Native American Fost/Adoption

Best of luck. I do not being out of state would be an issue. Though it can be difficult to do if you are not Native American. Here is a link to the current laws regarding Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. [url]http://www.nicwa.org/policy/law/index.asp.[/url]

We just adopted a Pima indian girl from the Gila Indian Community, South of Phoenix. The mother's husband was put in prison for some bogus charge, he has been there for the last 3 years. She already has 3 small kids and this baby girl was not the husbands, so we said we would adopt her. Since the Mother lived in Casa Grand at the time, she could give the child up without the tribe's consent. Now she has another baby, a boy, which she is also willing to let us adopt, but the tribe has the last word since she is now living on the reservation, the Catholic Social Services lawyers say our chances are slim and none. So I guess this answers your question. But, We are looking for info on how to foster-adopt the baby boy. BTW, CSS has been fantastic.

Adoption Progress I just wanted to share with a quick follow-up on the progress of our out-of-state Native American foster/adoption. Weve just been licensed by an Arizona tribe as pre-adoptive foster parents and expect to receive our new foster/adoption daughter any time now. The process went very fast and was relatively simple. Living out of state was also not a problem. It has so far, been a real pleasure working with the tribe and much less of a hassle than working with California or Arizona. Ludlow1 [url]www.KingdomFlight.org[/url]:)

Hi there.... I was just reading your thread and was very curious about 2 things. First of all, I noticed that the last time you posted was last month. Have you received any news about a child yet? Do you have a child yet? What Native American agency did you go through? Thanks, Tracey

Things have changed a bit since my last post. While we were initially assured of the license approval, it ended up getting denied at the last minute by a higher-up supervisor. The reasoning was that we live too far away (in California) for the monthly follow-up visits (by the case worker) with the foster child. We travel to this reservation (in Arizona) at least once or twice each month and follow-ups are also routinely done by phone (if at all) so this reasoning doesn't really make any sense. They do already have other out-of state foster homes. We do have the right to a hearing but we've chosen to forego this. I'd rather not post the name of the particular tribe we're working with. If you live in Arizona it'd probably be easy to get licensed for Indian foster/Adopt as the need is great for loving and safe homes. We are in the process of building several homes for abused and neglected Native American children throughout the United States and we plan to establish our first home for the tribe that has denied us the license. We still believe that we will adopt a little girl from the area in God's timing and are content to wait for now.

Ludlow1: I am sorry to hear that they denied you a license. From what I hear, that is not all that unusual. I live in Maine and although I am a very small amount of Black Foot Indian, I still would not be able to adopt a native american child because my husband is not. I think that what you are doing, building homes for the children is very inspiring. If you plan to build one in Maine, let me know. There are quite a few different tribes here in Maine. I am sure that you will have your little girl!! Thank you! Tracey