A new online training portal has been created to assist tribes, social workers and child welfare attorneys on the intricacies of laws that affect Indigenous children and families.
Created by the California Tribal Families Coalition, the portal launched Oct. 15. It offers free courses to its members, and fee-based information to those interested in tribal social services, Indian child welfare case law, relevant state and federal policies and collaborations between tribes and county governments in the nation’s most populous state.
The site also includes content focused on children with developmental disabilities, and juvenile justice and mental health issues that intersect with the 1978 federal Indian Child Welfare Act. The bedrock federal legislation aims to keep CPS-involved Indigenous children connected to their tribes and families.
“I have this one phrase I’m trying to get out of our vernacular, which is ‘compliance,’” said Kimberly Cluff, legal director of the California Tribal Families Coalition. “I’m trying to substitute ‘ICWA compliance’ for either ‘We’re not meeting the potential of ICWA,’ or ‘We are not seeing full ICWA implementation in the way that Congress intended.’”
That is a vital distinction, Cluff added. “Because in my mind, compliance is a minimum — and we’re really trying for maximum.”
Offerings on the website include courses such as an ICWA 101: “Still Here, Still Needed.” Another course outlines how legal definitions such as “active efforts” required to keep tribes and families together apply to children with special needs. Updates to U.S. Supreme Court and California appeals court rulings are also provided, as well as “model performance standards” for tribal attorneys representing clients in child welfare cases.
Michelle Castagne, co-executive director of the California Tribal Families Coalition said she’s hopeful the online portal will have a positive impact across the state that is home to an estimated 660,000 Indigenous people. California is among the 17 states that has buttressed federal law with its own local version of ICWA. But that does not mean it has been fully effective, Castagne added.
Native American children continue to be one of the nation’s most over-represented demographic groups in the foster care system. In California, rates of Native American children entering foster are four times the rates of white children.
The California Tribal Families Coalition aims to change that. Its mission is to promote and protect the health and safety of this Indigenous community by strengthening tribal sovereignty and governance.
Early last year, the coalition formed in 2017 created the California ICWA Institute, a think tank to advance legal and political strategies. So far, it has backed legislation that updated Cal-ICWA, the state’s version of the federal law, and improved strategies for finding missing foster youth.
“After almost 50 years of ICWA implementation, and nearly 20 years of Cal-ICWA, we still see inconsistent practice and a failure to meet the potential of ICWA across counties in California,” Castagne said. “Through the new platform we are excited to share more real-time content and emerging ideas in Indian and tribal child welfare.”