Foster care for American Indian children too frequent in Utah

This new article discusses how Utah is still in the top ten states for removal of Native American children to foster care.

Excerpts: “True, there has been a vast improvement in out-of-home placements over those decades. In 1976, two years before passage of the act, American Indian children in Utah were 1,500 times more likely to be in foster care than other children in the state, said Utah Appeals Court Judge William Thorne.

Today, American Indian children are four times more likely to be in foster care, a rate still significant enough to place Utah in the top 10 states for disproportionate rates.

“They are better than they were, but they’re not where they need to be yet,” said Thorne, who is a member of the Pomo tribe and serves on the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care. “The children are still out of home more often than necessary.”

A recent conference drew members of every tribe in Utah, judges, caseworkers, foster parents and even a state lawmaker to ponder why that is the case and what to do about it. Brent Platt, director of the state Division of Child and Family Services, opened the dialogue last spring when he met with elders in a two-day peace circle gathering to air views of child welfare.

American Indians comprise just 1 percent of Utah’s population but make up 6 percent of all children in foster care. Thorne said cultural differences, rather than racism, are likely behind the numbers. Two-thirds of children are in foster care because of neglect rather than abuse, which Thorne pointed out is often subjective and amounts to “someone decided their own family was not good enough.”

“That notion was amplified in Utah through the federal boarding school program and the Indian Placement Program, which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operated between 1947 and 1996, he said. Through the program, thousands of American Indian children were placed in Mormon homes, where it was thought they would receive better educations and be easily assimilated into mainstream society. But critics said it undermined tribal ties and a sense of identity.

Thorne said one study found that American Indian kids raised in non-Indian homes were more likely to have a negative view of their own culture, leading researchers to conclude the children were left without positive images of their own heritage. Another troubling sign: American Indian youths have a suicide rate that is 1.5 to 3 times higher than that for children from other ethnic groups in the U.S.
In Utah, a huge gap persists between the number of children in foster care and culturally appropriate homes for them.””

Suspending Rights vs. Terminating Rights

“”The challenge is just getting foster families to open up to the possibilities of supporting children’s relationships with extended family members,” Hamblin said.

Anita Fineday, chief judge for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, said her tribe suspends rather than terminates parental rights, leaving open the possibility for contact even if the parent does not have custody. It also preserves extended family relationships.”

Foster care for American Indian children too frequent in Utah
[Salt Lake Tribune 3/29/12 by Brooke Adams, distributed by Scrips News]

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