S.D. tribes look to establish foster care services on reservations

Five South Dakota tribes have asked the federal government for financial assistance to help operate their own foster care services.

The federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), passed by Congress in 1978, sought to keep American Indian foster children with American Indian families. Yet more than 35 years later, 80 percent of tribal children are still showing up in white foster homes in South Dakota.

The Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Yankton, Oglala and Crow Creek Sioux tribes submitted applications Monday seeking federal planning dollars to develop and operate their own programs.

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe received one of the $300,000 grants last fall and is among the first tribes in the nation to do so.

If approved, the other five tribes would then have two years to build up their capacity to operate their own programs — everything from licensing foster homes to the mandatory collecting and submitting of case level data to the federal government.

Once that infrastructure is in place, those tribes then would be eligible to directly access federal dollars under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, which provides reimbursements for the costs of children in foster care and support for adoptive parents among other things.

As of a year ago, four of the state's tribes — Sisseton-Wahpeton, Oglala, Standing Rock and Flandreau — had agreements in which the Title IV-E dollars first were sent to the state and then disbursed to them. But some tribal officials have complained about that arrangement, saying, for example, that tribal social workers were receiving less in salaries than their state counterparts under Title IV-E guidelines, an accusation the state has denied.

That disagreement would go away if the tribes could get the federal dollars directly, tribal officials say. They also believe it would be easier to sign up more foster families on the reservations if the state wasn't involved.

"I think the Lakota Nation feels very strongly that the state is derelict in its duty," said Matthew Renda of the Lakota People's Law Project, a nonprofit that provides expertise to the Lakota on ICWA violations and assisted with the applications.

"I think what often happens is, because the unemployment rate is so high on the reservations, and because there is such dire poverty, there is a tendency by the state to equate poverty with neglect and thus remove children," Renda continued. "It almost comes down to a cultural bias."

There are only three tribal foster care families on his reservation, said Sam Sully, secretary of the Yankton Sioux Tribe Business and Claims Committee — a number he believes his tribe can improve if it gets federal dollars directly to run its own program.

He said former tribal foster care families have complained that they get no support from the state Department of Social Services when unfounded allegations of abuse or other issues are made against them.

"Foster families get to the point where they don't want to be involved any more because of repercussions of being accused of something and found not guilty of it," Sully said. "We think by utilizing a tribal system for certifying homes. ... still using strict rules and proper background checks ... that there will be more trust if it's run by the tribe."

While these federal planning grants have been available since 2008, only 14 applications had been filed nationally as of a year ago and none had received planning dollars, Lakota People's Law Project officials said.

That began to change in the second half of 2013, when Rosebud applied for and was approved for its grant.

Elizabeth Little Elk, executive director of Rosebud's Sicangu Child and Family Services program, said her tribe was approved last Oct. 1 and has done a lot of work so far, including the development of what she called a "Lakota practices model" for foster care, as well as the creation of a system to provide mandatory reporting information to the federal government.

The state Department of Social Services operates a system called FACIS, which allows it to collect case level data and submit it to the federal government. While some tribal officials worried that the cost of such systems might be too great for the tribes, Little Elk and her staff don't believe that's the case.

"We've identified a company that is knowledgeable about the IV-E requirements that we believe we can work with," said Tammy Red Owl, who handles the technology component in the Sicangu Child and Family Services office. "We think they can configure the system to fit our needs, meet the IV-E requirements and not cost us millions of dollars."

Despite a history of antagonism between the tribes and state over ICWA, including claims South Dakota subsidized its foster care program on the backs of tribal children who were being disproportionately placed in white foster and adoptive homes, both sides seem to agree now on the wisdom of the planning grants.

Tony Venhuizen, spokesman for Gov. Dennis Daugaard, said his boss has encouraged the tribes to move toward direct access of Title IV-E dollars. He wrote a letter last July to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius supporting the tribes' efforts to run their own child welfare and foster care programs.

"He is pleased that several tribes are moving forward," Venhuizen said Thursday. "The administration supported Rosebud's application last year, and state Child Protection Services staff are part of Rosebud's planning group."

Little Elk confirmed that.

"The state is one of our partners, though our tribe will make the final decisions," she said. "In the past, the tribes have never been at the table when decisions about our tribal children were made. That was detrimental to the children, detrimental to families, and ultimately detrimental to the tribe. We want to be able to say, 'This is how we are going to take care of our tribal children.' "

While there is no guarantee that all five tribes will be approved for grants, Sully on the Yankton reservation said any success is good for the Lakota and Dakota nations.

"If one is approved in the Sioux Nation, that is victory in and of itself," he said. "Our number one goal is to save our children and keep them on the reservation, no matter what it takes."

Foster care assistance

Five South Dakota tribes are applying for $300,000 grants to improve and increase their capacity to qualify for direct federal dollars to operate their own foster care and adoption services. Those tribes are:

■ Cheyenne River

■ Crow Creek

■ Standing Rock

■ Oglala

■ Yankton