More questions than answers #Alexandria #ICWA

ICWA Placement Preference Decision Out of California Involving Choctaw Tribe (Turtle Talk)

Here.
This is a re-occurring and incredibly frustrating ICWA fact pattern–if the ICWA compliant placement is out of state, or far away from the parents, and the goal is reunification, it makes sense for the tribe and state to allow for a non-compliant ICWA placement near the parents. What happens, however, when reunification fails? As in this case, a court is often unwilling to remove the child from the home she has been in for anywhere from one to three years. Honest, actual, concurrent permanency planning could help with this, but while that is a best practice, it does not seem to be happening with any regularity at the state.

Concluding that the ICWA’s adoptive placement preferences do apply to this case, we then review the trial court’s order finding that the P.s failed to produce clear and convincing evidence of good cause to depart from those placement preferences. We determine that the court applied the correct burden of proof by requiring the P.s to prove by clear and convincing evidence that there was good cause to deviate from section 1915’s placement preferences. However, the court erroneously required the P.s to prove a certainty that Alexandria would suffer harm if moved, and failed to consider Alexandria’s best interests or her bond with the P.s in determining good cause.
***
We recognize that a final decision regarding Alexandria’s adoptive placement will be further delayed as a result of our determination of the merits of this appeal. That delay is warranted by the need to insure that the correct legal standard is utilized in deciding whether good cause has been shown that it is in the best interest of Alexandria to depart from the ICWA’s placement preferences.

As also often happens, the parties start arguing about the very constitutionality of ICWA, making this case a “not as bad as it could have been” case–the court didn’t find ICWA is unconstitutional, nor does Adoptive Couple apply (as the de facto parents argued) to this fact pattern. And yet, the trial court decision placing the child with her extended family is still overturned based on the child’s best interest standard. Getting courts to acknowledge that the best interests of a child ought to include the child’s whole life, not just the one transition in front of the court at that moment, is both vital and seemingly impossible.

For the (depressing) record, here is Evelyn Blanchard writing the same thing in 1977 in The Destruction of American Indian Families, ed. Steven Unger (Association of American Indian Affairs 1977).

TODAY:  NICWA’s statement:

We are disturbed by this weekend’s flurry of negative media attention regarding the attempted reunification of a child with her family in Utah. In this contentious custody case, there have never been any surprises as far as what the law required. The foster family was well aware years ago this girl is an Indian child, whose case is subject to the requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and who has relatives who were willing to raise her if reunification with her father was unsuccessful.

In fact, the only surprising turn of events is the lengths the foster family has gone to, under the advice of an attorney with a long history of trying to overturn ICWA, to drag out litigation as long as possible, creating instability for the child in question. That the foster family now argues bonding and attachment should supersede all else despite testimony of those closest to her case, seems like a long-term, calculated legal strategy based on the simple fact that the law was always clear, they understood it, but just chose not to abide by it.

The purpose of foster care is to provide temporary care for children while families get services and support to reunite with their children, not to fast-track the creation of new families when there is extended family available who want to care for the child. The temporary nature of these relationships is also the reason we view those who serve as foster parents as selfless and nurturing individuals. Reunification and placement with extended family whenever possible is best practice for all children, not just Native American children.

We call on the media to provide balanced reporting and to ask vital questions regarding these facts before inflaming the public and subjecting the privacy and future well-being of a little girl to national debate.

Previous coverage of the appeal of this case is here.

As always, we remain concerned with the lack of privacy for a child who doesn’t get to make decisions about her identity being put forward into the press. In perhaps no surprise to anyone, this case involves repeat players from the Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl case.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/video/indian-child-welfare-act-separates-062934936.html

Why Treaties Matter

Why Treaties Matter: Self-Government in the Dakota and Ojibwe Nation is a nationally recognized, award-winning, traveling exhibit made in partnership with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Virtual Exhibit

Unable to explore the exhibit in person? The online virtual exhibit is a great alternative to the in-person experience. Explore the virtual exhibit.
 
In the News

Highlights of what people are saying and the Traveling Exhibit to date (PDF)

The exhibit has expanded to include seven educator guides of innovative classroom material and an enhanced virtual exhibit available at TreatiesMatter.org.

Learn more about the Humanities Center's work with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the development of the Why Treaties Matter project.


Dakota and Ojibwe-U.S.Treaties Today
Learn from tribal members in Minnesota as they discuss treaties from a personal and scholarly perspective. How do these videos challenge or reinforce your current perceptions of treaties?

A Day in the Life of Minnesota Tribal Nations is a 14 minute video production by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, created in partnership with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the Minnesota Humanities Center.

American Indian Responses to Statehood
In the months leading up to the state of Minnesota's sesquicentenial, the Minnesota Humanities Center began working with Dakota and Ojibwe people to record stories of how statehood affected their homes, their familes, their future.

Bdote Memory Map
The Bdote Memory Map (bdotememorymap.org) is a geography-based, digital media resource for Dakota people to express connections to traditional places and to help non-Native citizens see Minnesota from an indigenous point of view.

Map of major land cessions in Minnesota treaties (PDF)

Treaties involving Indigenous people and land with Minnesota Territory (PDF)

Play the quiz: How much do YOU know about about treaties? (will download a PowerPoint onto your computer)

Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim

About the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim + Registration as a Class Member

About the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim + Registration as a Class Member

About the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim

The Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim (www.sixtiesscoopclaim.com) is about an agreement between Canada and Ontario that resulted in a lost generation of Indian children.

The children were “lost” because they lost their cultural identity, family, extended family, community, language, spirituality, traditions and customs of their First Nations’ communities. Canada turned a blind eye to the protection of the identity of the Indian child when it entered into an agreement leaving these children to be dealt with under Ontario child protection and adoption laws without regard to their cultural identity.

The Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim holds Canada to its constitutional responsibility for the protection of the cultural identity of the Indian.

Some writers, commentators and survivors, say that what Canada did was intentional, that by turning a blind eye through the agreement with Ontario, a generation of Indian children would be assimilated into mainstream culture.

Some international NGO observers argue that what took place was a form of genocide,identity genocide, carried out by the Canadian government.

In the meantime, register here if you are one of the survivors of the lost generation of children of the Sixties Scoop.

Registration as a Class Member

The “Class” Definition

In Brown & Commanda v. Canada [2013] ONSC 5637, [2013] O.J. No. 4381 (S.C.J.), the Honourable Justice Edward Belobaba defines the “class” for the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim as follows:

Indian children who were taken from their homes on reserves in Ontario between December 1, 1965 and December 31, 1984 and were placed in the care of non-aboriginal foster or adoptive parents who did not raise the children in accordance with the aboriginal person’s customs, traditions, and practices.

Therefore, to be a member of the class, you are a person who:

1. is an Indian, and

2. was removed from your Indian reserve, and

3. was removed from your Ontario reserve between December 1, 1965 and December 31, 1984, and

4. was placed in the care of non-aboriginal foster or adoptive parents, and

5. those non-aboriginal foster parents or adoptive parents did not raise you in accordance with your aboriginal or Indian customs, traditions and practices.

If you cannot remember or you don’t know enough information to know if you qualify as a “class” member, should you still register?

The answer is “YES”. Please register.

If you don’t know or don’t remember any information as described in the examples below, please register.

You may qualify even if you don’t know or remember the information you might think you need to know or remember.

READ ON and if you fall into any of the following 12 examples then doregister as a class member:

(1) If you can’t remember or don’t know the date when you lived on a reserve, but can only remember the date when you were placed in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember the date when you lived on a reserve.

(2) If you can’t remember or don’t know the date when you were place in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home, but can remember when you were removed from your Indian community, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember or do not know the date when you were placed in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home.

(3) If you can’t remember or do not know the dates of either events, can’t remember or do not know when you lived on a reserve or when you were placed in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember or do not know the dates of either event.

(4) If you can’t remember or do not know the exact dates, or even the year when it happened, just approximately some time during the 20-year period, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember or do not know the exact dates of either event.

(5) If you can’t remember or do not know where you ended up, the place of your foster home or adoptive home, register. You don’t need to know or remember where you were placed.

(6) If you can’t remember or do not know the name or location of your original reserve, register. You don’t need to remember or know the name or location of your reserve as long as it was in Ontario.

(7) If you can’t remember or do not know if you were a status Indian when you were removed, register. You don’t need proof of your Indian status to register.

(8) If you went from an Indian residential school to a non-aboriginal foster home or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register. We intend to include you as part of the class.

(9) If you were born as an Indian and did not ever live on a reserve, but went directly to a non-aboriginal foster home or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register.

(10) If you were removed before December 1, 1965 but placed in a non-aboriginal foster home or non-aboriginal adoptive home any time between December 1, 1965 and December 31, 1984, register.

(11) If you don’t know whether where you lived was an official or registered Indian reserve, register. It does not matter whether you know whether the First Nations community was or was not an official or registered reserve.

(12) If you know you were not a status Indian when you were removed, and then placed in a non-aboriginal foster home or adoptive home, but you identity as a Canadian aboriginal person, for example, a Métis, register. Indicate this fact on the registration form.

Letting Others Know About this Website and Registration

After you have registered, send out notice to anyone else you know who might want to know about the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim (www.sixtiesscoopclaim.com). Brown and Commanda started this case believing that all persons who were affected would come forward and begin the long road of healing from the pain of being the lost generation of children of the Sixties Scoop. Please share this page.

Chris Eyre 3min Video

Chris Eyre is a filmmaker and reunited adoptee. His bio is in the book TWO WORLDS.

#60sScoop Stolen Generations

Sixties Scoop still not well-recognized, aboriginal adoptees say

Experts say exact numbers of aboriginal children adopted by Quebec families unclear...

Real Talk on Race is CBC Montreal's special series exploring personal conversations and experiences around race in the city.

• For the full series, click here
• Real Talk on Race: What's behind CBC Montreal's series
• Point of View: 'Change her name. Don't tell her she's native'

---

For decades, thousands of aboriginal children were taken from their parents, often without their consent or even their knowledge, and grew up never knowing their own culture.
But a lot of Canadians don't know it.

'My parents who adopted me had no idea I was stolen.' - Nina Segalowitz, aboriginal child of Sixties Scoop

"My parents who adopted me had no idea I was stolen," said Nina Segalowitz, a child of what's known as the Sixties Scoop. "They had no idea the scope of how many kids...had been stolen and were in the system."
Segalowitz grew up in Montreal, the daughter of a white Jewish father and a Filipino mother. But she was born Anne-Marie Thrasher, in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories.

 

READ NOW

60s Scoop Nakuset's Story

Nakuset says she grew up yearning for her native roots. 'I so desperately wanted to belong.' (Pierre Temblay/Listo Films)

READ HERE

 

Read all of the Point of View pieces in the Real Talk on Race series

Abandoned, Adopted Here trailer

My friend Lucy's new documentary... please watch... Trace

Negotiating Indian Identity: Canada

By Trace Hentz

 

Click below to read paper

 

[PDF] A Discussion Paper on Indigenous Custom Adoption Part 1: Severed Connections-Historical Overview of Indigenous Adoption in Canada

L di Tomasso, S de Finney - First Peoples Child Family Review, 2015

... interests of the child” became the primary consideration of child welfare agencies in North America
(Carrière, 2010). ... Split feathers: Adult American Indians who were placed in non-Indian families
as children. ... Negotiating Indian identity: Native Americans and transracial adoption ...

Arise America: Native American Teen Suicides - Simon Moya Smith

HARD LIVES: living in concentration camps LINK

The 60's Scoop

The Sixties Scoop (video)

Historic agreement gives tribe foster care control

Jurisdiction over child welfare to transfer from state to Tlingit and Haida Central Council

By LISA PHU | JUNEAU EMPIRE| March 3, 2016

When children are taken out of their homes due to neglect or abuse, they’re under the responsibility and jurisdiction of the State Office of Children’s Services. 

Now, through an agreement signed Wednesday night at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall between the State of Alaska and Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the Central Council will be able to take over child welfare cases of tribal children.

Instead of going through the state court system, these cases will go through the tribal court system. Instead of state workers overseeing the cases, tribal case managers will work with families. Instead of the state licensing the foster homes, Central Council will recruit and license tribal foster homes and be reimbursed by the state for the cost of foster care placement.

“This truly is a government-to-government agreement that recognizes that tribes are uniquely and supremely and ultimately qualified to be able to meet the needs of tribal families,” said Valerie Davidson, Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner. “That’s not new. And quite frankly — if I may as an Alaska Native — we have known that for thousands of years.” 

Barbara Dude is a child welfare specialist with Central Council’s Tribal Family & Youth Services. She said parents trying to get their children back will have a better working relationship with a tribal entity than with the state, and be more successful at reunification. 

“Families are just more willing to work with us because we’re the tribal workers. They’re more willing to sit down with us and help their case plans,” Dude said.

She also noted that tribal court “is just a friendlier environment.”

President Richard Peterson said Central Council has been working toward the agreement for 16 years and thanked the Office of Children’s Services for working collaboratively. He said Alaska Native families continue to work through issues stemming from historical trauma and the agreement “will begin putting our families back together.”

Central Council will start by taking just a few Juneau cases from the state. Right now, 24 Tlingit and Haida children are in foster homes, the majority of which are in Juneau, according to the Office of Children’s Services.

Francine Eddy Jones, director of Central Council’s Tribal Family & Youth Services, said it’s important to be methodical and cautious.

“It’s a process of learning together — Office of Children’s Services, the tribe, the state court and tribal court — to figure out what that handoff looks like,” she said.

Jones said Central Council hopes to provide a lot of support and encouragement to families who’ve had children taken away and tribal foster families, many of whom don’t trust the state.

“It really means taking care of our own,” Jones said. “It means being responsible and respectful and honoring them with the values of the tribe, making sure we’re holding up those families whatever that situation is for why their children are removed, embrace them and provide them the support and services they need to get back on their feet, and hopefully be reunited with their children. That’s our commitment.”

This is only the second such agreement between the state and a tribe. The first was with the Tanana Chiefs Conference in 2013. 

• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.

Top Photo: After signing the agreement, Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Valerie Davidson takes a picture of Central Council President Richard Peterson doing the same. The signing ceremony took place at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on Wednesday night.

Reunion Show ‘Long Lost Family’ on March 6

TLC Orders Tear-Jerking Reunion Show ‘Long Lost Family’ to Series (Exclusive) https://t.co/9qC8pP8vyA via @TheWrap

— OmniTrace (@OmniTrace) March 1, 2016

Open a fresh box of Kleenex and flip over to TLC: The cable channel has ordered “Long Lost Family” to series.
The show features highly emotional and touching stories of people who have suffered a lifetime of separation and are yearning to be reunited with their birth parents and biological families. The reverse also applies on this reality show: Parents who wish to find children they had to place for adoption long ago.
Hosts Chris Jacobs and Lisa Joyner are both adoptees who have embarked on their own journeys to discover their biological families. Each episode follows the hosts as they investigate the stories of two individuals or families who have longed to resolve their lifelong searches.

The stakes are high, TLC promises: A successful investigation offers the promise of not just a heartwarming reunion but also a chance of redemption for people who have wrestled with emotional agony for years.
There is no simple path to find the missing loved ones. With tightly held family secrets in their way, the searchers have odds stacked against them. Jacobs and Joyner conduct painstaking searches through public records and utilize the latest DNA technology in their hunt for answers. But what they discover, and who they find, is anything but expected.
TLC’s descriptions of some participants are included below.

Rita (pictured above, with host Joyner)
A mother who was forced to place her baby boy for adoption 31 years ago. Rita’s boyfriend dumped her when she told him she was pregnant and her mother sent her to a home for pregnant young women for fear of a scandal. Still holding on to his baby blanket from the hospital, she longs to meet her son again and keep the promise she made to find him.
Jenny
Her birth mother was the daughter of a minister who was deeply embarrassed by a pregnancy out of wedlock. Because of the lack of support offered, she ended up placing Jenny with social services. The search for Jenny’s birth mother takes a dramatic turn, when photo evidence suggests they may have been unknowingly connected for years.
Diana and Jeannette
They are two women in search for the father who suddenly vanished from their lives when they were just 4 and 5 years old. With no memories of their separation from him, the women have grown up haunted by his sudden disappearance. They hope he can be found so they can see him once again to find out the truth and ask him what happened.
Ancestry, the largest provider of family history and personal DNA testing, is teaming up with TLC as a sponsor of the upcoming season. As part of the show sponsorship, Ancestry provides family history research on each of the featured individuals to help make discoveries possible.

“Long Lost Family” is produced by Shed Media for TLC. The series premieres Sunday, March 6, at 10/9c.  Watch a video teaser above, which is also exclusive to TheWrap.

Lost Bird of Wounded Knee

SDPB DOCUMENTARIES

Lost Bird of Wounded Knee

WATCH

• Aired: 12/31/1999
• 26:54
• Rating: TV-G

The true story of a Lakota child who survived the Wounded Knee massacre, only to be adopted as a "living curio" by a prominent white couple. What follows is another tragedy - a life of racism, abuse, poverty, and heartbreak. 

I highly recommend you read this book. This is a true story, with all its tragedy and horror...  Trace

Truth and Reconciliation: The Findings on Wabanaki Child Welfare in the State of Maine

inS

“Imagine you’re about to have a little one, the love that you have for that little one… and then imagine somebody outside of your family you don’t even know making claims on your little one. They don’t like the way you live and they’re going to take your little one by force. Imagine what the loss is when this is not just your family, but your entire community loses its children.” — gkisedtanamoogk, Truth and Reconciliation Commission member in the documentary film First Light

The U.S. government’s historical attempts to solve the so-called “Indian problem” have included stealing land, introducing disease and warfare, and killing entire tribes. The documented atrocities have been relentless, resulting in great harm to the Indigenous people of this land. One of the most painful of these has been the forced removal of Native children from their families and communities.
In the 1800s Congress authorized the Civilization Fund Act, providing funding for boarding schools for Indian children. Native children were taken far from their homes to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their language or practice their customs. Children were separated from siblings and were often badly abused; many died there. Those who survived returned to their communities not knowing their language and traditions, and they and their communities were never the same. The last boarding school closed in 1984.


Child Welfare
In the 1950s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America created the Indian Adoption Project, through which hundreds of Native children were taken from their families and placed with mostly white adoptive parents. The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act gave Indian children, families, and communities greater legal protections by recognizing “the essential tribal relationship of Indian people and culture and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and families.” Still, through the 1990s, Native children were being placed in foster care in Maine at a rate higher than most other states.
In 1999, Wabanaki Tribes and the state of Maine collaborated to improve state compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Muskie School of Public Service, with funding from the Maine Office of Child and Family Services, established a working group (later named Maine-Wabanaki REACH) with tribal and state child welfare representatives as members. The working group trained caseworkers, developed policy, and gathered data about compliance in many Maine communities.


Truth and Reconciliation
Despite positive steps, the working group found that significant problems remained in practice and attitudes toward working with Native children, families, and communities. In 2008, they concluded that in order to create lasting change, the past needed to be investigated and better understood. Over the next four years, the working group created the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission—the first of its kind to address issues of Native child welfare—to investigate systemic abuses and the factors that contributed to them.
The Commission’s articulated intent was to uncover the truth of what happened to Wabanaki people in state child welfare following the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, and to promote healing and contribute to change in child welfare practices. Its mandate was signed in 2012 by the five Wabanaki Chiefs and the Maine governor, outlining responsibilities, timelines, and guidelines for interactions with tribal communities.
Commissions rely on personal testimony, documentary research, and other sources of evidence to understand the past. The Maine Commission held listening circles, ceremonial gatherings, and interviews in six Wabanaki communities and in five regions with non-Native Mainers. Hundreds of people participated, including Wabanaki elders, children formerly in care, foster and adoptive parents, tribal leaders, service providers, incarcerated people, attorneys and judges, caseworkers and administrators, and parents and grandparents. Talking about memories, often painful and traumatic, was not an easy task, as many people had never before shared their stories.


Commission Findings
The Commission’s final report, presented in 2015, found that Wabanaki children in Maine entered foster care at an average of five times the rate of non-Native children. The report concluded that to improve Native child welfare, the state and the tribes must continue to confront:
1. Underlying racism still at work in state institutions and the public
2. Ongoing impact of historical trauma, also known as intergenerational trauma, on Wabanaki people that influences the well-being of individuals and communities
3. Differing interpretations of tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction that make encounters between the tribes and the state contentious

The report further asserted that these conditions “can be held within the context of continued cultural genocide, as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948.


What’s Next?
The Commission issued a series of recommendations, inviting communities and stakeholders to engage with the underlying conditions that contribute to the problematic relationship between the Wabanaki Tribes and the state of Maine and with child welfare practice failures. The Upstander Project represents one such effort with its films, First Light and Dawnland, companion learning resources, and teacher workshops.
Maine-Wabanaki REACH, which formed the Commission, provides education on history, trauma, resiliency, healing, and ally-building to Maine and Wabanaki communities. Healing circles, health and wellness workshops, and community events focus on resilience and capacity building in all tribal communities in the state. This includes restorative justice and peacemaking circles and creating connections to Wabanaki incarcerated relatives through a prison book drive and pen pal initiative. REACH provides educational events, ally-building, and ongoing ally supports across Maine to deepen the understanding of the shared history between Native and nonNative Mainers. Allies are encouraged to take action to create a more just relationship between Native and non-Native people in Maine via legislative hearings, rallies, letters to the editor, letters to legislators, and volunteering at Truth Commission events. REACH staff are also working with the Indian Child Welfare Act working group on child welfare improvements. REACH will play a vital role in the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations.
As the Commission stated in its final report, “We have heard the voices of the many who spoke with us and to remain quiet is to continue to perpetrate harms that must be known. Consider this report as a step toward refusing that silence and continuing this conversation, that will, we hope, like all the best communication, offer ample time for everyone to simply listen.”
— Penthea Burns is Maine-Wabanaki REACH co-director (www.mainewabanakireach.org)

To read the Commission’s report in full, visit www.mainewabanakitrc.org/report. 

First Light 
First Light is the first film in a series, anchored by the feature film Dawnland (to be released in 2017), conveying the stories of pain and resilience that emerged during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s process. It  tells a piece of the story of the Commission and its origins. Dawnland will bring viewers inside the Commission and share testimony from those who suffered because of the child welfare system, along with those who upheld its policies.

“When we tell these stories, we feel it in our bodies and our hearts. But I believe we can get to the point where it has less power over us. This was a perfect example of the readiness, that it’s time.” —Sandy White Hawk, TRC Commissioner.

First Light and its learning resources are available for free at upstanderproject.org. These resources help teachers and students deepen their understanding of the brutal and disturbing history of settler colonialism that began with the invasion of Native peoples’ homeland, and government policies that aimed to force Native people to stop being who they are. These resources are central to the Upstander Project’s teacher and student workshops.
The Upstander Project helps bystanders become upstanders through compelling documentary films and learning resources. Its goals are to help educators and students overcome indifference to social injustice, develop the skills of upstanders, and contribute to action-oriented campaigns in response to vital social issues.

View First Light here: upstanderproject.org. 
 

Introducing the Commissioners
• gkisedtanamoogk (key-said-TAH-NAH-mook), Wampanoag from the community of Mashpee in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and adjunct instructor in the Native American Studies and Peace & Reconciliation Programs at the University of Maine
• Matt Dunlap, Maine’s secretary of state and former Maine state representative
• Carol Wishcamper, former chair of the Maine state board of education, the Maine Center for Educational Service, and the Maine chapter of the Nature Conservancy
• Sandy White Hawk, Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and founder and director of the First Nations Repatriation Institute
• Dr. Gail Werrbach, director and associate professor at the University of Maine School of Social Work

Source: Cultural Survival

LINK

Adoptee Nation: Native Adoptees fighting REAL ID ACT in real time

By Trace L Hentz

Leland Morill Kirk and I gave an interview to the Santa Fe Reporter newspaper that just hit newstands in New Mexico.  

Here is the LINK.

There is no doubt in my mind that many many adoptees are very concerned about their "fake" amended birth certificates. And too many lame lawmakers are still dragging their feet about changing the laws to give us adoptees our original paperwork and birth certificate.  It's getting serious enough that even voting in elections might be affected!

I hope you will share this article and talk to your own lawmaker by sending them the link to this blog.

“On paper, we’ve literally disappeared into the American landscape,” says Trace Lara Hentz, 59, a Greenfield, Mass., adoptee who shared her story with SFR.  For decades, she’s been trying to get her birth certificate from the state of Minnesota, but to no avail, and now she worries about how the Real ID Act will make her life harder without the document.

“It’s criminal neglect in my mind,” Hentz claims, “how certain states would refuse us these documents and that the federal government would write an act that wouldn’t even consider us.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of adoptees out there like me,” she says. “While I understand the need for security, I don’t think we’re going about it the right way.” - See more at: http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-11596-an-adoptee-nation.html#sthash.tTF1XJaW.dpuf

Trauma of Stolen Generations 'passed down'

We remember the anniversary of the official apology to Stolen Generations #Apology2016 More:https://t.co/R4A1vaqLZy pic.twitter.com/P8jaGYupjK

— Australian Red Cross (@RedCrossAU) February 13, 2016

 


February 11, 2016 | Gemma Najem | SOURCE





A survivor says the trauma of the Stolen Generations is being transferred to younger generations in a cycle that needs to be broken, ahead of the eighth anniversary of Australia's apology.
Sharing stories and bonding with other Stolen Generation members has proved to be one of the best ways to help men and women heal, a new report from The Healing Foundation says.
Survivor Aunty Lorraine Peeters says children are still being affected by the older generation's loss of culture, family and community.
"If you grow up in a household where you've got traumatised people that have all these issues, they are being transferred down to the next one," she told reporters at the launch of the report at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) in Sydney.
The launch included performances from musician Archie Roach and a gathering of survivors who shared their stories.
Aunty Lorraine, 77, who was taken from her parents and trained as a maid, has called on the federal government to take up the report's recommendations for more indigenous-led programs.
"(The trauma) will continue if it's not broken and ... collective healing is one way of getting through that," she said.

An analysis of 31 projects involving 3676 Stolen Generations members has shown the western model of counselling doesn't help victims, The Healing Foundation says.

They need trauma-informed services with knowledge of the Stolen Generations, says the foundation, which is a national organisation focused on supporting members of the Stolen Generations and their children.
Recommendations to the government include greater access to "collective healing" opportunities, such as yarning circles, trips and family reunions.


Originally published as Trauma of Stolen Generations 'passed down'



Photo essay: The stories of Australia's stolen generations https://t.co/8brs6f19KP pic.twitter.com/lg8z8B6AAN

— Roland Bleiker (@rbleiker) February 13, 2016

Starting today @CDUni with breakfast to acknowledge anniversary tomorrow of National Apology to Stolen Generations pic.twitter.com/RXnyR9m67R

— CDU Vice-Chancellor (@CDUni_VC) February 11, 2016

Native Eagle Feather Teachings By Adrian LaChance

Walk in a good way... xox Trace

One Ad We DID NOT See During The Super Bowl

One Ad We DID NOT See During The Super Bowl

The costs of being adopted

That's me on the right with my adoptive family

By Trace L Hentz

News stories like this one in Missouri enrage me (read below).  31+ states restrict adoptees’ access to their original birth certificates, just like Missouri who is now considering a change. Some states will charge fees in the thousands of dollars for an adoptee to get their own identifying information.

Minnesota is still holding my OBC hostage. WHY? Old laws, old ignorant beliefs. All my parents, birth and adoptive, are dead. Why can't I have a piece of paper that has my real name? Why should I have to pay anything to have it? I didn't ask to be adopted. I didn't ask to have a fake amended birth certificate.

Has anyone else heard of the REAL ID ACT of 2005 that will require we all have documentation as to our identity. The creators of this ACT didn't think of 7+million adoptees - most don't have any real identification?

And let's look at more costs! State Intermediaries also charge adoptees fees: More money we don't have. I spoke with an adoptee last week and she said Lutheran Social Services told her to pay them $1000 and there was no guarantee they'd even find her file. No, they don't give refunds either. REALLY?

(2016) Karen Vigneault and I are still assisting Native adoptees who are trying to find their tribal families. And it's free. But we run into roadblocks with states like Missouri, Minnesota and Utah who are holding Native adoptees own documentation hostage. (look in the reference section to get in touch with Karen or me.) If you need to know information about the state where you live, and how to open your adoption records, please email Karen or me.

The costs of being adopted is not even mentioned in this story below:  

Missouri considers easing adoptee birth certificate access

Feb. 6. 2016

JEFFERSON CITY • Danika Donatti first met her biological father when he was in hospice dying from complications of a disease she might also carry.

Donatti, 18, was adopted shortly after birth. She has known the names of her biological parents since childhood but didn’t try to form a relationship with them until she learned her biological father was fighting cancer and a rare genetic disorder, which she had a 50 percent chance of inheriting.

“I could have this and I wouldn’t have known that had I not had my birth certificate,” she told The Associated Press.

Missouri is one of more than 31 states that restrict adoptees’ access to their original birth certificates, according to the American Adoption Congress, a group advocating expanding such access. Adoptees can obtain their original birth certificates only through a court order; they can access their adoption file, which can contain identifying information, if their biological parents give their permission or die.

If the parents cannot be found, the information remains sealed.

Legislation scheduled for a vote on Feb.9 by a Missouri House committee would change that. The Missouri Adoptee Rights Act, sponsored by Rep. Don Phillips, would open access to original birth certificates to adoptees at age 18.

The current law creates hardships for adoptees that should not exist under the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, said Phillips, R-Kimberling City. “It doesn’t say, P.S., by the way adoptees, sorry about your bad luck but you’re not included.”

After an adoption is finalized, a court amends the child’s birth certificate to list the adoptive family as the parents. An adoptee doesn’t need consent to get nonidentifying information about biological parents — which can include a medical history if it was provided at birth.

The current arrangement protects the confidentiality of the birth mother, said Laura Long, and it would be wrong to change that retroactively.

Long, who is an adoptee, works as a confidential intermediary for people seeking their biological parents’ permission to release their identifying information. Many parents consent, she said, but many were traumatized by getting pregnant and placing their child for adoption. People still feel stigmatized by that, she said, and it’s still a secret for some.

The state should respect the wishes of parents who agreed to adoption because of its confidentiality, said Tyler McClay, general counsel for the Missouri Catholic Conference, which opposes the bill. He said a better model is Illinois, which makes identifying documents available unless the biological parents opt out.
The bill is HB 1599.

Grieved Out: Suicide Rates At Crisis Levels

The numbers are staggering.

10/02/2015 | Anna Almendrala Healthy Living Senior Editor, Huffington Post

AP Photo/James MacPherson  A stuffed bear is placed on a white picket fence on Monday, Nov. 19, 2012 in New Town, N.D.

Five years ago, psychiatrist R. Dale Walker was invited to a small Northern Plains reservation that had suffered 17 suicides in eight months. It was there, listening in a group therapy meeting, that he first heard the phrase "grieved out."
Walker, who specializes in American Indian psychiatric issues and is himself a Cherokee, felt overwhelmed at the toll that suicide was taking on reservations and Indian communities.

"One of the most difficult things to hear is when the community says, 'We can grieve no more. We're cried out. We just can't respond anymore to the problem,'" he said. "It really does have an impact."
Walker has become more attuned to this sense of being too exhausted to grieve with each new call to an American Indian community that is facing an unusually high rate of suicide.

Suicide looks very different in Native communities than it does in the general population. Nationally, suicide tends to skew middle-aged (and white); but among Native Americans, 40 percent of those who die by suicide are between the ages of 15 and 24. And among young adults ages 18 to 24, Native American have higher rates of suicide than any other ethnicity, and higher than the general population.

A new report, published by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, highlights what Native American health experts have long known: Suicide among Native youth is a crisis, and one that is not receiving the attention it needs.

Keep Reading 

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The long term affects of poverty and Third World conditions on reservations are genocide... My Uncle Black Bear Stephen LaBoueff has worked on this issue for several YEARS. I also interviewed him for News From Indian Country and we keep in touch. ...Trace Hentz, blog editor

Read Stephen's blog: http://wisdomofcoyote.blogspot.com/2014/04/have-plan-of-action.html?spref=tw

Reclaiming OUR memory

"I'm 70. I'm on my way out, and I don't have a problem with that -- that's natural. But when I look at my descendants, our young people, I just kinda think we have to reclaim our memory. The genocide of civilization is there to erase that memory -- we don't remember we're human beings anymore. That's why there's all the false prides. That's why there's the drug use, the alcoholism. Those are symptoms of it. It's the genocide itself. It's denied itself. It's the genocide that's created these conditions. We've forgotten that we're human beings, and we're passing this diseased perception of reality amongst ourselves. We really need to look at who we are. It's not enough to say that 'I'm a traditionalist.' It's not enough to say 'I can speak the language.' It's not enough to say 'We're all about respect.' It's not enough anymore. We have to understand what we're saying. We have to understand tradition, culture, sharing, love. That's the way it was a long time ago. That was our way of life." -John Trudell (1946-2015) -- 💙 fly high...