ACF Statement on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report Vol. II

On July 30, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) released Vol. II of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report (PDF) (PDF). This report further illuminates how the federal government's past assimilationist policies separated young Native children from their families and directly contributed to the dismantling of generations of Native families and their cultural connections. DOI's work illustrates the connection between historical trauma and the current disparities Native people experience across legal, social and economic systems.

ACF recognizes its responsibility to advance the health and well-being of Native children by supporting the preservation of Native families, communities, and cultures. ACF maintains its commitment to transform the systems we oversee and fund from systems that cause trauma to systems that aid in healing and support thriving Native families and communities.

With guidance from Tribal leaders and partners, ACF is advancing historic policy reforms that promote the economic and social well-being of Native children and families, from a new rule that will make it easier for kin caregivers to get support, to significant increases in funding for early childhood development and Native language preservation and many other actions.

• ACF is expanding the scope of 477 integration plans that now deliver over $300 million in flexible funding to 298 Indian Tribes to strengthen the economic stability and mobility of families in Indian Country, including braiding child welfare funding with workforce funding to help preserve families.
• ACF is implementing a comprehensive Missing Murdered Indigenous People Action Plan entitled Culture is Prevention: A Strength Based, Culturally Grounded Journey Toward Prevention, Intervention, and Healing(PDF) to counter the cumulative impacts of this trauma providing grant funding and technical assistance resources directly to Native communities.
• The Kinship Final Rule equalizes treatment for kinship foster parents, making it easier for children in foster care, including Native children, to be placed with kin caregivers by reducing barriers to licensing and expanding access to financial and supportive resources for these caregivers.
• A new Head Start provision recognizes that tribal Head Start programs may serve any child in their service area, regardless of income, ensuring Tribes can prioritize services for those in their community. In addition, ACF published a final rule that allows all Tribes to serve Indian children regardless of income. These changes are in response to key priorities for Tribal leaders.
• ACF published a final rulethat eliminates the non-federal shareof program expenditures requirement for Tribal child support programs so more tribes can run their own programs in alignment with tribal need and custom.
• ACF intends to amend the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS ) regulations to require state title IV-E agencies to collect and report data elements related to the procedural protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) by the end of the year.
• ACF increased Tribal flexibility so that Tribes may eliminate all parent co-payments, have more time for spending construction and major renovation funds, and decreases the need to for Tribes to submit construction applications to the federal government.
• ACF recently expanded access to legal representation for foster children, their parents, their relative caregivers, their Indian custodians, and their tribes by allowing state and Tribal child welfare agencies to use federal funds to provide legal services when such legal representation is necessary to carry out the requirements in the child welfare agency's Title IV-E foster care plan.
• ACF also issued a final rule that ensures state and tribal welfare agencies provide LGBTQIS+ and Two Spirit and Two Spirit children (which the rule explains includes children who identify as Two Spirit) with access to specifically designated foster care placements with supportive environments.
• At the recent White House Child Welfare Convening, ACF highlighted new policies that keep children and families safely together and supported . Actions include providing more flexibility to Tribal governments to use Tribally accepted prevention services when they collaborate with state child welfare agencies.
• ACF is funding its second cluster of "State-Tribal Partnerships to Implement Best Practices in Indian Child Welfare" grants in FY 24 to create and implement intergovernmental partnership models to improve the implementation of culturally appropriate child welfare best practices for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and families.
• ACF issues annual Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) grants to assist Tribes in efforts to increase public awareness about primary and secondary prevention of family violence, domestic violence, and dating violence, and to provide immediate shelter and supportive services for victims of family violence, domestic violence, or dating violence, and their dependents.
• ACF recently announced a forecasted funding opportunity for the National Indigenous Domestic Violence Hotline . The purpose of OFVPS's National Indigenous Domestic Violence Hotline is to provide crisis intervention and support, help users and callers identify problems, priorities, and possible solutions and options, including making plans for safety and a plan of action.
• ACF funds community-based organizations that provides culturally responsive case management servicesto survivors of human trafficking from Native communities, survivor-led initiatives to prevent human trafficking through the Anti-Trafficking Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability project, and public awareness materials for Native and Indigenous youth through the Look Beneath the Surface campaign.
• ACF is planning to fund four additional Tribal Court Improvement Programgrants this fiscal year, bringing the total to eight grantees, to support tribes in assessing needs and implementing strategies to improve child welfare court practice, including efforts to strengthen practice and develop culturally appropriate court practices for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and families living on tribal lands or those involved in Indian Child Welfare Act cases.
  

Additionally, ACF has significantly increased funding to tribes and Native communities and the President's Budget proposes to do more:

• Native languagepreservation and revitalization is central to Native identity, ceremonies, traditional healing, and sustaining cultural lifeways. Increased funding will support Native language preservation, maintenance, and immersion programs.
• The Tribal Early Learning Initiative (TELI)provides Tribes the opportunity to use Tribal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program funds to support coordinated child care and early childhood services in their communities.
• The President's Fiscal Year 25 budget requests include a Tribal Integrated Early Education Services (TIEES) legislative proposal which would expand authority for Tribes to integrate services to facilitate the development of comprehensive and tribally driven early childhood systems. It also includes a proposal to create a new tribal child welfare funding stream that reduce administrative burdens for tribe and invest in tribally driven prevention and family preservation strategies.

ACF remains steadfast in its commitment to improving the health and well-being of Native children and families across the country and working with federal agencies to fulfill the recommendations of the Boarding School Report.

Quotes

Additional Links

• FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces New Actions to Support Child…

Contact