Oregon - Ethica? An Independent Voice for Ethical Adoption

For decades, children who were removed from their homes in child-welfare cases among the Port Gamble S?Klallam Tribe and other tribes across the United States were taken off their reservations and placed in the homes of nontribal members. Because individual states handled child-welfare issues for Native-American tribes, including foster care, abused and neglected children were forced to leave their communities and, often, their cultures.

That ended when Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, requiring nearly all Native American children who were taken out of their homes by social-services officials to be placed with relatives or other tribal members. Though the children would remain in state care, a strong focus of the law was keeping Native American families, and tribes, together.

But the Port Gamble S?Klallam were determined to do what had never been done before: Gain complete control over the welfare of their own children.

Late last year, with little fanfare, the 1,000-member tribe became the first in the nation to assume all control of its guardianships, foster care and adoptions. Under an agreement with the federal government, the tribe essentially severed the oversight by the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and became solely responsible for its child-welfare cases?.

Nearly a dozen tribes across the country are inching toward having their own independent child-welfare operations, said Jack Trope, executive director at the Association on American Indian Affairs, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that works closely with tribes across the nation?

Because of the Port Gamble S?Klallam?s efforts, the tribe has become a model for other tribes. From the Navajo to the Suquamish, tribes have reached out to the Port Gamble S?Klallam to ask for guidance in how to achieve the same autonomy, George said.

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