Tribes often at odds with state foster care system
Another social services horror story!
"fx" wrote in message
...
Tribes often at odds with state foster care system
http://heraldnet.com/article/20071221/NEWS01/916973747
By Krista J. Kapralos, Herald Writer
Jonathan Ho wrapped his hands around a warm mug of coffee, then fiddled
with his metallic red cell phone. He tried to find the words to describe
his childhood.
"You like coffee in the morning?" the 15-year-old Lummi tribal member
asked. "It's just like that, only with me, for a long time, what I wanted
was a cup of alcohol."
There were drugs, too, he said, readily available for a 9-year-old boy
neglected by his parents on the Lummi Indian Reservation near Bellingham.
Ho was living with his uncle then, because his mother couldn't care for
him. But after Ho acted out for a few years, he said, his behavior became
too much for his uncle, and, like thousands of American Indian children,
he landed in foster care -- a system made up mostly of white families.
After about six months bouncing around in temporary homes, Ho was
reconnected with his younger brother, now 14, and sister, now 12. They had
been placed in the home of Maddy Krygier, an 18-year veteran of foster
parenting and a case manager for YouthNet, a Mount Vernon foster licensing
agency. Ho, who is half Lummi and half Vietnamese, said he found security
in the Krygier home -- something he'd never known at Lummi.
Now, six years later, Krygier has legal guardianship of all three
children, plus a fourth, a 14-year-old girl.
All four children are American Indian.
Krygier is white.
To some tribal members, that's a problem.
"I'm the white woman who took the kids away," Krygier said. "That's how
they see me."
In Washington state, tribal children are more likely than most other
states to end up in state foster care, according to a report released last
month by the National Indian Child Welfare Association. They make up 8.4
percent of all children in the state foster care system, even though they
number only 2 percent of the total child population. The state ranks sixth
in the nation for the largest number of Indian children in foster care and
is among the top 10 states with the greatest disproportionality of Indian
children in foster care.
Only four of the state's 26 tribes have an agreement with the state that
funnels federal foster support dollars to the tribes, said Connie Bear
King, a government affairs associate with Northwest Indian Child Welfare
Association. None are in Snohomish County.
"If tribes are able to access the dollars directly, they'll be given the
ability to provide better services, and that would increase the
possibility of native foster and adoptive families," Bear King said.
Without the money, Bear King said, Indian children are more likely to end
up in white homes, where they often struggle to fit in.
"They are often told explicitly that they are different, and it creates a
conflict for them in terms of their identity," Bear King said.
That's when Indian children often face deep trauma, said Lisa Powers, an
Everett-based foster licenser for the state Department of Social and
Health Services. Powers is a Comanche Indian, and her children are
Tulalip.
Indian children placed in white homes are known as "split feathers,"
Powers said.
"They've been taken out of their community, and they don't really know who
they are," she said. "It's very traumatizing for these people. They get
into substance abuse, and even suicide as an end result."
The fear many tribal members feel toward non-Indians who care for tribal
children is rooted in an era during which as many as half of the tribal
children were taken, either by government officials or church leaders.
"There was a true effort to 'save' native children and place them in a
white home," Powers said.
Though some children who were taken were rescued from abuse, many were
removed because it was believed that Indian homes were too poor to care
for them, Powers said.
In 1978, the federal government passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, which
gave tribal leaders a say in custody matters for reservation children.
Now, local advisory committees ensure that state agencies don't remove
tribal children from homes without adequate evidence of neglect or abuse,
Powers said.
"They're no longer removed because the housing isn't fancy," Powers said.
But even today, for Indian children in abusive families, often the only
option is to leave the reservation.
Keira Earhart recites the statistics not in numbers, but in anecdotes. He
speaks of tribal children who are on a waiting list for a foster home
because their current caregivers -- usually relatives -- can't keep them.
Earhart was hired by the Stillaguamish Indian Tribe to recruit foster
families for the tribes' children -- a job he says is among the toughest
in Indian Country.
The tribe has an agreement with the state that allows it to place children
in foster homes. Whenever a Stillaguamish child turns up in state custody,
the tribe petitions for jurisdiction, Earhart said. Most of the time, the
state hands the child over to be placed by the tribe, but the tribe
doesn't automatically get financial support when it asserts jurisdiction,
he said. That means that most families who take children through the tribe
don't get a stipend to help pay for the child's expenses unless the tribe
provides one.
In Indian Country, where the median income still hovers well below the
rest of the nation, an extra child is simply too costly for many families.
It's common for tribal families to care for one another's children, so a
foster care system is viewed by some tribal members as a standardized echo
of what's been happening in Indian Country for generations.
When tribal families become licensed caregivers through the tribe, many of
them are already caring for relatives' children, Earhart said.
Earhart tries to recruit Indian families, but the tribe also licenses
non-Indians who agree to work with the tribe to keep the children
connected to Stillaguamish culture.
Now, the tribe has only two homes that currently meet the state's
criteria, Earhart said. When those homes are filled, Stillaguamish
children are most often placed in relatives' homes. If Earhart can't find
a relative who has space for another child, the child can end up back in
state custody.
New federal laws have made it more difficult to become a state-approved
foster parent, Earhart said. The 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protect and Safety
Act requires prospective foster parents to submit fingerprints for
background checks. Every person living in the home who is over the age of
16 must undergo a background check, and everyone over the age of 18 must
submit fingerprints.
"There are just so many hoops," he said.
Some tribes do whatever they can to keep tribal children on their
reservations, even if it means that they live near the parents who abused
or neglected them.
The Tulalip Tribes tries to first place every foster child in the home of
a tribal-enrolled relative, said Tulalip Tribes General Manager Shelly
Lacy. If a relative's home can't be found, the tribe looks for a foster
family that is willing to bring the child to Tulalip cultural events, she
said.
"This is important for children of all races," she said. "If you live with
your same race, then you have the same core values and culture in that
home."
The Lummi Nation places children with other tribal families unless the
child is enrolled in another tribe, according to information provided by
the tribe. Leslie Rebey, director of the tribes' child welfare program,
did not provide any further information.
"Even kids in a dysfunctional family sometimes will do better if they stay
with their families," said Mary McGauhey, a Marysville foster mom who has
cared for Indian children. "When they get away from the reservation, they
lose their cultural identity."
McGauhey said it's difficult to access tribal services for her foster
children, even if they are enrolled in a local tribe, because she is a
white woman.
Krygier knows that it's not ideal for the four Indian children she cares
for to live with her instead of an Indian family, but she does what she
can to keep them connected to their culture. Krygier has offered to take
them to events that are open to the public, but the teens say they're not
interested in attending "a white man's pow-wow." They'd rather participate
in private longhouse ceremonies, but Krygier doesn't know when those
occur.
When Krygier takes the teens to visit family members on the Lummi
reservation, tribal members make disparaging comments.
"When we visit, they tell me, 'I hate that lady. Why are you even living
with her?'" Ho said. "But I just try to ignore it."
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A DAILY
BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NATIONAL SECURITY
AGENCY/CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WIRETAPPING PROGRAMS....
CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.
every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf
http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com
Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS
*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*
Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5
Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that are
supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000
children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse and kills
more children then parents in the United States. If the citizens of this
country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold parents too. No
judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY government agency
because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and death than any human
being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more human rights violations
and deaths of children then the homes from which they were removed. When
are the judges going to wake up and see that they are sending children to
their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes
based on the mere opinion of a bunch of social workers.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF REFORMING
OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES TAKE A
STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY ARE
"FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
|