For the first time in U.S. child welfare history, a tribe will have control over the process for evaluating child abuse and neglect allegations, determining whether children need to be placed in foster care, and finding permanent homes for children –safely back with their parents, in the homes of caring relatives, or with adoptive families. Thanks to new federal rules, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe (PGST) becomes the first Native American community permitted to operate its own guardianship assistance, foster care and adoption assistance program.
“The approval of this program marks an important milestone in furthering relationships between the federal government and Indian tribes in the operation of child welfare programs,” said George Sheldon, HHS acting assistant secretary for children and families. “I congratulate the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe on its achievement and I look forward to seeing additional Tribes operate their own welfare programs in the future.”
The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-351) allows tribes to receive direct funding from the federal government under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. Prior to this law, states, not tribes, made decisions regarding foster care and permanent families for all Native American children.
The Title IV-E foster care program helps states and tribes provide:
• Safe and stable out-of-home care for children until they can be returned home safely or until they are placed permanently with relatives or adoptive families.
• Services for children and families to address the underlying causes and consequences of abuse and neglect.
• Support for children who are placed with relatives who become guardians or adoptive families.
Effective April 1, PGST will oversee a broad array of services and supports funded by HHS and typically run by states, including:
• Child Welfare
• Child Support
• Child Care
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
PGST will also run a pilot program with the state of Washington to determine eligibility for Medicaid and basic food benefits for tribal members in Kitsap County.
To mark this historic occasion, Acting Assistant Secretary George Sheldon and HHS officials will attend the tribe’s signing ceremony and celebration on March 29 in Port Gamble.
Originally known as the Nux Sklai Yem or Strong People, PGST are descendants of the Salish people. The Salish people are well established in the Puget Sound basin and surrounding areas. In the late 1930’s, the PGST reservation was created on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state. Nearly 1,000 tribe members live there today.
For more information on the program, visit http://www.acf.hhs.gov/ebrochure2011/ACYF_CBPage4.htm.
To find out more about the tribe, visit http://www.pgst.nsn.us/.
Source http://transition.acf.hhs.gov/programs/region10/news/first-native-american-tribe-approved-to-operate-guardianship-foster-care
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Showing posts with label tribe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tribe. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Supreme Court Approached on ICWA Issue - Cherokee Nation
By Carol Berry
The Cherokee Nation and one of its members have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide issues raised by a ruling of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that disputed the right of tribes to define tribal membership in Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) cases.
Specifically, the high court will be asked to consider whether a federally recognized Indian tribe’s membership criteria determine whether a child is a “member” of that tribe for ICWA purposes.
Tribes may have the exclusive right to determine their membership for tribal purposes, but not if they seek to define membership in order to expand a federal (ICWA) statute, a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit ruled last April.
The current petitioners charge that the federal appeals court erred in distinguishing between membership for tribal and federal statutory purposes, because “tribal membership is bound up in the tribe’s sovereign self-determination—as it is in ICWA, where the statutory focus on tribal membership is designed to ‘promote the safety and security of Indian tribes.’”
The issues arose when, in 2007, Britney Jane Little Dove Nielson, then 17, relinquished her parenting rights for her day-old son, C.D.K. and consented to his adoption, but later sought a District Court ruling to invalidate the relinquishment, citing ICWA safeguards against removing Indian children from their families. Nielson herself became a Cherokee tribal member within the next year.
The Cherokee Nation intervened on Nielson’s behalf, arguing that C.D.K. was an Indian child under ICWA because of a section of the Cherokee Nation Citizenship Act which provides that every newborn “who is a direct descendant of an original enrollee shall be automatically admitted as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation for a period of 240 days following the birth of the child.”
Nielson also argued that the termination was invalid because it violated an ICWA provision that imposes a 10-day period before a parent can consent to the termination of parenting rights over an Indian child, and the District Court agreed, tossing out the termination
A subsequent appeal to the 10th Circuit turned on “whether C.D.K. is an ‘Indian child’ within the meaning of ICWA,” the court said, noting that the ICWA definition of “Indian child” applies to an unmarried person under age 18 who is a tribal member and C.D.K. “was thus an Indian child at the time of the relinquishment hearing if, and only if, he was a member of the Cherokee Nation at that time.”
He was a member if the Citizenship Act applied to him at the time of the hearing as a direct descendant of an original enrollee, which the federal appeals court accepted, and if the Act could permissibly extend him citizenship in the ICWA context, a conclusion with which the court disagreed.
ICWA does not apply to the 240-day citizenship awarded by the Cherokee Nation Citizenship Act, the court said. “We find that Congress did not intend the ICWA to authorize this sort of gamesmanship on the part of a tribe—e.g., to authorize a temporary and nonjurisdictional citizenship upon a nonconsenting person in order to invoke ICWA protections.”
Petitioners to the Supreme Court disagree with the “gamesmanship” argument that “a child may not be a ‘member’ of a tribe for ICWA purposes even though he or she is a member for internal tribal purposes,” because the distinction would undermine fundamental purposes of tribal sovereignty.
In BIA guidelines for implementing ICWA, “the determination by a tribe that a child is or is not a member of that tribe…is conclusive,” state the current petitioners, who also charge that the federal appeals court has ignored congressional intent in ICWA “to preserve tribal sovereignty and safeguard Indian children.”
Source http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/10/supreme-court-approached-on-icwa-issue-66774
The Cherokee Nation and one of its members have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide issues raised by a ruling of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that disputed the right of tribes to define tribal membership in Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) cases.
Specifically, the high court will be asked to consider whether a federally recognized Indian tribe’s membership criteria determine whether a child is a “member” of that tribe for ICWA purposes.
Tribes may have the exclusive right to determine their membership for tribal purposes, but not if they seek to define membership in order to expand a federal (ICWA) statute, a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit ruled last April.
The current petitioners charge that the federal appeals court erred in distinguishing between membership for tribal and federal statutory purposes, because “tribal membership is bound up in the tribe’s sovereign self-determination—as it is in ICWA, where the statutory focus on tribal membership is designed to ‘promote the safety and security of Indian tribes.’”
The issues arose when, in 2007, Britney Jane Little Dove Nielson, then 17, relinquished her parenting rights for her day-old son, C.D.K. and consented to his adoption, but later sought a District Court ruling to invalidate the relinquishment, citing ICWA safeguards against removing Indian children from their families. Nielson herself became a Cherokee tribal member within the next year.
The Cherokee Nation intervened on Nielson’s behalf, arguing that C.D.K. was an Indian child under ICWA because of a section of the Cherokee Nation Citizenship Act which provides that every newborn “who is a direct descendant of an original enrollee shall be automatically admitted as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation for a period of 240 days following the birth of the child.”
Nielson also argued that the termination was invalid because it violated an ICWA provision that imposes a 10-day period before a parent can consent to the termination of parenting rights over an Indian child, and the District Court agreed, tossing out the termination
A subsequent appeal to the 10th Circuit turned on “whether C.D.K. is an ‘Indian child’ within the meaning of ICWA,” the court said, noting that the ICWA definition of “Indian child” applies to an unmarried person under age 18 who is a tribal member and C.D.K. “was thus an Indian child at the time of the relinquishment hearing if, and only if, he was a member of the Cherokee Nation at that time.”
He was a member if the Citizenship Act applied to him at the time of the hearing as a direct descendant of an original enrollee, which the federal appeals court accepted, and if the Act could permissibly extend him citizenship in the ICWA context, a conclusion with which the court disagreed.
ICWA does not apply to the 240-day citizenship awarded by the Cherokee Nation Citizenship Act, the court said. “We find that Congress did not intend the ICWA to authorize this sort of gamesmanship on the part of a tribe—e.g., to authorize a temporary and nonjurisdictional citizenship upon a nonconsenting person in order to invoke ICWA protections.”
Petitioners to the Supreme Court disagree with the “gamesmanship” argument that “a child may not be a ‘member’ of a tribe for ICWA purposes even though he or she is a member for internal tribal purposes,” because the distinction would undermine fundamental purposes of tribal sovereignty.
In BIA guidelines for implementing ICWA, “the determination by a tribe that a child is or is not a member of that tribe…is conclusive,” state the current petitioners, who also charge that the federal appeals court has ignored congressional intent in ICWA “to preserve tribal sovereignty and safeguard Indian children.”
Source http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/10/supreme-court-approached-on-icwa-issue-66774
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Number of American Indian children in foster care worries tribal leaders - Minnesota
by Sasha Aslanian
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Source http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/11/30/american-indian-children-foster-care/
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Source http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/11/30/american-indian-children-foster-care/
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Pre-Thanksgiving March Will Memorialize Iowa’s Lost Children
By Stephanie Woodard
In the days before Thanksgiving, mourners and protesters will participate in the Ninth Annual Memorial March to Honor Our Lost Children. The pilgrimage takes walkers from South Sioux City, Nebraska, over the Missouri river and into Sioux City, Iowa, where Native children have for years been swept up by the child-welfare system and even died in its custody. The route evokes the passage of Nebraska tribes, including Poncas, Omahas, Santees and Winnebagos, who came to the city looking for jobs after World War II, as did Sioux people from South Dakota and others.
“They were seeking a better life,” said Frank LaMere, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and executive director of Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, which is organizing the march. “But it didn’t work out that way.” The consequences have been devastating for the Native children of Sioux City, surrounding Woodbury County and Iowa as a whole, according to LaMere, who is a national leader in child-welfare and juvenile-justice issues. “If you’re a Native parent in this county, you’re many times more likely to lose your kids than a white parent. In recent years, three of our Native children—Hannah Thomas, Nathaniel Saunsoci-Mitchell and Larissa Starr-Red Owl—have died after being taken from their families. We march to remember them and all the children who have been separated from their families and communities.”
The march has changed lives. Several years ago, an Internet image of the march inspired a Native boy to stand his ground. “The child had acquiesced to adoption into a white home after years of being told, ‘your people have forgotten about you, your people are drunks and no-goods,’” said LaMere, who was present at a final adjudication in the case. Then one day, the boy was clicking around the web and saw a photograph of the march. “He was shocked. He told the court he’d been lied to. He said he saw hundreds of people looking for their lost children. ‘They were marching for me,’ the boy said. ‘They were looking for me.’ He balked at the adoption and was returned to his tribe.”
On another occasion, an adoptive family watching a television segment on the march happened to see a Native mother who’d lost her parental rights years before carrying a baby picture they recognized. “All excited, the adoptive mother called me and arranged to bring the child to be reunited with the birth mother,” recalled LaMere.
Events surrounding this year’s march—which is also supported by other local groups, including the Community Initiative for Native Children and Families, a coalition of government agencies and nonprofits—begin November 22 with a prayer gathering at 7 p.m. at the Marina Inn, in South Sioux City. The next morning, November 23, at 9 a.m., the marchers progress, rain or shine, into Sioux City, where they stop at the Woodbury County Courthouse and the Department of Human Services. In both places, strangers decide the fate of Native people, according to LaMere.
The reception at each building is expected to be different than it was nine years ago, when a sheriff tried to stop marchers from entering the courthouse, said LaMere. This year, the group will be welcomed and will have an opportunity to read a letter calling for a national investigation into non-compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. “There are no grey areas in ICWA,” said LaMere. “But racist judges, attorneys, guardians ad litem and more are feeding the system, making money off our kids with their decisions.”
Two special guests during the event will include Cade and Jace Courtright, 14-year-old Rosebud Sioux twins who’ve just been reunited with their mother with the help of LaMere and Four Directions program director, Judy Yellowbank, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Cade relies on a wheelchair, and Jace is blind, so LaMere suggested the twins meet the march at the Four Directions Community Center dinner that closes the event. However, the boys insisted on making the journey with the other marchers. “We’ll do whatever is necessary to make that happen,” said LaMere. “An elder once told us that the prayers of children are very powerful, more powerful than those of adults. Those boys’ presence during this time is a gift to us.”
Things are changing in Woodbury County, he added. “When it comes to Native child-welfare decisions, we have a place at the table now, along with the Department of Human Services. They even support our parenting and leadership programs. We can hold their feet to the fire on the issues, and no matter how heated the meetings get, we come away from them knowing we are going to move forward together, as collaborators. We in the Woodbury County Native community are winning the battle to keep our families together, one family, one child at a time.”
Recently, LaMere sat in on a meeting concerning an Omaha child. The judge announced that the tribe had intervened, and the child was going home. “Everyone’s jaws dropped, including mine. Hopefully, the good we see growing here will spread, and more of our children nationwide will be going—and staying—home.”
Source http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/20/pre-thanksgiving-march-will-memorialize-iowa%E2%80%99s-lost-children-63914
In the days before Thanksgiving, mourners and protesters will participate in the Ninth Annual Memorial March to Honor Our Lost Children. The pilgrimage takes walkers from South Sioux City, Nebraska, over the Missouri river and into Sioux City, Iowa, where Native children have for years been swept up by the child-welfare system and even died in its custody. The route evokes the passage of Nebraska tribes, including Poncas, Omahas, Santees and Winnebagos, who came to the city looking for jobs after World War II, as did Sioux people from South Dakota and others.
“They were seeking a better life,” said Frank LaMere, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and executive director of Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, which is organizing the march. “But it didn’t work out that way.” The consequences have been devastating for the Native children of Sioux City, surrounding Woodbury County and Iowa as a whole, according to LaMere, who is a national leader in child-welfare and juvenile-justice issues. “If you’re a Native parent in this county, you’re many times more likely to lose your kids than a white parent. In recent years, three of our Native children—Hannah Thomas, Nathaniel Saunsoci-Mitchell and Larissa Starr-Red Owl—have died after being taken from their families. We march to remember them and all the children who have been separated from their families and communities.”
The march has changed lives. Several years ago, an Internet image of the march inspired a Native boy to stand his ground. “The child had acquiesced to adoption into a white home after years of being told, ‘your people have forgotten about you, your people are drunks and no-goods,’” said LaMere, who was present at a final adjudication in the case. Then one day, the boy was clicking around the web and saw a photograph of the march. “He was shocked. He told the court he’d been lied to. He said he saw hundreds of people looking for their lost children. ‘They were marching for me,’ the boy said. ‘They were looking for me.’ He balked at the adoption and was returned to his tribe.”
On another occasion, an adoptive family watching a television segment on the march happened to see a Native mother who’d lost her parental rights years before carrying a baby picture they recognized. “All excited, the adoptive mother called me and arranged to bring the child to be reunited with the birth mother,” recalled LaMere.
Events surrounding this year’s march—which is also supported by other local groups, including the Community Initiative for Native Children and Families, a coalition of government agencies and nonprofits—begin November 22 with a prayer gathering at 7 p.m. at the Marina Inn, in South Sioux City. The next morning, November 23, at 9 a.m., the marchers progress, rain or shine, into Sioux City, where they stop at the Woodbury County Courthouse and the Department of Human Services. In both places, strangers decide the fate of Native people, according to LaMere.
The reception at each building is expected to be different than it was nine years ago, when a sheriff tried to stop marchers from entering the courthouse, said LaMere. This year, the group will be welcomed and will have an opportunity to read a letter calling for a national investigation into non-compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. “There are no grey areas in ICWA,” said LaMere. “But racist judges, attorneys, guardians ad litem and more are feeding the system, making money off our kids with their decisions.”
Two special guests during the event will include Cade and Jace Courtright, 14-year-old Rosebud Sioux twins who’ve just been reunited with their mother with the help of LaMere and Four Directions program director, Judy Yellowbank, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Cade relies on a wheelchair, and Jace is blind, so LaMere suggested the twins meet the march at the Four Directions Community Center dinner that closes the event. However, the boys insisted on making the journey with the other marchers. “We’ll do whatever is necessary to make that happen,” said LaMere. “An elder once told us that the prayers of children are very powerful, more powerful than those of adults. Those boys’ presence during this time is a gift to us.”
Things are changing in Woodbury County, he added. “When it comes to Native child-welfare decisions, we have a place at the table now, along with the Department of Human Services. They even support our parenting and leadership programs. We can hold their feet to the fire on the issues, and no matter how heated the meetings get, we come away from them knowing we are going to move forward together, as collaborators. We in the Woodbury County Native community are winning the battle to keep our families together, one family, one child at a time.”
Recently, LaMere sat in on a meeting concerning an Omaha child. The judge announced that the tribe had intervened, and the child was going home. “Everyone’s jaws dropped, including mine. Hopefully, the good we see growing here will spread, and more of our children nationwide will be going—and staying—home.”
Source http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/20/pre-thanksgiving-march-will-memorialize-iowa%E2%80%99s-lost-children-63914
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Native children suffer under a modern-day version of forced assimilation
by Donna Ennis
The federal government began sending American Indians to off-reservation boarding schools in the 1870s, when the United States was still at war with Indians. An Army officer, Richard Pratt, founded the first of these schools.
Pratt believed that the Indian Wars weren't extinguishing the culture fast enough, so he came up with the idea of separating children from their parents. The first boarding schools were started in the late 1800s. Our elders describe trains coming into tribal communities and grabbing children from their homes and taking them to these boarding schools. The effects of boarding schools are far-reaching and have resulted in historical, intergenerational and cultural trauma to our Native people.
Those boarding schools have an echo today.
Beginning with his separation from his family at the age of 4, Andrew was shuffled 28 times from foster home to foster home. He was stripped of his identity and placed in homes outside of his culture. He grew up not knowing who he was or where he came from because he was removed at such an impressionable young age, leaving him with no sense of belonging. I believe that a child's most important need, besides food, clothing and shelter, is the need to belong. Although Andrew had many siblings, he saw only a couple of the older ones on occasion and never saw his younger siblings again.
Andrew committed suicide at the age of 17 by hanging himself from a tree on the property of what was to be his last foster home. After his death, arrangements were made to get the family together for his burial. I have worked with many youth over the years, and it never gets any easier for me to comprehend what kind of child welfare system allows these atrocities to happen.
The trauma that Andrew suffered echoed the assimilation policies set out by the government through the federal Indian boarding school program. He too was separated from his family and tribe. Dominant cultural values were forced on him through a process of forced assimilation.
The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act was created by the federal government in order to establish federal authority over adoption of Native American children. The goal of the act was to strengthen and preserve Native American families and culture.
Each year, South Dakota removes an average of 700 Native children from their homes. Of these 700 children, 90 percent are placed in non-Native homes or group care. The continuing separation of children from their heritage is a tragic and destructive aspect of these cross-cultural placements.
Despite federal law to the contrary, a boarding school mentality exists in favor of placing Native children in non-Indian settings. The identity of Native youth is devalued. Forced assimilation leads to conflict with these young people, who can become very confused about their tribal identity.
There is again a price on Indian children's heads, seen in the distribution of federal money to social services for their care. In addition, South Dakota has a record of designating Native children as having special needs -- which means they are worth more to the state financially than other children.
Social service agencies like Children's Home Society have become the new boarding schools for South Dakota. Just like in early tribal communities, children are being forcibly taken from their homes with no real basis. Families and tribes are being forced to hide their children from the state.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/11/08/ennis/
The federal government began sending American Indians to off-reservation boarding schools in the 1870s, when the United States was still at war with Indians. An Army officer, Richard Pratt, founded the first of these schools.
Pratt believed that the Indian Wars weren't extinguishing the culture fast enough, so he came up with the idea of separating children from their parents. The first boarding schools were started in the late 1800s. Our elders describe trains coming into tribal communities and grabbing children from their homes and taking them to these boarding schools. The effects of boarding schools are far-reaching and have resulted in historical, intergenerational and cultural trauma to our Native people.
Those boarding schools have an echo today.
Beginning with his separation from his family at the age of 4, Andrew was shuffled 28 times from foster home to foster home. He was stripped of his identity and placed in homes outside of his culture. He grew up not knowing who he was or where he came from because he was removed at such an impressionable young age, leaving him with no sense of belonging. I believe that a child's most important need, besides food, clothing and shelter, is the need to belong. Although Andrew had many siblings, he saw only a couple of the older ones on occasion and never saw his younger siblings again.
Andrew committed suicide at the age of 17 by hanging himself from a tree on the property of what was to be his last foster home. After his death, arrangements were made to get the family together for his burial. I have worked with many youth over the years, and it never gets any easier for me to comprehend what kind of child welfare system allows these atrocities to happen.
The trauma that Andrew suffered echoed the assimilation policies set out by the government through the federal Indian boarding school program. He too was separated from his family and tribe. Dominant cultural values were forced on him through a process of forced assimilation.
The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act was created by the federal government in order to establish federal authority over adoption of Native American children. The goal of the act was to strengthen and preserve Native American families and culture.
Each year, South Dakota removes an average of 700 Native children from their homes. Of these 700 children, 90 percent are placed in non-Native homes or group care. The continuing separation of children from their heritage is a tragic and destructive aspect of these cross-cultural placements.
Despite federal law to the contrary, a boarding school mentality exists in favor of placing Native children in non-Indian settings. The identity of Native youth is devalued. Forced assimilation leads to conflict with these young people, who can become very confused about their tribal identity.
There is again a price on Indian children's heads, seen in the distribution of federal money to social services for their care. In addition, South Dakota has a record of designating Native children as having special needs -- which means they are worth more to the state financially than other children.
Social service agencies like Children's Home Society have become the new boarding schools for South Dakota. Just like in early tribal communities, children are being forcibly taken from their homes with no real basis. Families and tribes are being forced to hide their children from the state.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/11/08/ennis/
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Minnesota - High court: State, not tribe, must preside over adoption
Decision reverses two earlier orders favoring White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Parents' rights had been terminated.
Article by: ABBY SIMONS, Star Tribune
Updated: October 26, 2011 - 9:27 PM
Adoption proceedings for an Indian child whose parents' rights were terminated must take place within state courts, not tribal courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered Wednesday.
In the 4-2 decision, the court reversed two earlier orders granting the White Earth Band of Ojibwe permission to handle the child's adoption within its tribal court.
In its order, the Supreme Court reasoned that under the Indian Child Welfare Act, tribal authority is limited to foster care placement and termination of parental rights -- not adoptive placement.
The child in question, identified in court documents as L.S., is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. The mother is white, and the couple's five older children have all been removed from parental care or have had their parental rights terminated. According to documents, neither parent lived on the White Earth Reservation.
After parental rights were terminated, a Fillmore County judge granted the White Earth Band of Ojibwe permission to transfer pre-adoption proceedings to its tribal court under the rules of the Indian Child Welfare Act. A guardian ad litem for the child objected, but the Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in favor of the tribe.
In its reversal, the Supreme Court said there is no language in the federal law granting tribes jurisdiction over adoptive placement proceedings for children not living on the reservation. Because the language in the law was ambiguous, the court reasoned that adoptive proceedings should be excluded, not included.
The court also reasoned that the White Earth tribal court also lacked jurisdiction over the termination of parental rights because the mother was not a member of the tribe and the child did not live on the reservation.
The case will now return to Fillmore County District Court, where a guardian ad litem will be re-appointed and pre-adoptive placement will take place under state jurisdiction.
In his dissent, Justice Paul H. Anderson wrote that there is no language in the law that prevents transfer of pre-adoptive and adoptive placement proceedings to a tribal court in cases involving Indian children who do not live on or are not from their tribe's reservation. In light of the law, which is meant to favor tribes, the omission should instead be interpreted as granting the tribe permission to preside over the child's adoption.
Source http://m.startribune.com/local/?id=132640213
Article by: ABBY SIMONS, Star Tribune
Updated: October 26, 2011 - 9:27 PM
Adoption proceedings for an Indian child whose parents' rights were terminated must take place within state courts, not tribal courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered Wednesday.
In the 4-2 decision, the court reversed two earlier orders granting the White Earth Band of Ojibwe permission to handle the child's adoption within its tribal court.
In its order, the Supreme Court reasoned that under the Indian Child Welfare Act, tribal authority is limited to foster care placement and termination of parental rights -- not adoptive placement.
The child in question, identified in court documents as L.S., is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. The mother is white, and the couple's five older children have all been removed from parental care or have had their parental rights terminated. According to documents, neither parent lived on the White Earth Reservation.
After parental rights were terminated, a Fillmore County judge granted the White Earth Band of Ojibwe permission to transfer pre-adoption proceedings to its tribal court under the rules of the Indian Child Welfare Act. A guardian ad litem for the child objected, but the Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in favor of the tribe.
In its reversal, the Supreme Court said there is no language in the federal law granting tribes jurisdiction over adoptive placement proceedings for children not living on the reservation. Because the language in the law was ambiguous, the court reasoned that adoptive proceedings should be excluded, not included.
The court also reasoned that the White Earth tribal court also lacked jurisdiction over the termination of parental rights because the mother was not a member of the tribe and the child did not live on the reservation.
The case will now return to Fillmore County District Court, where a guardian ad litem will be re-appointed and pre-adoptive placement will take place under state jurisdiction.
In his dissent, Justice Paul H. Anderson wrote that there is no language in the law that prevents transfer of pre-adoptive and adoptive placement proceedings to a tribal court in cases involving Indian children who do not live on or are not from their tribe's reservation. In light of the law, which is meant to favor tribes, the omission should instead be interpreted as granting the tribe permission to preside over the child's adoption.
Source http://m.startribune.com/local/?id=132640213
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
A Fight For Her Grandchildren Mirrors A Native Past
Suzanne Crow, 58, has made and received a lot of bad telephone calls in her life, including the time she told her family that her 3-year-old son had died in a hospital because there wasn't a doctor on duty to care for him. Life in South Dakota as a displaced member of the Lakota and Dakota Sioux tribes can be tougher than most.
But the phone call she received on a sunny May day in 2007, Crow says, is still one of the worst. A distant relative had just driven by her home in Sioux Falls, and Crow says what she heard instantly connected her past to her present, bringing the next several years of her life to a near stop.
"The cops are at Lena's house," Crow said the relative told her. "I think they're taking your grandchildren."
Read the rest of this story here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141650809/a-fight-for-her-grandchildren-mirrors-a-native-past
But the phone call she received on a sunny May day in 2007, Crow says, is still one of the worst. A distant relative had just driven by her home in Sioux Falls, and Crow says what she heard instantly connected her past to her present, bringing the next several years of her life to a near stop.
"The cops are at Lena's house," Crow said the relative told her. "I think they're taking your grandchildren."
Read the rest of this story here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141650809/a-fight-for-her-grandchildren-mirrors-a-native-past
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