Indians question DHS actions Number of children removed from homes 5 times national average

AUGUSTA – The Department of Human Services is removing Maliseet children in the Houlton area from their homes at more than five times the national average for American Indians, and placing them in mostly non-native foster homes, an Indian representative told a public hearing Monday.

The state has taken 29 children from the 742-member Houlton Band of Maliseets during the past five years, and had 11 of them adopted into non-native homes, Rep. Donna M. Loring of the Penobscot Nation told the legislatively appointed Committee to Review the Child Protective System.

“The loss of that many children to a tribe [of that number] is nothing less than genocide. When an Indian tribe loses its children it loses its future,” said Loring.

She added that the state was disregarding the Indian Child Welfare Act, intended to protect Indian children from being taken away from their culture and heritage. The 1978 federal law says that decisions about the welfare of Indian children should be made by the tribes themselves, without state interference.

Loring was one of several tribal advocates who spoke to the committee, which is investigating the child protective system.

She recommended that national experts train members of the Maine judiciary on the ICWA and that an Indian advocate act as a liaison between the courts and the tribes. In addition, she has submitted a bill that would allow members of the Houlton Band of Maliseets to bring their child welfare cases to the Penobscot Nation’s Tribal Court until they can create their own court system.

The state hasn’t followed ICWA stipulations that Indian children be placed first with extended family, Maliseet Chief Brenda Commander said. The next options are tribal homes or other native homes. As a last choice, an Indian child may be placed with a non-native family.

Of 18 open DHS cases involving Maliseet children, only four children have been placed into Maliseet homes. Twelve have been identified as needing therapeutic foster care. Meanwhile, there are empty beds in the four native homes in Aroostook County licensed to give therapeutic care.

The children removed from their homes represent 16 percent of the tribal enrollment for children under age 17, Commander said.

“These numbers only just begin to touch the tip of the iceberg. They fail to fully illustrate the blatant disregard the department has had in following the ICWA law, and the shady, if not sneaky, actions of the department’s workers and some foster parents. We have had the belief that the goal of the department was to reunify children with their biological parents. More times than not this goal has been made unattainable by the department.”

Carole Francis, executive director for the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, said ICWA requires that families receive remedial services and rehabilitative programs so that they won’t be broken up. But the usual practice has been that services are provided to families only after children have been removed. Local DHS staff should be ordered to work more closely with the tribe when serving these families, she said.

Francis also took issue with the court system, which she says often orders agencies to provide services to parents even though the tribe offers the same programs and services.

Because native clients are more comfortable working with tribal agencies than with outsiders, tribal services have a better success rate. The department should refer native parents to tribal services first, she said.

Also speaking for the Maliseets was Jane Root, the tribal domestic violence coordinator. Court-appointed guardians ad litem and attorneys should be trained in native culture so they can “look at the family through a different lens,” she said.

Attorneys often pressure battered women to come to an agreement and don’t consult with their clients before making decisions, Root said.