Provisions of Indian Child Welfare Act need support

Social Work Advocates, a publication of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), quotes PhD student Meschelle Linjean in a story about the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which was passed in response to decades of harm in which Native children were removed from their homes and placed with non-Native families.

“These child welfare decisions stemmed from a history of assimilation as policy, and were grounded in bias and lack of understanding of Native cultures and childbearing practices. ... They were associated with harms to both the children and their tribal communities,” Linjean says. “There is no resource more vital to the continued existence and integrity of tribal nations than their children.”

The article notes that Linjean and Hilary N. Weaver, professor emeritus, have developed an NASW webinar on the importance of the ICWA.