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A thesis on Indian Child Welfare Act
A thesis on Indian Child Welfare Act
A thesis on Indian Child Welfare Act
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The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in 1978 to “‘promote the best interests of Indian children and promote the stability and security of Indian tribes’” (“Indian Child”). Congress gave tribal courts exclusive control over the adoption and custody of Indian children who live in their tribes’ reservations to prevent the practice of Indian children being removed from their homes (“Indian Child”). Even though some suggest the ICWA is racist and increases the risk of child abuse, the law should remain in place with no significant changes because it helps children’s mental health by connecting them to their culture.
The ICWA connects Native children to their culture, although opponents suggest that it is racist. According to Rebecca Clarren,
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 was established because an American boy was abducted form a Florida shopping mall and was later found murdered. The act was signed into law by George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. This act is established to protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime to prevent child abuse and child pornography to promote internet safety. This act is also known as the sex offender registration and notification act. It was established with the intention to strengthen laws related to child sexual predators. This law was instructed for each state and/or territory to apply criteria’s for posting offenders data on the internet.
The over-representation of Aboriginal children in the Canadian Child Welfare system is a growing and multifaceted issue rooted in a pervasive history of racism and colonization in Canada. Residential schools were established with the intent to force assimilation of Aboriginal people in Canada into European-Canadian society (Reimer, 2010, p. 22). Many Aboriginal children’s lives have been changed adversely by the development of residential schools, even for those who did not attend them. It is estimated that Aboriginal children “are 6-8 times more likely to be placed in foster care than non-Aboriginal children (Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel, 2010, p. 2).” Reports have also indicated that First Nations registered Indian children make up the largest proportion of Aboriginal children entering child welfare care across Canada (Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel, p. 2). Consequently, this has negatively impacted Aboriginal communities experience of and relationship with child welfare services across the country. It is visible that the over-representation of Aboriginal children in the child welfare system in Canada lies in the impact of the Canadian policy for Indian residential schools, which will be described throughout this paper.
At these boarding schools, Native American children were able to leave their Indian reservations to attend schools that were often run by wealthy white males. These individuals often did not create these schools with the purest of intentions for they often believed that land occupied by Native American Tribes should be taken from them and put to use; it is this belief that brought about the purpose of the boarding schools which was to attempt to bring the Native American community into mainstream society (Bloom, 1996). These boarding schools are described to have been similar to a military institution or a private religious school. The students were to wear uniforms and obey strict rules that included not speaking one’s native tongue but rather only speaking English. Punishments for not obeying such rules often included doing laborious chores or being physically reprimanded (Bloom, 1996). Even with hars...
“To kill the Indian in the child,” this was one of the many atrocious quotes which were spoken during the peak of residential schools from 1913 to 1932. Residential schools were government-sponsored, church ran schools established to assimilate Aboriginal children into Euro-Canadian culture. This quote means what it simply says, to remove the Indian culture out of a child. There were many quotes which outlined the goals of residential schools in Canada; some of them as shown in source II for example, were made by Duncan Campbell Scott, the Deputy Superintendent General of the Department of Indian Affairs between 1913 and 1932. The quote depicts his Eurocentric views towards the Indians and his intentions on what to do with them. The first Source
The underscoring concept to social work practice the pursuit towards a socially just society. Social workers serve the purpose of enriching society by enhancing social justice and eliminating social oppression. Mandates and mission statements support these objectives within social service agencies both in for profit and nonprofit sectors. One thing that every social service agency has in common is the overarching ideology that shapes the society they serve and more specifically, ideology influences the way an agency can conduct its services. Philosophy in most cases only goes as far as policy allows it too. This paper will examine the similarities and differences from western child welfare policy in the United States (US) and look outwards at international trends of practice and policy in Finland and Germany. In order to develop effective policy that meets society’s needs, it’s important to analysis other countries child welfare policies and gain an understanding of what is making a difference in child welfare practice around the world.
The current generation of native people in Canada are greatly impacted by efforts made by the Canadian government that forced previous generations to assimilate and give up their culture. Most of the fifth generation of native people are not directly impacted by the atrocities that forced their people to give up their culture for the benefit of others; however, their diminished cultural identity is a result of it. Parents who are raising the fifth generation have difficulty passing on their Indian identity to their children (Deiter-McArthur 381). The parents and grandparents of the fifth generation were raised in the residential school system, where they were stopped from showing affection or love for one another even if it was their own brother or sister. This results in a lack of ability for some of them to show love toward their children (Maniitok). Another e...
"On Indian Removal." Social Policy: Essential Primary Sources. Ed. K. Lee Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, and Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner. Detroit:
Our Indian legislation generally rests on the principle, that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of tutelage and treated as wards or children of the State. …the true interests of the aborigines and of the State alike require...
“To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.
This essay will first address the statute used and interpretation of the threshold test by the courts, and then focus on cases involving vulnerable children to assess whether the statute in The Children Act 1989 is sufficient in protecting these children from harm. I will look at the argument in favour of the current approach taken by the courts, and the counter-argument in favour of changing the current approach. The arguments are delicately balanced and the law is always developing, so it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves this issue in future.
Yellow Bird, M., Chenault, V., (1999). The Role of Social Work in Advancing the Practice of Indigenous Education: Obstacles and Promices in Empowerment-Oriented Social Work Practice. In Next Steps: Research and Practice To Advance Indian Education (pp. 201-229)
In the story Reclaiming Culture and the Land: Motherhood and the Policies of Sustaining Community, the author describes just some of the challenges of working while being a Native American living on and off within a normal Caucasian society. One of the issues brought up in the story is that the author does a poor job in raising her children while they are at the most important stages in their childhood. In this Indian community, everyone knows each other and it is a close, tight knit community throughout. One of the principals which backs this up is that one or more mothers in the community take care of all of the children of the community, kind of like a daycare center. The author is indeed one of these caretaker mothers that would spend a lot of time with all the children. As a result, outsiders look at her and believe that she is doing a poor job at what she considers to be a fine parenting job. And other hardship that she has is trying to understand her place in society because she is a woman. In the story, she describes how things are constantly being taken from her and assumed by the male sex. These and more are some of the problems that she has to deal with in the story.
The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...
Her book focuses on the myriads of issues and struggles that Indigenous men and women have faced and will continue to face because of colonialism. During her speech, Palmater addressed the grave effects of the cultural assimilation that permeated in Indigenous communities, particularly the Indian Residential School System and the Indian Act, which has been extensively discussed in both lectures and readings. Such policies were created by European settlers to institutionalize colonialism and maintain the social and cultural hierarchy that established Aboriginals as the inferior group. Palmater also discussed that according to news reports, an Aboriginal baby from Manitoba is taken away every single day by the government and is put in social care (CTVNews.ca Staff, 2015). This echoes Andrea Smith’s argument in “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing” that colonialism continues to affect Aboriginals through genocide (2006, p. 68). Although such actions by the government are not physical acts of genocide, where 90% of Aboriginal population was annihilated, it is this modern day cultural assimilation that succeeded the Indigenous Residential School System and the Indian Act embodies colonialism and genocide (Larkin, November 4,
The Native American Reservation system was a complete failure. This paper focuses on the topics of relocation, Native American boarding schools, current conditions on today’s reservations, and what effects these have had on the Native American way of life.