NICWA Conference largest conference on record

Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians Provides Host Sponsorship of NICWA Conference

by Native News Online Staff / Currents / 31 Mar 2017

Published March 31, 2017

PORTLAND, OREGON — The National Indian Child Welfare Association received a $20,000 host sponsorship from the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians for this year’s 35th Annual Protecting Our Children National American Indian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, to be held at Harrah’s Resort Southern California, a facility owned by the Tribe, in Valley Center, California.

This year’s sponsorship by the Tribe will help NICWA bring a wide range of workshops and relationship building opportunities for child welfare workers, tribal leaders, and ICWA advocates from all across Indian Country and maintain the conference as the premier national gathering to discuss best practices in Indian child welfare.

Established in 1875, the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians traces its Southern California ancestry back 10,000 years, and the tribal council governs 500 members with jurisdiction over a 6,000 acre reservation in Valley Center, California. Rincon uses profits from its commercial enterprises located on reservation to fund government services and economic diversification on behalf of the reservation and Rincon people. Engaged in an economic partnership with neighboring communities, the Rincon Band shares its good fortune with North County San Diego, through tribal government donations to worthy causes that contribute to the welfare and health of the region, including NICWA’s annual conference.

When reflecting on the Tribe’s sponsorship for the annual conference, Rincon tribal chairman Bo Mazzetti remarked, “Native people have a unique task of overcoming the past and the sobering statistics that haunt reservations. We must find ways to treat the trauma, health, mental, and social problems that pass from one generation to another. We must give our children love, mentoring, and positive examples. We must educate all of our families on how to raise healthy, resilient children. It behooves each and every individual to take responsibility for creating a world where our children are loved, where their needs are met, and where they are valued for their unique strengths and gifts.”

NICWA executive director Sarah Kastelic noted, “We are truly grateful to the Rincon tribal government and people. NICWA’s annual conference is only possible with the generous contributions of sponsors. With Rincon’s support and partnership, 2017 will be NICWA’s largest conference on record. More than 1,100 people have pre-registered to participate in this incredible training and networking opportunity that builds the knowledge and skill set of service providers and leaders working to protect Native children and keep Native families together.”

Manitoba child welfare agency in ‘chaos’

...children put at risk following political intervention

National News | March 22, 2017 by Jorge Barrera

 

A Manitoba child welfare agency serving some of the poorest First Nations in the country is in “chaos” following the political intervention of chiefs who forced the temporary suspension of its executive director, according to an internal source.

The source, who is not authorized to speak publicly, said there is growing concern the actions by the four chiefs of the Island Lake Tribal Council to temporarily push aside the Island Lake First Nations Family Services agency’s executive director, Brenda Wood, has put children at risk.

“I knock on wood every day so nothing happens. And if something happens, who is it on?” said the source. “Is it on us and our negligence?”

In mid-February, three of the four Island Lake Tribal Council Chiefs—Garden Hill First Nation Chief Dino Flett, Red Sucker Lake Chief Sam Knott, and St. Theresa Point Chief David McDougall—sent a letter to the Island Lake Family Services board directing them to place Wood on temporary paid leave and complete a report on her “management style.” Tribal Council Chair and Wasagamack Chief Alex McDougall did not sign the letter but supported the move.

The board, which is appointed by the chief and council of each of the four communities, immediately complied despite supporting Wood’s efforts to reform the agency. Wood was put on temporary leave and the board took over management of the agency.

Now the agency is in complete turmoil, according to the source.

“It is really chaotic over there right now and it has been ever since (Wood) left,” said the source. “There is a lot of confusion, a lack of direction.”

Wood only became executive director of the agency in 2015 and faced a monumental challenge. The agency, which serves a region afflicted by the legacy of residential schools and deep poverty, has repeatedly been found by provincial and federal reviews of failing to provide a proper standard of child welfare care.

“She inherited a big mess,” said the source. “I have seen how this place was run before, when everybody did what they wanted. It didn’t seem like there was a lot of accountability…. This is why the new executive director does what she does. She understands the severity. People need to pull up their boots straps or get out of the way and let somebody else who is willing to do their jobs, do their jobs.”

The agency is overseen by the First Nations of Manitoba Child and Family Services Authority—also known as the Northern Authority which said last week it was monitoring the situation.

A spokesperson for the Northern Agency said there were ongoing and direct consultations with the Island Lake First Nations Family Services agency. The spokesperson said a development on those consultations could be announced within days.

The source said the chiefs moved against Wood because her efforts to reform the agency led to the termination of several people, including two who were politically connected. The source said Wood had also not been given the opportunity to defend herself against the allegations related to her management style.

“There is a real witch hunt out there for her, they just want her gone,” said the source. “The real unfortunate thing about this too is that she never had the opportunity to communicate any of this.”
Wood was trying to slowly reform the agency, said the source. One of her main accomplishments since taking on the job was increasing special needs assessments for children at risk in the four communities—the agency also has a sub-office in Winnipeg.

“In the north, almost no kids had special needs assessments and those assessments were not getting done,” said the source. “Just before she was placed on leave, there was actually a person put there to specifically do special needs assessment.”

Wood was also trying to create a program to put parents and their children out on the land to do traditional activities and bond. She also assigned an employee to work specifically on the project.
“I know she was really pushing hard to have this up and going quickly—not in 10 years—she wanted this done properly and she wanted it done quickly,” said the source. “I think the overall picture is children and their parents would go there, there would be workers there. For example, it’s a good opportunity for a father and his children to bond…. A lot would be about re-exploring the role of family members. I think that has been really lost, one of the effects of colonization.”

Follow: jbarrera@aptn.ca

'An absolute embarrassment': Cindy Blackstock on Canada's treatment of First Nations kids https://t.co/jS1YkRevig via @Chatelaine

— Chris Benjamin (@benjaminwrites) March 27, 2017

Who's Your Daddy?

Possibly the cruellest reality show ever committed to tape, Who’s Your Daddy? began as a six-part series in which a woman was put into a room with 25 older men and asked to guess which of them was her real estranged biological father. If she guessed correctly, she won $100,000. If she didn’t, the actor she picked as her father would win the money. To underline how monstrous this is, look at the video below. A tearful woman asks a man why he gave her up. He cries, tells her that she was conceived in a moment of love and confesses that not a day has passed where he hasn’t thought of her. Except that man is an actor. He’s the one who uploaded the video to YouTube, along with the description: “My performance on this Fox Reality series almost won me $100,000.” Gruesome. So gruesome, in fact, that Fox pulled five of the six episodes before they’d aired.

Levi EagleFeather: "The Power of Peaceful Resistance" | Talks at Google

Use the search bar for more on Levi Eagle Feather on this blog.  He has chapters in the book STOLEN GENERATIONS and CALLED HOME, in the Lost Children book series.

Sarah Kastelic: Enforcing the Indian Child Welfare Act to Protect Native...

Goldwater Litigation on the Constitutionality of ICWA Dismissed Without Prejudice #StrongIndianFamilies

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Kate Fort | Turtle Talk

This is the attempted class action litigation claiming ICWA violated the Constitution.

This is a big win for ICWA and the legal advocates who worked on this case at the state, federal, and tribal levels.

Here is the Order.

The legal questions Plaintiffs wish to adjudicate here in advance of injury to themselves will be automatically remediable for anyone actually injured. The very allegations of wrongfulness are that such injuries will arise in state court child custody proceedings, directly in the court processes or in actions taken by state officers under the control and direction of judges in those proceedings. Any true injury to any child or interested adult can be addressed in the state court proceeding itself, based on actual facts before the court, not on hypothetical concerns. If any Plaintiffs encounter future real harm in their own proceedings, the judge in their own case can discern the rules of decision. They do not have standing to have this Court pre-adjudicate for state court judges how to rule on facts that may arise and that may be governed by statutes or guidelines that this Court may think invalid.

Here is the joint press release from the ICWA Defense Project.

The ICWA Defense Project is a coalition of NICWA, NARF, NCAI, and the ICWA Appellate Project to provide assistance and updates to tribes and other interested partners on the federal challenges to ICWA.

Forum: Education continues on Wabanaki plight #ICWA

Forum: Education continues on Wabanaki plight:

LEWISTON — In 2015, a report focusing on Maine Wabanaki children and decades of discriminatory practices in the child welfare system was meant to spark changes and begin the healing process for the state's native tribes.

For Wabanakis and members of Maine-Wabanaki REACH, a group tasked with implementing the report's recommendations, that process is far from over.

Speaking during a Great Falls Forum in Lewiston on Thursday, Maine Wabanaki REACH Community Organizers Barbara Kates and Tom Reynolds underlined the importance of the work that had been accomplished but said more outreach and more education is needed.

The pair led a presentation titled “Truth, Healing and Change: Why Maine Needed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” which refers to the Maine Wabanaki State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 2013. 

The commission was charged with taking an intimate look at the causes behind the "disproportionate removal" from families of Native American children who were put into the child welfare system.
Among the biggest takeaways from its report was that Native American children in Maine were five times as likely to be placed in foster care as non-native children; Wabanaki children's native ancestry is often not identified during intake procedures; and the presence of institutional racism in state systems and the public.

The commission, made up of native and non-native members, was regarded as the first of its kind in the United States.

Since then, Kates said, the work of REACH, which stands for Reconciliation-Engagement-Advocacy-Change-Healing, has been, now that the truth is known, "What do we do now?"
A snippet from an upcoming full-length documentary detailing the emotional commission process was screened during Thursday's event, held at the Lewiston Public Library.

In compiling the report, the commission collected more than 150 statements from Wabanaki survivors, their families, foster families and employees of the state child welfare system.
In one such statement, a woman recalls being taken from her family for no reason, and as an adult, still didn't know why. Another remembered sitting in bleach with her sister while in foster care, "trying to convince each other that we were getting white."

REACH began as a collaboration of state and tribal child welfare workers who knew from their work together that major inequities existed in the way the state dealt with family issues within native communities.

Since the release of the report, REACH is still scheduling speaking events to educate Mainers on the history of the Wabanaki and native children, which have experienced forced assimilation dating back to the 1800s.

Kates and Reynolds provided a brief historical overview, including why Maine became a focal point on child welfare. During the 1950s and 1960s, national child welfare practices encouraged removing Native Americans from their communities and placing them in foster care. Boarding schools designed to assimilate Native Americans were also still prevalent.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, the Indian Child Welfare Act, adopted in 1978, "marked one step toward upholding tribal rights, but effective implementation was another, and many states, including Maine, struggled with that process in the years after the law’s passage."
The act was meant to prioritize keeping Native American children in their homes within their tribal communities.

Reynolds said Maine was pressed by the federal government in the early 1990s to boost compliance with the act because of numbers that were still high, and was still struggling with it well into the 2000s.

"They kept finding that they were hitting their heads against a brick wall," he said, referring to continued issues leading up to the commission. "They realized they needed to dig deeper," he said.
Questions from the audience Thursday hit on education and what's next. Kates was asked whether local schools are adding the correct Wabanaki history into their curriculums.

Kates said no other state has yet to conduct a similar truth and reconciliation commission.
Penthea Burns, co-director of Maine-Wabanaki REACH, was originally scheduled to speak during the forum but had a conflict, Kates said.

Joe Hall, an associate professor of history at Bates College, introduced the speakers. 
Hall said Thursday's discussion was timely because school budgets are being drafted statewide.
"We get the opportunity to think about how we raise our children, which is not something that Wabanakis have always had the luxury of," he said. 

Kates has been involved with designing and delivering community presentations and ally-building workshops to increase understanding of Maine's shared history with the Wabanaki people.

Kates said that as a child welfare worker, it has been a "steep learning curve" in recognizing the complicated Wabanaki history. The commission found that there is still resistance to the idea that native people continue to experience "cultural genocide."

She said work to implement the recommendations from the study is ongoing. Those recommendations include the development of new trainings for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, as well as legal and judicial offices, a policy to monitor compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act and better support for foster and adoptive families.

The work of the commission, she said, opened the door for changes.

"It's the idea that we're here now," she said. "What do we do now?"

arice@sunjournal.com

Sacred Water: Standing Rock Part I - RISE (Full Episode)

Oglala Sioux Tribe members form children's advocacy group

South Dakota legalizes religious-based discrimination in adoptions, Oglala Sioux Tribe members form children's advocacy group

South Dakota’s SB 149 did explicitly mention ‘due regard’ for the Indian Child Welfare Act. The state has a history of removing Native youth from their cultural contexts, a practice that was aided by Christian boarding schools with forced ‘assimilation’ programs. Lakota families in particular experienced high rates of involuntary separation.
When two severely malnourished and abused girls were found on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation last November, community members near and far gathered to take action on the tribe’s own terms. As Jim Kent reports, the newly-formed “Embracing Our Children’s Health” group focuses on empowering, encouraging, assisting, and supporting existing programs and organizations for children and their families on the reservation.
Download Audio
The Pine Ridge Reservation is located along the border between South Dakota and Nebraska. It’s home to members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, also known as the Lakota.

Adoptees on Healing: Suicide

We talk with @AdoptTherapyGR about adoptee suicide (warning signs, how to get help, interventions). https://t.co/FawOtudZMi

— Adoptees On (@adopteeson) March 10, 2017

Four Days of Protest

WE are here Washington. #NativeNationsRise pic.twitter.com/J7YFpeK76s

— Tonya Wind Singer (@Tonya_Song) March 9, 2017

American Indians Protesting Trump, Pipeline with March

Gathering in Washington for Four Days of Protest

 Posted on 3/6/2017 2:40 PM

ABC News |

BISMARCK, N.D.  - The Associated Press reported American Indians from around the country are gathering in Washington for four days of protest against the Trump administration and the Dakota Access pipeline that will culminate with a Friday march on the White House.
Starting Tuesday, tribal members and supporters plan to camp each day on the National Mall, with teepees, a ceremonial fire, cultural workshops, and speakers.
On Friday, a 2-mile march is planned to the White House, where a rally is scheduled.
Sioux tribes oppose the $3.8 billion pipeline to move North Dakota oil to Illinois. Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners expects to have oil flowing this month, after getting the green light for final construction from the Trump administration last month. Sioux tribes are fighting the project in court.

#60sScoop Letters to First Nations leaders and Canadian Ministers

Letter to AFN request to meet 60s Scoop adoptees by Indigenous Adoptees

 

February 19 2017

 

National Chief Perry Bellegarde

Assembly of First Nations

55 Metcalfe Street

Suite 1600

Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5

 

Dear National Chief,

 

Thank you for your recent statement “Children of the Sixties Scoop deserve justice, healing and reconciliation” on February 14, 2017.  The National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network (NISCWN) formerly known as BiGiwen Indigenous Adoptee Gathering, began our work in earnest in 2014 in Ottawa, ON.  Led by a few local Sixties Scoop adoptees, our goal was to bring adoptees together to share our stories, validate each other’s experiences, and work towards healing grounded in our Indigenous traditions.  Our first gathering was a resounding success as 65 adoptees came together in Ottawa from all over Turtle Island to build capacity, share stories, and begin the long process of healing inter-generational wounds and trauma.  In August 2015 we held our 2nd gathering for Sixties Scoop adoptees, foster care survivors, and their families.  With the help of trusted Elders and community facilitators, we utilized land-based ceremonies to lead the healing work.  At that time we reached out to AFN for support but your office could not accommodate us but thank you for offering.  Our 3rd gathering is planned for fall 2017.

The National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network (“the Network”) is writing this letter to request a meeting with you in light of the recent judicial decision on the Ontario class-action lawsuit on behalf of Sixties Scoop adoptees. Also, given Minister Bennett’s statement on her willingness to engage in negotiations with adoptees, a meeting would be especially timely. During the meeting we would like to discuss and brief you on our work, how the Sixties Scoop has impacted our lives, the work that needs to be done across Turtle Island for healing and reconciliation, and ways that NGO's Chiefs, and advisors can provided necessary support and expertise.

The Network is unique, as it's the only community-based adoptee-led organization working with Sixties Scoop adoptees & foster care survivors. We're intimately connected to hundreds of adoptees across Canada, the US, and overseas. Urban and rural First Nations, Metis and Inuit adoptees & foster care survivors who have reached out to us over the years for support, advocacy, resources and friendship. One common heartbreak and concern we hear from adoptees who've been taken away from their communities is that our Chiefs and First Nation communities have not supported our repatriations nor welcomed us back into the circle. 

Our central concern in working towards a national resolution to ongoing litigation is that all impacted adoptees and foster care survivors are not just included, but centred and prioritized, in any discussions about their cultural losses and in strategizing ways forward. It's vital that our voices are heard since it's the survivors who know the impacts of the Sixties Scoop the best because we speak to it from our lived experiences. 

Although the Ontario class-action lawsuit judgement is one small victory, thousands of adoptees and foster care survivors are once again emotionally triggered by these announcements with reverberations being felt across the nation and beyond.  Survivors do not want to be excluded from conversations about us, and together with the Assembly of First Nations the Network wants to ensure that all our voices are represented at the negotiation table, while we continue the critical work of raising awareness about the Sixties Scoop nationally and internationally.

We look forward to hearing from you,

 Colleen Hele- Cardinal, Duane Morrisseau-Beck, Elaine Kicknosway

Directors

Use the search bar on this blog for many more stories about the 60s Scoop survivors.

Grandma Regina Among 47 Arrested at Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock: "This is a Fight for Survival."

by Levi Rickert /

1973 Wounded Knee veteran Regina Brave arrested yesterday standing up for Standing Rock

Published February 24, 2017



CANNON BALL, NORTH DAKOTA – Regina Brave, affectionately known to many as “Grandma Regina,” was among those arrested on Thursday as the militarized police swept the Oceti Sakowin
encampment of occupants. Since the 2pm evacuation deadline on Wednesday, there have been 47 arrests made according to the Morton County Sheriff Department.

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South Dakota again? ACLU Fight for #ICWA

Stephen Pevar: “In South Dakota, Officials Defied a Federal Judge and Took Indian Kids Away From Their Parents in Rigged Proceedings”

 

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Matthew L.M. Fletcher | Turtle Talk

 

Here, from ACLU’s Speak Freely blog.

"We will not stand idly by" #ICWA

Petition Granted: Gila River Indian Community Will Argue before Arizona Supreme Court to Protect Indian Children

by Native News Online Staff / Currents / 21 Feb 2017

Gila River Governor Stephen R. Lewis

SACATON, ARIZONA – The Arizona Supreme Court has granted the petition for review filed by attorneys for the Gila River Indian Community, giving the Community the opportunity to argue before the state’s highest court in a controversial case involving the future of a Native American child at risk of being permanently removed from her Community.

The case will be the first of its kind argued before the Arizona Supreme Court focused on the transfer provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act. At its heart are determinations regarding the permanent custody of a Native American child, A.D., a 2-year-old born to a Gila River Indian Community mother who lived on the Gila River Indian Reservation for most of her life. After A.D.’s off-Reservation birth, she was placed into the State of Arizona foster care system. The Community sought transfer of the state court case to its Children’s Court under the Indian Child Welfare Act, but its motion was denied and the Community appealed.

In their petition to the state Supreme Court, attorneys for the Community argue that A.D.’s case is significant to Arizona’s Indian tribes and tribal families and that the Arizona Court of Appeals’ decision was contrary to the plain language of the Indian Child Welfare Act and would lead to “absurd and inconsistent results.”

“The Gila River Indian Community will do everything in our power to protect our Community members and their families, every Indian child and every Indian family,” said Gila River Governor. Stephen R. Lewis. “We will not stand idly by when our children are at risk of losing their tribal roots, their culture and their families, and when the Indian Child Welfare Act is at risk.”

“Since 1978, ICWA and the tribal court system have worked as intended to keep Indian families together. This landmark law should not be stripped of its key role in protecting our people.”
Attorneys for the Community and the State have 20 days to file supplemental briefs with the state Supreme Court, then the matter will be set for oral arguments.

Beauty Without Boundaries

Posted by Native Hope on Feb 16, 2017 

We are all examples of true beauty, yet we live in a culture that tells us differently. The society of today does everything it can to put us in a box, doing its best to contort us into its shallow definition of "ideal beauty." These unrealistic standards are completely one-dimensional, and they fail to encompass the wide variety of beauty that abounds in the human race.


Living in two worlds
American Indians often discuss the struggle of trying to live and thrive in two worlds: the world of their culture and ancestors and the one of a modern day civilization that is a melting pot of ideals, customs, and beliefs. When Indigenous people embrace their physical beauty and inner uniqueness, the conflict between these two worlds becomes even more apparent.

In a recent article titled "She's So Pale" that was posted on Native Appropriations, Adrienne Keene, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, discusses the stereotypes that so often bombard Native Americans. She explains how so many people “think that Native identity is tied to looking like something off the side of a football helmet...they want to be able to categorize and move on. But Native identity isn’t just a racialized identity. Native identity is political. We are citizens of tribal nations. So we can’t just talk about our identities purely in racial terminology. There’s also a deep power issue here—who has the 'right,' especially as an outsider, to determine someone’s identity for them?”
Adrienne’s pale complexion has caused many to cast judgment and challenge her Native heritage. This fact alone exemplifies the danger of trusting our eyes to be the only valid source of truth. She is determined to make a difference and expose these obvious misconceptions, stating “instead of feeling ashamed, I’m trying now to turn the tables and think that I, instead, am the colonizer’s worst nightmare. Because history has tried to eradicate my people by violence and force, enacted every assimilating and acculturating policy against my ancestors, let me grow up in white suburbia, and erased all the visual vestiges of heritage from my face–but still tsi tsalagi (I am Cherokee)....fighting back against misrepresentations, through a keyboard and the internet.” 

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Giving Voice to Adoptees

Dear Adoption, Do You Still Think You Own Me? I am the faceless girl—the head-banger from crib 22, biting her own wrists for hours on end, as she sat in a diaper overloaded with day-old shit. “Fail…
READ: Dear Adoption, Do You Still Think You Own Me?


Dear Adoption, You Aren’t Always Right Growing up, my adoption issues lived mostly in the confines of my own head. I was adopted domestically so most people had no clue my parents, siblings a…
READ: Dear Adoption, You Aren’t Always Right




Why does it take us adoptees years to see the injustice of this? What medically happens when we are taken from our mothers at birth – what cruelty is this for a newborn – how is it ever acceptable to do this to another human being? I do know. I was adopted.  ...Trace, Blog Editor

Stolen Generations: Cultural impact of the Indian Adoption Project still felt today

Politics MPR News Staff · Feb 13, 2017

1. Listen The stolen childhoods of post-WWII Native children

   Feb 9, 2017
   51min 1sec

Kip Moon as a child Courtesy of Kip Moon

In 1958 the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) created the Indian Adoption Project. Its clear goal was to take Native kids away from their biological parents.

That's according to Melissa Olson, a legal advocate for Native children.

"This was not an accident of history, it was a government program designed to save the government money and dismantle tribes. All under the guise of integrating Native children more fully into American society," Olson said in a documentary she produced exploring the cultural and historical impacts of forced adoption, titled "Stolen Childhoods."

When the BIA started the project it enlisted social workers to visit reservations and convince parents to sign away their parental rights. It was a way to assimilate these children into "civilization," Olson said. The government believed adoption was the best option for dealing with the Native children "problem."

"When you removed a child and put them in a non-Indian family, they wouldn't be getting to know other Indian people as they would in a boarding school, they would hopefully be raised in a middle-class family. And so the idea was that they would be fully assimilated, and at no cost to the government," said Margaret Jacobs, author of "A Generation Removed," a book on forced adoption.

The adoption project sold their idea to white families using advertisements asserting that to not adopt would be choosing to leave children with no chance of survival — as in their own families would not be able to provide and care for them so it was up to these white families to help, Jacobs said.

By the 1960s about one in four Native children were living apart from their families. During this era, social workers found more dubious ways of taking children from their mothers.

"One of the things I found that really shocked me was a form that the Bureau of Indian Affairs developed. It was called 'authorization for discharge of an infant,' something like to a person who's not a family member. So it doesn't say authorization to adopt, or anything like that. It says nothing about losing one's child, or giving up rights to one's child, or putting a child up for adoption," Jacobs said. "It's all this sort of legalistic language that I didn't understand either when I was reading it."

Many of these adopted children, now adults, struggle with memories from traumatic childhoods in abusive homes, while trying to figure out where they fit in as Natives in white communities. Olson followed a few of these people's stories in "Stolen Childhoods."

The documentary was produced at KFAI by Melissa Olson and Ryan Katz and edited by Todd Melby.
To listen to the documentary, click the link above.

When tribes step up, good things happen

Akwesasne Community Social Services Division Earns Top Ranking for Child Placement in State of New York by Native News Online Staff

The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Social Services Division has successfully placed all children under their custody into homes in the Akwesasne in 2015 thanks to the efforts of their Preventive/Foster Care Unit that includes: (front row, from left) Renee Massaro, Home Finder; Ella Fuller, Program Manager; and Heath Kuhn, Caseworker; (back row, from left) Shari Adams, Administrative Assistant; Jade White, Commissioner; Chloe Cebek, Caseworker; Stacee Loran, Caseworker; and Krystal Phillips, Caseworker

Published February 15, 2017

AKWESASNE — The community of Akwesasne has long been known for taking care of its own; whether it be supporting our elders, helping a family recover from a tragedy, dealing with the loss of a beloved one, or providing a welcoming home for a young child. Akwesasne is certainly one of the most caring and giving communities and figures released by the New York State’s Office of Children and Family Services for 2015 can back up that claim— the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Social Services Division exceeded statewide rates for placing children in least restrictive home environments.

“This is a tremendous accomplishment that our community can take immense pride in serving the best interests of our children,” said Social Services Commissioner Jade White. “The unconditional willingness to open their doors to welcome a child in need into their home is true testament to our Relative and Certified Foster Parent’s noble decisions to be involved with our child welfare system. We recognize that this honor would not have been made possible without the cooperation of our Preventive/Foster Care Unity and Foster Parents and we look forward to future collaborations.”

In a statewide-ranking of 60 county and tribal social services departments, the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe ranked first in placing 100 percent of children into Relative Foster Care or Home-Based Care. The state average for placement in 2015 was 68.8 percent for Home-Based Care and a 28.08 percent for Relative Foster Care. Every child that was placed into the custody of the Tribe’s Social Services Division was welcomed into a safe, healthy and stable home environment in Akwesasne.

This is the first time in Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Social Services Division history that they have achieved the top ranking for placing children in Relative Foster Care or Home-Based Care. Much of the success in finding homes is due to the outreach they undertake throughout the year, which includes an Annual Foster Parent Recruitment Event in May during National Foster Care Awareness Month. They also participate in local events, such as the Annual Wellness Day that is attended by hundreds of community members where they encourage individuals to “Be a Super Hero” by choosing to be a foster parent to a deserving child.

“Foster parents and relatives play an essential role in providing temporary, safe, and nurturing homes to children when their parents are unable to care for them,” shared Preventive Foster Care Program Manager Ella Fuller. “The safety of the child is always a priority and considerable thought is given to finding the most suitable home environment, whether it be with other family members or foster parents who are looking to adopt. Our goal is to help bring families together.”

If you want to learn more or are interesting in becoming a part of the Foster Care Program, please call the Social Services Division at (518) 358-2728.

Meet Kelly Ironstand

Teaching Early Years from a First Nations Perspective

February 13, 2017

Reclaiming language and culture is reclaiming the spirit of First Nations.

Kelly Ironstand – Early Years Teacher

Kelly Ironstand, nursery and kindergarten teacher, strongly believes in this maxim.

A visit to her classroom at the Chief Clifford Lynxleg Anishinabe School, in the Tootinaowaziibeeng First Nation, reveals various aspects of First Nations language and culture.

From her hand made rabbit traps, life-size teepee and furniture, to her collection of animal bones used for hunting, Kelly’s students are learning the traditional way of life; and they love it.

Even at this age level, the students are taught how to make animal traps so that they can develop an appreciation and respect for the land, in keeping with First Nations practices. You might even find them making bannock and rabbit stew for lunch, on any given day.

“The children need to get a good grasp of their culture at this level, because they need to know who they are,” says Ironstand.

As someone who attended residential school as a child,  she understands the personal conflicts that many First Nations people deal with when they lose that connection to their culture.

“I don’t want them to feel like how I did as an adult,” she explains. “I don’t want them to feel lost. I want them to know who they are and where they came from.”

Ironstand also believes in developing strong relationships within the community. Because of the busy schedules of some parents, it’s sometimes difficult for them to attend meetings at the school. On Report Card day, Ironstand gives parents the option of scheduling home visits to discuss their children’s progress.

She appreciates the the services offered by Early Learning facilitators at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre (MFNERC) especially opportunities for professional development like the recently concluded Early Learning conference.

Kelly Ironstand is just one of many amazing teachers helping students to develop a First Nations identity. MFNERC is pleased to be working along with these educators.

Learn more about Kelly Ironstand in this video. 

Still #Adoption Warriors

Archive photo

By Trace Hentz  (Blog Editor)

Hi everyone. Huge thanks for visiting this blog and reading this blog.  In case you don't know, I started this blog back in Dec. 2009.  I didn't know what I was doing but I had the notion to find more adoptees like me. Well, well, well... it worked.

Even in 2005 when I was writing and doing research for my memoir ONE SMALL SACRIFICE, I had no idea how many adoptees there are or were... not exactly easy to find out. There could be up to 7 million in the US right now, maybe even more.  That's not counting our relatives in Canada.

Along the way I found others who were blogging their experiences, like Von Coates in Australia. She educated me, and helped me become a better adoptee-activist-blogger.  We became friends and Von and I emailed, and both of us contributed our writing to the LOST DAUGHTERS blog.

Read this latest update from Von HERE  (she started this blog in 2012)

From her blog:
In the world of adoption, there are many phrases and words for describing adoption, the process of adoption or parts of it, adoptees and other characters appearing with regularity. So called experts write books about acceptable adoption language and there are regularly arguments in various venues around social medias sites on correct useage, offensiveness, unacceptability and who is right/wrong/indifferent....

Von had her blogger blog that was taken down. Someone complained about her posts and Google shut her down.  But she is a warrior and didn't stop. She moved her writing over to Wordpress.

After time and so much experience, the activism and blogging changed us.  We may not write as often.  We see the same battles, the same ignorance and we see the same propaganda.  We see over and over how the billion dollar adoption industry silences the adoptee.  In many ways we are seen as the commodity - the one they made their money on... today adoptees are still in the SILENT MAJORITY.

In many states in the United States, adoptees still cannot request their original birth certificate (OBC) or their sealed adoption files. See what states have access in 2016 HERE.

For the past 7+ years doing this blog, I saw that other adoptee blogs were firing up fighting this, as more and more adoptees found their voice. 

And they voiced their anger.  And their disappointment.

And they told their stories of reunions with their first families, or if they were not able to meet their mom or dad, because they were too late, because their parent had already died.

Why?  These adoption laws are archaic and ridiculous. They were written to protect the people who adopted us.

I have talked to adoptees about the anguish of not knowing who they are. And some tell me about reunions that started great and went silent.  (If you don't live close to your relatives, travel and jobs can make reunions very difficult to keep going.)

Adoptees know we have two families to find, our mother and our father's people. We may find one side and go into reunion, after we open our adoption records. The other side of our family might wait years to be found.

I was telling my friend Maggie yesterday that I have not met my two half-sisters on my mother's side.

So I am still an adoption warrior but not as vocal as I had been when I started this blog.  It's time for others to FIND THEIR VOICE and write their truths and BLOG too.

If you are an adoptee and you have a blog and you are writing about adoption, please leave a comment here (below.) Tell us the blog address so we can read you and support you.

We have a long way to go... The Indian Adoption Projects took thousands of us... and many adoptees still need to find our way home.

FREE REPORT #60sScoop

Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding Natives’ Inherited Pain

Download our free report, Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding Natives’ Inherited Pain, to understand this fascinating concept.
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Adoptees Seeking Redress: Canada Confronts #60sScoop

Many of the now-grown, 20,000 indigenous children ripped from their families during the Canadian government's Sixties Scoop want redress for their loss of cultural identity.

READ: Adoptees Seeking Redress: Canada Confronts the Sixties Scoop - Indian Country Media Network

IN THE VEINS | Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects Book Series Vol. 4 #NoDAPL

Blue Hand Books,

442 Main St. #1061

Greenfield, MA 01301

bluehandcollective@outlook.com

(413) 258-0115

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Indigenous Native Poetry collection IN THE VEINS gives power to words

Greenfield, Massachusetts [2017]  --  “These poet’s words jumped off the page and made their way under my skin, into the chambers of my heart,”  said Editor Patricia Busbee (Cherokee) who has edited the new Native prose and poetry book, IN THE VEINS  (Vol. 4,  ISBN: 978-0692832646, Publisher: Blue Hand Books, Massachusetts). 

“It’s a transformative collection of poetry, truly Medicine for the Soul,” Busbee said, who has contributed poetry and prose to this collection and is Poetry Editor for Blue Hand Books.  “I thought about the iron infused blood that flows thru our veins and how our bones, blood and skeletal systems house our history, our stories and our ancestors.”

“Reading these poems I recognized how poetry affects all generations and how it bypasses our cautious minds and relates to us on an intimate soul level. Poetry is a vehicle that transports us from the outer world to the inner,” Busbee said.  Twenty-eight poets from across Turtle Island contributed, including First Nations poet David Groulx (Anishinabe Elliott Lake), Assiniboine playwright William Yellow Robe, Ojibwe scholar Dr. Carol A. Hand who wrote an introduction, notable poet MariJo Moore (Cherokee), and many more.

“These poets come to us from across Turtle Island.  Some are very well-known, even famous, and many will be in the future,” Busbee said.  “Their poetry offers exquisite interpretation of life and story, personal perceptions, and their views on issues of historical trauma, land-taking, loss of identity and culture, and child theft/adoption projects in the name of Manifest Destiny in North America.” 

This highly-anticipated collection is part of a history-making book series Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.  This series includes TWO WORLDS (Vol. 1), CALLED HOME: The Road Map (Vol. 2), and STOLEN GENERATIONS: Survivors of the Indian Adoption Projects and 60s Scoop (Vol. 3).  IN THE VEINS (Vol. 4) will share part of its proceeds with Standing Rock Water Protectors.  All books were published by the Blue Hand Books in Massachusetts, a collective of Native American authors.

Blue Hand Books founder Trace Lara Hentz, Busbee’s friend and co-editor on the book series, has also contributed to this collection. “These word warriors take us with them to the outer reaches of Indian identity and history.  Reading could not be more powerful,”  Hentz said, adding that she recommends the entire book series and hopes to reach new readers, both Indian and non-Indian.  

“These poems do make clear that words do have power, word by word by word… With the current political climate, we need good thoughts as we all are standing with the Standing Rock Water Protectors to end the Black Snake and Dakota Access Pipe Line.” [www.bluehandbooks.org]

ABOUT THE EDITOR:

Patricia Busbee is a writer, author, editor, devotee of outsider art and poetry. She is also a soup maker and bread baker. She believes that nourishment is found not only in food but in stories. Patricia is a strong believer in blood memory. She can be found in her kitchen cooking for her family—both the living and the deceased or in her too small office that is over-run with geriatric cats and hand crafted altars, writing about family dynamics, multiculturalism, adoption, ancestry or whatever else is clamoring for her attention. Most likely she is scrolling thru her Twitter feed pretending to be busy. She enjoys adding poetry, proverbs, folklore, recipes and snippets of conversations to her work. Her heart's desire is to write a magical realism novel in 2017.  She is the co-editor of Two Worlds, Called Home: The RoadMap and editor of IN THE VEINS.  Her noir-fiction “Remedies” was published in 2013. Her website: singingthemoon.me

IN THE VEINS contributors and their poems:

Reflections about Veins by Dr. Carol A. Hand (Introduction)

Red by Tanajsia Slaughter

Dance of the Soul | Indian on the Milk-Box | Somewhere by Janelle Black Owl

Tante by Jen Edwards

She Speaks with Crows by Evelyn Red Lodge (Tipi Luta Win)

Go Child by Rez Chick

god’s river by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Residential School Orphans by David Groulx

After Sneaky | SENDING WORDS | Whiteness makes me more....by William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.

You, Seeing Me See You | We Walk Our Way by Dr. Raeschelle Potter-Deimel

When a trickle… becomes a river…then a flood | find home | sum of our ancestors by Trace L. Hentz (Winyan Ohmanisa Waste LaKe)

River In The Blood | Women's Work by Terra Trevor

Open-Heart Breeze, Then Rock by Anecia Tretikoff (Alutiiq)

Everyone Needs Someone by MariJo Moore

The Shallow Place | The Red-Headed-Bastard At The Family Reunion | A Visual Prophesy by Patricia Busbee

Rebellious Child | With You | When I found Ophelia by Crystal Dawn Draffen

Untitled 1 | Untitled 2 | Memorial Service by Andi Hill

Mother of Nations | The Penance of Genocide | NO EUCHARIST FOR GENOCIDE by Dr. Dawn Karima

Final Score | Perfect Son | SplitFeathers by Drew RedBear Rutledge

Ties That Bind | Living Apart | Here I Lay by Samantha Franklin

Josie and Mickey 1928 by Suzannne Z. Murphy

Truth | Our People by Sharon Euleen Bankhead Lammers

Who's Face Do I Carry | My Story by Tara Dawn

Reserve by Lance Guilbault

Who granted you this power? By Karen Belanger

Anxiety Dreams by Jagade

Haiku by Elizabeth Miyu Blake

Come Home by Judi Armbruster

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ISBN: 978-0692832646 (Blue Hand Books)

Paperback $9.99   Kindle ebook $3.96

IN THE VEINS: Poetry (Book 4)

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Blue Hand Books Collective is a small Native American-owned publishing company based in western New England.  Website: www.bluehandcollective.com or  www.bluehandbooks.org

Media Contact: Trace Hentz, Greenfield, Massachusetts, bluehandcollective@outlook.com

see book preview in sidebar on this blog

CLICK: Blue Hand Books Collective

2017 National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network Gathering #60sScoop

2017 National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network Gathering

Save the dates!! Mark your calendars!!

When: September 28, 29, 30 and Oct 1st, 2017

Where: Waupoos Farm, Ottawa ON

Four days of  ceremony, cultural teachings, learning, sharing, support and friendship in a fun, safe, supportive environment.

For ’60s scoop’ Indigenous adoptees , foster care survivors and their families

 More information to come soon!!!