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37 Cap. U. L. Rev. 239 (2008-2009)
Achieving Permanency for American Indian and Alaska Native Children: Lessons from Tribal Traditions

handle is hein.journals/capulr37 and id is 245 raw text is: ACHIEVING PERMANENCY FOR AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE CHILDREN: LESSONS FROM TRIBAL TRADITIONS PROFESSOR BARBARA ANN ATWOOD* One of the many challenges facing the American child welfare system is the need for practices that are responsive to the unique cultural needs of the children who are placed in foster care.' The goal of achieving permanent, stable placements for children in the child welfare system is an over-arching objective, but permanency is a chameleon term in the child welfare world whose meaning varies from context to context and culture to culture. Over 500,000 children are currently in foster care across the United States, representing different races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds.2 In this article, I explore the concept of permanency in child . Mary Anne Richey Professor of Law, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. I thank Capital University Law School and the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy for the opportunity to participate in the Fourth Annual Wells Conference. I am also grateful to Guadalupe Gutierrez, Class of 2009, James E. Rogers College of Law, for her outstanding research assistance in tribal law. 1 A growing body of literature has identified the inadequacies and biases of the American child protection system in a multi-cultural society. See, e.g., DOROTHY ROBERTS, SHATrERED BONDS (2002) (criticizing pervasive racial disparities in the child protection system, particularly over-representation of African-American children in foster care); Annette R. Appell, Protecting Children or Punishing Mothers: Gender, Race, and Class in the Child Protection System, 48 S.C. L. REv. 577 (1997); Sacha Coupet, Swimming Upstream Against the Great Adoption Tide: Making the Case for Impermanence, 34 CAP. U. L. REv. 405 (2005) (contending that permanent guardianships with kinship caregivers, especially within African-American communities, may provide superior permanency alternative to adoption); Theresa Hughes, The Neglect of Children and Culture: Responding to Child Maltreatment with Cultural Competence and a Review of Child Abuse and Culture: Working with Diverse Families, 44 FAM. CT. REv. 501 (2006) (praising movement toward cultural competence in legal representation of families in child protection proceedings); Eliza Patten, The Subordination of Subsidized Guardianship in Child Welfare Proceedings, 29 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & SOC. CHANGE 237 (2004) (criticizing child welfare system for preferring adoption over other forms of extended-family caregiving more prevalent in minority cultures). 2 According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 510,000 children were in foster care on September 30, 2006, and of that group, (continued)

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