Adoptions & Foster care
Indian Adoption Project, ICWA, and Current Foster Care Issues
Overview
What is adoption?
Adoption removes the rights and responsibilities of the child's birth parent(s), and gives them to adoptive parent(s). The child will lose all rights of inheritance from their birth family, and will take the name of their adoptive family.
Today, some adoptions are open and birth parents can exchange letters, emails or even have face-to-face meetings with their children. Other adoptions are closed, and there’s no contact after a child’s placement with his or her adoptive parents.
What is foster care?
Children go into foster care, and are then placed under the care of foster parents, when their birth parents can’t care for them. Foster care placements are usually made by the court system or a social services agency. The foster care system also places children in group homes. Foster parents are certified by the state in which they live.
Foster care is supposed to be temporary, with the goal of reuniting a child with his or her birth parents after it’s been determined that they can properly provide for their child financially, emotionally and socially.
First, learn about the history
Indian Adoption Project & Indian Child Welfare Act
Second, read about Native people's stories
Adults who were adopted through the Indian Adoption Project share their feelings and why they were taken from their families
What are the issues today?
Foster Care is still failing to help Native youth
Fawn, a Native woman, tried to take in Native children, but the foster care system put them with another family who treated the children badly.
The United States Supreme Court is deciding if they should keep a law that says Native children should be adopted by Native families if possible.