Warren, Murkowski Call for Study to Support Tribal Child Welfare

Warren, Murkowski Call for Study to Support Tribal Child Welfare

"The U.S. government's record with AI/AN children has eroded Tribal communities' trust in the traditional child welfare system."

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study into child abuse and neglect in indigenous communities to help inform Congress' work to support Tribal child welfare programs.

Historically, American Indian (AI) and Alaskan Native (AN) communities have been subjected to trauma by the United States government. In the 19th and 20th centuries, hundreds of thousands of children were displaced into over 500 boarding schools, where they experienced physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Then between the 1950s and 1970s, an estimated 25 to 35 percent of all AI/AN children were removed from their families and placed by child welfare agencies in foster care far from their tribal communities or were adopted, primarily by non-Indian families. Even today, AI/AN children are over-represented in the foster care system.

Tribal child welfare programs are systematically underfunded. In August 2016, GAO published a report revealing that over half of the Tribes interviewed lacked adequate resources for their foster care programs. These funding gaps have led to a lack of adequate child welfare infrastructure, including a shortage of trained child welfare professionals, inadequate technology for maintaining child case records, and a lack of emergency intervention services.

"To best support Tribal child welfare programs, we need to better understand the common barriers Tribes face in accessing federal and state child welfare funding and technical assistance, the best practices that Tribal child welfare programs employ, and the gaps in federal data on AI/AN child abuse," wrote the senators.

The lawmakers urged GAO to consult with Tribes to examine existing child abuse and neglect prevention programs and resources, and produce a report with recommendations on how to better support Tribes' child welfare programs.

"The federal government has a responsibility to invest in Tribal child welfare programs and to not repeat the harms of the past. This research is critical to better understanding those programs' urgent needs," concluded the senators.

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