa-conference-addresses-challenges-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act-110270#ixzz1tG1Xblya

Mary Annette Pember did a fantastic job reporting on this conference!! Trace

Number of American Indian children in foster care worries tribal leaders

St. Paul, Minn. — Each year about 1,500 American Indian children in Minnesota spend time in foster care or other out-of-home-care, often after allegations of neglect or substance abuse by a parent.           In Minnesota, American Indian children are 14 times more likely to be placed in out-of-home care than white children - the widest such gap in the nation. Officials place 66 percent of the children with relatives or with American Indian foster families.
Even as the total number of Minnesota children in foster care dropped 44 percent in the last decade, the number of American Indian children placed in foster care dropped by only 16 percent.
That worries tribal officials like Erma Vizenor, chairwoman of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. She said the tribes should be able to determine which of their families need intervention, and what kind.
"When we do not have the decision making and the authority and the control to determine what is best for them, it has become a major concern," Vizenor said.
Aiming to reduce the break-up of Indian families, the White Earth and the Leech Lake band of Ojibwe have taken over responsibility for child welfare on tribal lands. Now the White Earth, Minnesota's largest tribe, is now preparing to care for its children living hundreds of miles away in Hennepin County.
High poverty among American Indian families makes it more difficult to meet a child's basic needs, but that doesn't completely explain why Indian children are much more likely to be removed from their parents' care.

Out-of-home care by race and ethnicity

The tribes have questioned whether racial bias is a factor in such decisions, and they've worked with state officials to develop training for county workers to reduce bias in deciding which cases to investigate. The training also seeks to help outsiders understand the traditional role extended families play in raising Indian children.
Dawn Blanchard, the state's ombudsperson for American Indian Families, said removing American Indian children from their homes is "a daily reality."
Blanchard sorts cases into those she can solve over the phone, and those that require an investigation. She reports wide variation in how well counties follow a federal law designed to keep Indian children with other family members, or to at least place them with an Indian foster family.
Blanchard said the most common complaints she handles are disagreements between county social workers and tribes over where children should go.

Lasting impression

"The tribe will say we want them to go to Aunt Betty and the county will say, 'we have problems with Aunt Betty. We think that she's not a good person,' " Blanchard said. "Maybe she's too old. 'We've heard' — that's a big one 'we've heard that she's drinking.' Is it substantiated? Do we know for sure if she has a history of drinking or was it 10 or 15 years ago and she's cleaned up her life now?"
Representatives of Minnesota's 11 tribes were so concerned that the needs of their children were not adequately addressed that late last year they sent letters to then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Gov.-elect Mark Dayton requesting immediate action to address the problem.
White Earth tribal officials want to take on responsibility for the tribe's children in Hennepin County, hundreds of miles south of the reservation. White Earth children make up a quarter of Hennepin County's American Indian caseload, or about 2 percent of the county's overall cases.
Margaret Thunder, a program manager for Hennepin County child protection, is enthusiastic about the tribe's effort.
"I think it's a huge deal," said Thunder, a member of the Red Lake band of Ojibwe. "They will have 100-percent say. Not that they don't already have a fair percent."
Tribes do have a seat at the table in child protection cases.
The 1978 federal Indian Child Welfare Act requires tribes be notified and involved in decision-making for their children. Hennepin County, with its large urban Indian population, has a high volume of these cases. The county gets high marks for complying with the act, and that's one of the reasons White Earth officials believe addressing the needs of the tribe's children there is a next logical step.
Transferring such cases to the tribe would give it complete control over American Indian cases such as a recent one heard in juvenile court.

Mike Hogan

Four children, ages 4, 2, 1 and one month, were placed in emergency foster care following reports that their parents were abusing drugs and neglecting the children. The parents didn't show up for the court hearing. Their father is a member of the White Earth band and their mother is enrolled in the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin.
"Her current address is technically St. Joseph's hospital where the treatment center was," said Mike Hogan, a courtroom monitor for the Minneapolis American Indian Center. "No one's quite sure where she is, even her attorney."
A Ho-Chunk attorney who joined the hearing by speaker phone said the tribe would prepare a list of relatives who could care for the children. White Earth officials agreed to let the mother's tribe take the lead, but they agreed to compile a list of paternal relatives.
A guardian ad litem said the children were doing well under the care of their foster care families.

Sheri Riemers

Hogan's boss, Sheri Riemers, said the embrace of extended families offers the most hopeful outcome for children in such tough situations.
"We do believe when children are removed that their spirit is left behind," said Riemers, program director of Indian Child Welfare for the Minneapolis American Indian Center.
Other tribes around the state and around the country are watching closely.
Erin Sullivan Sutton, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Human Services, said she is not aware of another state transferring public child welfare from a state or county to a tribal system. But there are good reasons to do so, said Sutton, the state's point person on child welfare.
"We're thinking that if services can be provided in a cultural context to Indian families and by tribal agencies that there may be more success," she said.
For state and tribal officials success won't mean eliminating out-of-home placements. There will always be children who need to be removed from unsafe situations, but they hope more tribal involvement will reduce the disparate treatment of American Indian children.
Vizenor said the Hennepin County program could be the beginning of an ambitious venture to expand care for children living off the reservation.
"Without a doubt, I know we will be successful and gradually, we will phase in the metro area and eventually all our children in the state of Minnesota," she said.
White Earth and the state will present a report to the legislature in January. The timeline for the Hennepin County transfer, and the costs, are still to be determined.          

For more, listen:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/11/30/american-indian-children-foster-care/

Tribal STAR Response to Unwarranted Removal of Indian Children in Recent Media Coverage

Tribal STAR Response to Unwarranted Removal of Indian Children in Recent Media Coverage


PRESS RELEASE:
Contact: Rose-Margaret Orrantia, Tribal STAR Program Manager, 619-594-8291

In response to the recent reports and media (ABC’s 20/20 and NPR) surrounding the mal-treatment of American Indian children, it should be pointed out that there are numerous recent reports[1] that illuminate that this is not an isolated phenomenon. Indian children across the country continue to be subject to inappropriate and questionable removal and placed in non-tribal foster or adoptive homes. The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed to ensure Indian children remained connected to their families and cultural heritage. ICWA was passed in 1978 and the media reports show that we are not living up to our legal and moral responsibilities.
The question is what can we do right now? Here are four directions that states, counties, and tribes may consider:

1. Use existing federal mechanisms to strengthen local response: The Federal Child and Family Services Review (2001) requires child welfare systems to engage with tribes to improve system performance. The Fostering Connections to Success Act (2008) requires that relatives and extended family members be identified for all children in the child welfare system. These mandates and other initiatives[2] can be used to strengthen cultural competence and appropriate engagement of county and state social workers when working with tribes and Native families. Simple steps such as training and communication with ICWA social workers can enhance the county and state social worker’s understanding of the prevailing cultural standards of the local tribes as required by ICWA. State and County child welfare improvement plans should include goals and objectives that increase ICWA-related training, and collaboration between states, counties, and tribes.

2. Improve proper placements and certify more AI/AN homes. Keeping a child connected to family and culture is supported by the Fostering Connections to Success Act through the identification of relatives and extended family members for possible placement. Additionally, states, counties, and tribes need to identify more American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) homes for children in care and support Tribal certification of homes. Encourage local child welfare directors and states to exercise the authority to grant exemptions when red flags occur because of old offenses. Research shows that AI/AN children who stay connected to their cultural heritage and extended families have more protective factors and exhibit more resilience than those placed with strangers while in the child welfare system.

3. Increase judicial support to effect ICWA outcomes. Courts have a key role in ensuring Native children are protected and the mandates of ICWA are followed. Courts need to require that inquiry and notice procedures are followed and ensure that tribal representation occurs at every ICWA-related hearing. We recommend that all judges and court personnel receive ICWA and cultural competency-related training in order to have a clear understanding of the historical and emotional context of the legislation.
The current reality of depleted federal and state budgets leaves little room for additional resources to serve this population. However, it is to the benefit of every state, county, and tribe to identify every AI/AN child and link them to culturally appropriate services such as Title VII Indian Education (supports mentoring, tutoring for completion of primary and secondary education, and provides cultural restoration), Tribal TANF (temporary assistance for needy families), and some Tribal health services. When tribal children are identified and linked to these services the costs are shared, diffused, and ultimately reduced. Unfortunately the current funding mechanisms provide resources based on the number of children served by the system with few options for focusing on prevention. How can we reduce the number of children in our care when our system funds jurisdictions based on children in care?

4. Prevent new cases through collaboration and active efforts. Collaboration and authentic engagement with tribes and urban tribal communities needs to occur at federal, state, and local, levels to reduce the disproportionate representation of Native children in child welfare and prevent new cases from entering the system. Once an Indian child is identified, states, counties, and tribes should begin active efforts[3] to link the child and family to services and resources that can reduce risk and prevent the case from entering the child welfare system.

There are a number of promising and model programs that demonstrate collaboration and court involvement to achieve ICWA compliance. For more information go to the following websites:
· National Resource Center for Tribes: www.NRC4Tribes.org
· National Indian Child Welfare Association: www.NICWA.org
· National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges: www.NCJFCJ.org
· American Indian Enhancement Project of California Toolkit: http://calswec.berkeley.edu/CalSWEC/AIE/AIE_home.html

Tribal STAR is a program of the Academy for Professional Excellence, SDSU School of Social Work, funded by the State of California Department of Social Services. Since 2003 Tribal STAR has provided training and technical assistance to Southern California Counties with a mission to ensure that American Indian/Alaska Native children remain connected to culture, community and resources.
For more information go to  http://theacademy.sdsu.edu/TribalSTAR.

[1] Disproportionality Rates for Children of Color in Foster Care: National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, California Disproportionality Report, and “An Unsettling Profile” Coalition of Communities of Color: Portland Oregon State University.

[2] Family to Family, Family Finding, Client Engagement, Signs of Safety, and Active Efforts.

[3] Indian Child Welfare Act : Pub.L. 95-608, 93 Stat. 3071, enacted November 8, 1978.

Please share this with tribal officials and contact Tribal STAR for more attention.... Trace

NPR's ICWA investigation (Parts 2 and 3, links and transcript)

NPR's year-long investigation has produced startling evidence the certain states are ignoring the Indian Child Welfare Act - and as you have read on this blog, this is often unquestioned criminal behavior, illegal by federal law and overt racism againt Indian People with the abduction of Native Children to foster care and adoption...   and today, some tribes ARE hiding the children they rescue from foster care...
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141728431/native-survivors-of-foster-care-return-home

Tribes Question Foster Group's Power and Influence (Part 2)
Transcript from "All Things Considered":
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=141700018

Copyright ©2011 National Public Radio®. 

October 26, 2011 -

MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
MICHELE NORRIS, host: And I'm Michele Norris.
There's a federal law that says Native American children who are removed from their homes should be placed with their relatives or tribes. The idea is to stay close to their culture. But this week, an NPR News investigation finds that in South Dakota's foster care system, that's not happening. Hundreds of Native children are placed instead in private group homes. The homes get paid millions of dollars to care for the kids.
BLOCK: The largest is a place called the Children's Home Society. South Dakota's governor used to run Children's Home, and he was on its payroll while he was lieutenant governor. As NPR's Laura Sullivan reports, that arrangement highlights the influence of South Dakota's powerful child welfare system.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Get ready. Set. Who's on first?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Let's go, dude.
LAURA SULLIVAN: On a small crest deep in South Dakota's Black Hills, a dozen children jump on sleds and float across the snow. These kids are wards of the state. This is their home, the western campus of the Children's Home Society.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: OK. Let's go. Let's go.
SULLIVAN: There are rolling hills, a babbling brook, even a new school. On a visit last winter, Children's Home Director Bill Colson says it's a place to help children who can't make it in regular foster care.
We want to solve the problems. And sometimes, it just seems like you're beating your head against the wall, but the reality is we are making progress. And I feel great about it, and our agency feels good about it.
State officials say Children's Home and other organizations like it are necessary. But Native American tribes say the homes are overused on kids who don't need to be there - kids who should be placed with relatives or their tribes.
That's what Congress mandated 30 years ago when it passed the Indian Child Welfare Act. But a 2005 government audit found 32 states are failing, in one way or another, to abide by it. One those states is South Dakota, where 90 percent of Indian children in foster care are placed in non-Native homes or privately run group homes; a generation of children torn from their traditions, cultures and tribes.
Many wind up here at Children's Home. Director Bill Colson says he's heard the tribe's complaints. And he says returning children to their relatives is a top priority
It's hard. It's frustrating for us, too, because we want to see children be successful. Our goal is to have kids, be in a family and be successful.
Children's Home provides services for almost 2,000 children. It's one of the largest nonprofits in the state. But it wasn't always. Ten years ago, this group was in trouble. Tax records show it was losing money. Then in 2002, a former banker named Dennis Daugaard took over as chief operating officer. A year later, he was promoted to executive director, and things began to change.
Money from the state doubled under his leadership. Children's Home grew seven times its size financially. It added two facilities. It seized on a big opportunity when the state began outsourcing much of its work, like training foster parents and examining potential foster homes. Children's Home got almost every one of those contracts. The group paid Daugaard $115,000 a year. But that wasn't his only job.
(SOUNDBITE OF A POLITICAL AD)
Governor DENNIS DAUGAARD: I'm Dennis Daugaard, and I want to be your next governor.
SULLIVAN: At the same time he was getting paid to be director of Children's Home, Daugaard was also the state's lieutenant governor and a rising star in state politics. He had just taken office at lieutenant governor when Children's Home promoted him to its top post. The years he spent running the place and his ability to turn it around were prominent features of his 2010 bid for governor.
(SOUNDBITE OF A POLITICAL AD)
DAUGAARD: I left the bank then and joined Children's Home Society, a home for abused and neglected children, and became their executive director.
SULLIVAN: He won. He is now South Dakota's governor. It could be that Children's Home was the best organization for the job, at the best price for all of those contracts it got. But it would be difficult for taxpayers to know. That's because in just about every case, the group did not compete for the contracts. They didn't have to bid against any one else. For almost seven years, until this year, Daugaard's colleagues in state government just chose his organization and sent it money - more than $50 million.
MELANIE SLOAN: It's a massive conflict of interest.
SULLIVAN: Melanie Sloan is the executive director of a government watchdog group called Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington. She says any private organization run by a lieutenant governor would have a lot of power in that state.
When you're lieutenant governor, people are anxious to curry favor with you.
Daugaard declined NPR's repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, his office said Children's Home was the only viable organization that could have done the work, and that Daugaard never used his influence as lieutenant governor to secure the contracts.
Tribal leaders, though, say the unusual relationship provides a window into the role money and politics place in South Dakota's foster care system. They say Children's Home's dominance in this area is but one more example of the interests of the state trumping the interests of Native children.
JUANITA SHERICK: They make a living off of our children.
SULLIVAN: In a basement office on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Juanita Sherick manages foster care cases for her tribe.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEPHONE RINGING)
SHERICK: Hello. May I help you?
SULLIVAN: She says the state pushes aggressively to place kids in Children's Home. Kids, she says, would be better off with their own grandmothers, aunts and uncles.
Give the children back, you know, to their relatives. The Creator gave those children to those families.
In recent years, Children's Home has become a powerhouse. It examines potential foster families and homes, houses the most kids, trains the state's case workers; holds all of the state's training classes; does all examines of children who may have been abused.
Children's Home gets paid millions of dollars every year for this work, and Rose Mendoza says that's ridiculous. She runs social services for the Standing Rock Sioux, and she says her group would do it for free, especially the home studies, the job of examining tribes' potential foster homes.
Why is there no private agency onto our reservation? We can send our worker, our licensing worker out to go do a home study.
In a state where the majority of foster children are Native, Mendoza and many other tribal officials say home study, social worker training and family placements should be done by people who know and understand the children's culture.
ROSE MENDOZA: Everybody says, well, its cultural difference. Cultural difference, but it's a way of life. Our way of life is different.
SULLIVAN: Native tribes weren't the only ones left out. Troy Hoppes ran a similar group called Canyon Hills Center at the time. He says he didn't know about contracts until after they were doled out.
I just remember in the news there were some grants that were awarded, and I was envious. We wanted to get some grants for ourselves, as well.
Hoppes says his organization would have jumped at the chance.
TROY HOPPES: Facilities love the opportunity to branch out with things like that.
SULLIVAN: In its statement, Governor Daugaard's office says any group home with a license can care for kids. But Hoppes says Canyon Hills had a license, yet it struggled to fill its beds, while at the same time, Children's Home had a waiting list.
The statement also emphasizes that lieutenant governor was a part time job, and that Governor Daugaard never supervise any of the people who approved government contracts. Social service officials in their statement said Children's Home was treated the same way as every other organization.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: But I'm so excited. On Saturday is my grandmother's birthday.
SULLIVAN: On Children's Home campus, kids walk through the hallways to get to their next class. This place has won many state accolades for its work with these kids. But none of that means much to Suzy Crow or her granddaughter, Brianna.
SUZY CROWE: She was over there most of three years.
SULLIVAN: Suzy Crow was taken from her family and forced into boarding school like thousands of other Native American children over the past century.
CROWE: Every night, me and my sister would meet at her bed, and we would say, let's run away tomorrow, just to comfort ourselves that we're still there. This foster system reminds me of that.
SULLIVAN: Crow didn't want Brianna to grow up like she did, not knowing who she was or where she belonged. It took a court order for the state to finally send Brianna home.
CROWE: I didn't care what it took. I battled with them.
SULLIVAN: State records show South Dakota paid Children's Home almost $50,000 over three years to care for Brianna. And all across the state, grandmothers, aunts and uncles, family and tribal members would have cared for Brianna and hundreds of other Native American children like her for free; close to their tribes and culture like federal law intended.

Part 3  (October 27, 2011) Native survivors of Foster Care Return Home:
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141728431/native-survivors-of-foster-care-return-home

Disproportionality Rates of Native American Children In Foster Care (statistics)

click here: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141475618/disproportionality-rates-of-native-american-children-in-foster-care

Native foster care providers are not getting children in South Dakota? 32 states are failing to abide by the ICWA.... A Congressional Investigation by the Federal Government will be one way to solve this... prosecution of social workers and state government officials? Stop their funding? I am grateful to NPR for this ground-breaking investigation and shining a light on this... 
Please email me if you are interested in providing testimony to Congress... It will take time but We must act...   Trace (my email: tracedemeyer@yahoo.com)