The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to support the creation of effective practice model partnerships between state courts and/or Court Improvement Program, state public child welfare agency and a tribe, group of tribes, or tribal consortia, including both the tribal child welfare agency and tribal court for effective implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 (Pub.L. 95-608).
Demonstration sites will be required to jointly develop protocols and practices to promote effective and timely:
– Identification of Indian children;
– Notice to tribes;
– Tribal participation as parties in hearings involving Indian children;
– Tribal intervention in dependency cases;
– Transfer of ICWA cases to tribal courts; and
– Placement of Indian children according to tribal preferences.
Partnership models must be co-created by states and tribes, jointly implemented, and designed to generate and capture clear, measurable outcomes such as:
– Compliance with identification methods;
– The number of Indian children identified;
– Length of time from removal or petition filed until identification is made;
– Number of notices sent;
– Length of time from identification until notice sent (state measure)
– Number of notices received (tribal measure)
– Length of time for tribal intervention or participation; (tribal measure)
– Number of cases in which a tribe intervenes; (joint measure)
– Number of transfers; (joint measure); and
– Number of Indian children placed according to tribal placement preferences (joint measure).