STATEMENT
OF THE
NATIONAL
INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ASSOCIATION
PRESENTED
BEFORE THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS SUBCOMMITTEE
ON
HUMAN RESOURCES
Regarding
BUSH
ADMINISTRATION FOSTER CARE FLEXIBLE FUNDING PROPOSAL
JUNE
11, 2003
Terry
L. Cross
Executive
Director
The
National Indian Child Welfare Association submits this statement on the Bush
Administration’s foster care flexible funding proposal. Our statement will focus on the potential
benefits for American Indian children and areas needing further clarification. This statement will also show how not having
access to Title IV-E funding in the past has hampered the ability of tribal
governments to provide basic services that support permanency for their children.
The
National Indian Child Welfare Association is honored to have this opportunity
to present our comments and recommendations before the subcommittee. In the past, tribal governments were often
not included in the debates that decided how federal funding would flow or how
services would be designed, which underscores the importance of this
opportunity.
Our
general response to the President’s flexible funding proposal as it applies to
American Indian children is very positive.
This includes a $30 million reserved amount for distribution to eligible
tribal governments. For many years now,
tribal governments have struggled to piece together funding to provide child
welfare services in ways that are as creative and innovative as anything you
will see elsewhere. This has not been
easy but has demonstrated the strong desire of tribal governments to exercise
their sovereignty and right to self-governance.
There
are still many details that need to be worked out and clarified, and this is
why it is very important for Congress and the Administration to open a dialog
with tribal governments on how to develop the best possible funding
proposal. The nuances and complexities
of making a child welfare program successful for American Indian children, such
as integrating requirements under existing federal Indian laws with this
proposal, are many, but there are many good minds and people with expertise in
these areas that can help.
Our
primary recommendations are summarized below:
American Indian Children and Title IV-E
Important
to understanding how the Bush Administration’s proposal will impact American
Indian children is the overall experience with Title IV-E for these
children. It is a story of American
Indian children left behind.
In
1980 when the Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Act was debated and then
enacted into law, Congress did not consider that thousands of American Indian
children receive child welfare services through their tribal governments. State governments were the only eligible
recipients for Title IV-E funds as written into the law. This oversight created a gap in the program
where American Indian children under the jurisdiction of tribal courts could
not receive Title IV-E services. These
are the same children who are found to be some of the most over represented
children in the foster care system and live in communities with some of the
greatest needs in the United States.
This oversight has essentially made a class of children ineligible for
federal entitlement services simply because of where they live in the United
States.
In
most tribal communities, the inability to access Title IV-E funds has meant
additional hardship for tribal governments as they try to develop child welfare
services that can move American Indian children towards permanency. Recruiting, training, and maintaining an
adequate pool of foster and adoptive homes has been very difficult, with many
tribes having to place children in unsubsidized homes because no funding
exists. Case management, a critical
element of helping children move out of crisis and into a permanent
arrangement, is hampered when funding for staff positions and the training of
staff is inadequate. Data systems
critical to developing information that can inform government officials and
policymakers have received a boost from Title IV-E funding, but tribal
governments have not shared in this.
The overall effect has been to limit progress towards improving
permanency for American Indian children.
Addressing
this disparity in recent years have been several members of the House and
Senate who have signed on to legislation that would amend Title IV-E to make
tribal governments eligible to receive these funds directly. We thank the primary House co-sponsor of
H.R. 443, Representative Dave Camp, for introducing this important legislation
and working to seek its passage.
Some
stopgap efforts to piece together foster care funding for tribal governments
has occurred in 13 states. Agreements
between tribes and states have allowed a small portion of tribes the ability to
receive Title IV-E funding for foster care services. These agreements have given about 70 tribes access to foster care
funding to support maintenance payments to foster families. However, these agreements are often hard to
develop and provide only a small portion of the overall program funding to
tribes. Agreements to provide access to
the adoption assistance program or reimburse tribes for eligible administrative
services are almost non-existent.
Tribal governments who want to develop agreements in many other states
have not been able to because of state officials who are cautious about
administrative or legal concerns. Two
studies, one conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of
Inspector General in 1994 entitled, “Opportunities
for Administration for Children and Families to Improve Child Welfare Services
and Protections for Native American Children” and one that Casey Family
Programs and the National Indian Child Welfare Association conducted in 2000
entitled, “Tribal/State Title IV-E
Agreements: Facilitating Tribal Access to Federal Resources” had similar
findings.
The
Bureau of Indian Affairs offers some discretionary funding for foster care to a
limited number of tribes, but this source does not support program costs and is
unavailable to a large number of tribes.
It is part of an $85 million pot of funds termed "Welfare
Assistance", which must also meet the other following needs of tribes nationwide: general assistance, non-medical institutional
or custodial care of disabled adults; the Tribal Work Experience program;
burial expenses of deceased indigent American Indian people; and emergency
assistance to prevent hardship caused by fire, flood, or other acts of nature. To say the least, this is not a reliable
source of funds for foster care and adoption assistance. We also point out that the funding from the
Bureau of Indian Affairs does not support adoption assistance services. At the Navajo Nation, a recipient of these
Bureau funds, the tribal social services program still has to place
approximately 300 children a year in unsubsidized foster care. The Navajo families that volunteer their
time and homes have very modest incomes and yet are forced to use what little
resources they have to support the costs of providing a foster care or adoptive
placement. This situation creates an
additional risk factor for disrupted placements, beyond what state child
welfare programs typically see. As you
can see, the funding picture for foster care and adoption assistance services
for American Indian children is bleak and does not even begin to meet the
overwhelming needs found in most tribal communities.
The
Department of Justice reports that violent victimizations were more likely
among American Indian children than any other racial group, and that between
1992 and 1995 child abuse and neglect rates increased among American Indians
while declining for other groups (1999 National Report Services: Juvenile
Justice Bulletin). Many of these Indian children end up in the child welfare
system; tribes need the resources of the Title IV-E program to assist these
children and their families.
The Administration’s Proposal for Title
IV-E Flexible Funding and Application with American Indian Children
Our
general response to the Administration’s proposal to provide $30 million for
allocation to eligible tribal governments is supportive in that the proposal
recognizes the needs of tribal governments to be included in any new
development or reform of federal child welfare programs. We also interpret this element of the Title
IV-E proposal as support for the government-to-government relationship that
tribal governments have with the federal government. It is consistent with the way many DHHS and other federal funds
are distributed to tribes—on a government-to-government basis that allows for
local design of programs within the confines of federal law. While there are still many details to be
ironed out, this appears to be a promising beginning. A number of the tribal governments with whom we have talked
regarding this proposal are also very interested and looking forward to having
the opportunity to provide their input too.
Our
basic understanding of the proposal, at this point, is that it would be an
option for states and require a five-year commitment. Funding is also reserved for eligible tribal governments under
this proposal—approximately $30 million—which would be available after an
application is submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services and approved,
although the process and amounts available for distribution to individual
tribal governments have not yet been determined. The process for determining who is an eligible tribal applicant
has not been decided either, although conversations with the Children’s Bureau
have indicated that they are looking at a number of possibilities. We also understand that individual children
will not have to meet a certain income level requirement in order to qualify
for services under this proposal. The
President’s proposal also mentions providing some waiver authority to modify or
waive certain requirements for tribal programs as long as the modifications do
not compromise child safety or health.
Funding under this proposal will also be available for purposes authorized
under Title IV-B or IV-E, which would include subsidized guardianship
placements—a good option for some children for whom adoption is not
realistic.
Based
upon the information we have received so far, we are providing a brief
description of what the National Indian Child Welfare sees as the key issues,
areas that need clarification, and our ideas on how to address these
challenges.
Eligibility
for tribal governments—Tribal governments, like state
governments, need dependable, adequate funding for child welfare services for
children under their jurisdiction. In
many situations, lack of funding has been the primary barrier for tribes as
they seek to protect their children and give them a greater sense of
permanency. All tribes in the United States
operate some form of child welfare service, and a great number of these
currently operate foster care and adoption services. Since the President’s proposal implies great flexibility in how
the funds can be used and tribal communities have the experience and some of
the greatest needs, it makes good sense to allow all tribal governments to
participate in this proposal. Basic
program and reporting requirements required for all applicants will provide the
Children’s Bureau with an opportunity to evaluate the suitability of this
program for each applicant.
Furthermore, by increasing tribal participation in this program, the
federal government will also facilitate the collection of tribal data on foster
care and adoption, which is currently not available. By not limiting eligibility to only select groups of tribes, the
Administration will be making a strong statement about its commitment to
improving child welfare services for all American Indian children.
Tribal
consortia—Tribal child welfare services have been provided
through consortium in many parts of the United States for over 20 years. Tribes in states like Alaska and California,
which comprise over half of all tribal governments in the United States, rely
on the option to use consortium to maximize their limited funds. Typically, the consortium designates a lead
tribe that becomes the services administrator for Indian children in the
identified service area. The organization
of tribal consortium in child welfare is a response to several things: 1) the
need to improve service coordination, 2) the need to maximize the use of
limited funding and improve access to other potential funding sources, and 3)
the need to provide tribal governments with insufficient resources the
opportunity to exercise their authority and responsibility to protect their
children. Allowing tribal consortia to
qualify for funding under the President’s proposal will help a much greater
number of Indian children who otherwise would go unserved, and, we believe,
will help make the administration of the program by the Children’s Bureau
easier.
Distribution
of funds—Related to tribal eligibility will be the issue
of how available funding is distributed to eligible tribes. Because most tribes have had very limited
access to federal child welfare funding, especially foster care and adoption
assistance funding, it is almost impossible to know what an accurate baseline
of need related to these types of services is.
Accurate caseload and program histories, especially related to use of
Title IV-E funds, are not available at this time. If the President’s proposal is enacted, our experience tells us
that tribal governments will apply incrementally, with more applying each year. At the end of five years, we could see even
more tribal governments wanting to apply as increased information regarding
promising practices and critical analysis of program operations becomes
available. These issues underline the
need for tribes to have the same options as states to choose between the
existing IV-E program and the President’s flexible funding option and for a
periodic system to review the adequacy of tribal funding under this
proposal. This review may trigger the
adjustment of the reserved funds for tribal governments, based upon factors
such as need and inflation and also be equitable with any mechanism that
provides adjustments for state allocations.
An
approach to ensuring adequate tribal participation and benefits for American
Indian children would be to allow redistribution of any unspent funds in a
given fiscal year. This is consistent
with how other similar federal funding for tribal governments is distributed
(Title IV-B, Subpart 2) and can be accomplished through the use of supplemental
or contingency budgets submitted by tribal governments. The Secretary could review supplemental
applications and assess them for their merit and feasibility.
Waiver
authority—Research regarding tribal child welfare
programs demonstrates that culturally defined services are much more likely to
succeed with Indian children and families, and this is an area where waivers
may be appropriate. Another reason for
allowing waiver authority is the economy of scale of applying requirements
designed for larger programs that are not feasible for smaller programs. The ability of federal programs to allow
flexibility in program requirements is a positive development, and, used
wisely, will help reduce the flow of children into the child welfare system and
produce better outcomes for those who are involved.
Service
area—Under the TANF program and other federal
programs, tribes define their service area and the American Indian population
being served. This is important because
of the differences in available tribal resources, working relationships with
state and county governments, and jurisdictional variances. When tribal governments have this option,
they will often use it to provide services to more than just members of their
tribe. They may provide the services to
Indian people from other tribes living within their reservation or service
area. This can help alleviate the
burden state and county agencies often feel and provide more accessible and/or
culturally designed services. New and
emerging partnerships can also develop as tribal and state agencies work to map
out a service delivery plan that meets everyone’s needs.
Matching
funds—Proposing a significant match or maintenance of
effort requirement for tribes could become an impediment to tribal
participation. The majority of tribal
communities continue to be economically disadvantaged. In many cases, their only source of revenue
for government services will come from Bureau of Indian Affairs or Indian
Health Services funds, which are restricted to specific activities. Because tribal communities often have such
high rates of poverty and unemployment, tribal governments have very few
options when it comes to raising general, unrestricted revenue. As a result, a number of federal programs
have reduced match requirements that apply to tribal governments and/or provide
them with the opportunity to use other federal or state funds as match (e.g.
TANF, Title IV-B and Child Care Block Grant).
This can be done without supplanting tribal funding or significantly
reducing maintenance of effort. We
strongly recommend flexibility with regard to any required tribal match rates.
We
note that, according to the 2000 Census, the poverty rate for the large federal
reservations is 40.3%; the unemployment rate for the same set of large
reservations is 22.8%. Several reservations
have poverty rates of over 50% with unofficial employment rates exceeding 30%.
Technical
assistance—While the National Indian Child Welfare
Association, through our partnerships with four of the National Resource
Centers in Child Welfare, has been able to provide technical assistance to many
tribes that are planning for or operating foster care and adoption assistance
services, we consistently have to turn away tribal governments who request
technical assistance. We can also see
an increased demand for technical assistance from tribal governments once this
proposal is enacted. To ensure that
critical information and assistance is available to further the program’s
goals, it would be worthwhile to establish technical assistance resources for
tribes interested in child welfare services.
This could be approached in several ways, but the overall goal would be
to improve access to the knowledge base in practice and policy.
Conclusion
We
greatly appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to share our
thoughts and ideas regarding the President’s proposal for flexible foster care
funding. As we said earlier, both our
organization and the tribal governments that we have talked with are very
interested in this proposal in combination with amending the Title IV-E law to
allow tribal governments, like state governments, to administer the current
Title IV-E program. I think it is fair
to say that all of us are looking to improve the way in which children and
families receive services in the child welfare system. We want to avoid the mistakes of the past,
take advantage of the opportunities before us now, and create a world where all
children can receive the services they need.
The National Indian Child Welfare Association feels strongly about this,
as we are sure you do, and is hopeful that this will be the Congress that will
make this vision a reality.