Association on American Indian Affairs

Indian Child Welfare & Juvenile Justice

 

Indian Child Welfare Act

AAIA began its active involvement in Indian child welfare issues in 1967, based upon the request of tribal leaders and distraught parents and grandparents, and for many years was the only national organization active in confronting the crisis in Indian child welfare. Association studies in the 1970s revealed that Indian children were placed in foster care far more than non-Indian children. The rate of placement ranged from 2.4 times the non-Indian rate in New Mexico to 22.4 times the national rate in South Dakota. Moreover, the adoption rate was more than eight times that of non-Indians. These studies led Congress to invite AAIA to work with it to develop legislation to deal with this tragic situation where enormous numbers of Indian children were being removed from their families and tribal communities by overzealous and culturally-insensitive state workers. That legislation became the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA). ICWA has provided vital protections to Indian children, families and tribes during the last 28 years.

AAIA has worked throughout the years ensure appropriate implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act through litigation, advocacy and training.  We have collaborated with other Indian organizations, such as the National Congress of American Indians, and with non-Indian child welfare organizations such as the Children’s Defense Fund.  Some of our more recent activities include:

  • Providing Indian Child Welfare Act training to Idaho state court judges, attorneys and social workers, the Ohio Department of Human Services, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, D.C. City Government, and adoption attorneys
  • Participation in a panel created by Council on Accreditation working to revise accreditation standard for public child welfare agencies to make them consistent with the ICWA.
  • Working with the Native American Rights Fund ICWA Work Group that developed an Internet-based manual on the Indian Child Welfare Act and with the National Indian Child Welfare Association on an important project involving the use of tribally licensed foster homes by the State of Washington.
  • Filing amicus curiae briefs in important ICWA cases such as Doe v. Doe before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and In the Matter of Baby Boy C before the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division. Our involvement in the latter case was instrumental in obtaining an opinion from the appellate court rejecting a lower court decision that had held that it would be unconstitutional to apply ICWA to a child whose parent was estranged from her tribe.

Other child welfare activities, including Titles IV-B and IV-E

Our work in this area is not limited to the Indian Child Welfare Act specifically.  We work to improve the entire child welfare and juvenile justice systems to maximize positive outcomes for Indian children.  Thus, we have worked on a number of successful and important legislative child welfare initiatives to enhance the capacity of tribes to provide quality child welfare services to the children and families that they serve, most notably

  • making tribal governments and foster care and adoptive placements made by tribal courts eligible for direct federal funding under the Title IV-E Foster Care and Adoption Assistance program, as part of a bill known as the Fostering Connections and Increasing Adoptions Act  
  • amendments to the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Act (Title IV-B) to increase funding for tribal programs and increase the number of eligible tribes for funding under that Act.

It is estimated that passage of the Title IV-E and Title IV-B amendments will result in additional funding for tribal child welfare programs of more than $300 million over the next ten years. It will also make tribal foster care homes and relative guardianships eligible for payments on the same basis as the states.

We are currently working to ensure the full implementation of the Fostering Connections Act.  For example, we have provided numerous training session for tribes on the implementation of the Act, have served on an expert panel convened by the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) to make recommendations on the Child and Family Services Review process for states, and have prepared several documents to assist tribes and states in the implementation of the tribal provisions in that Act, as described below.

Tribal Provisions - P.L. 110-351
Article IV-E
Fostering Connections: The Role of the States

Juvinile Justice Reform

Working closely with the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, we have commenced a project to address the disparate treatment of Native Americans by the juvenile justice system and develop alternatives to incarceration for Native American youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system.  We have convened tribal leaders, judges, staff and juvenile justice experts to

  • share the experience of tribes, states and localities working with tribes on the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), including a discussion of the barriers that may have limited the efficacy of JDAI in this context
  • provide tribal representatives with the opportunity to share their perspectives on juvenile justice issues; and discuss and brainstorm about next steps that might be taken to utilize JDAI more effectively to improve tribal juvenile justice system and address disparities in the treatment of Native Americans by federal and state juvenile justice systems.