Chase Iron Eyes of the Lakota People's Law Project leads a protest for Indian children in Washington, D.C., in November 2013. Photo from Facebook
The Department of Health and Human Services should do more to help tribes develop their own foster care programs, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released last month. In 2008, Congress amended Title IV-E of the Social Security Act to recognize tribal sovereignty. But it took four more years for the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe of Washington to become the first to run its own program. Since then, only four additional tribes have reached the same milestone out of 27 that applied, the GAO said in the report. It took the Navajo Nation six years to gain approval. “From the get-go we had a lot of problems trying to work with the feds,” Gladys Ambrose, the tribe's Title IV-E director, told News21. “There was a heck of a lot of headache and fighting we had to do to get our plan approved.” The GAO report said HHS lacked consistent standards to help tribes develop their own programs. It recommended a legislative proposal that would address tribal-specific needs, such as those involving cultural beliefs towards children. "Indian children enter foster care at twice the rate of all American children," the report stated. "In 2012, Indian children comprised 1 percent of the total U.S. child population, although they accounted for 2 percent of children in foster care, according to HHS data." Get the Story:
Tribes face hurdles, cultural concerns, with federal foster care (News21 3/25) Government Accountability Office Report:
HHS Needs to Improve the Consistency and Timeliness of Assistance to Tribes (February 25, 2015)
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