An interesting and often overlooked aspect of the child welfare system is the cultural aspect. How are children from culturally rich backgrounds treated and taught? One way in which the law recognizes culture is with the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. This law protects the interest of Native American families and tribal interest in their children. It mandates that Native American children placed in foster care must be placed in a member of the child’s extended family, a foster home approved by the child’s tribe, a Native American foster home, or an institution for children approved by the tribe. As each tribe has unique customs, so do they require unique boundaries in regard to this law. Historically, the United States government has forced a tremendous amount of cultural genocide on Native American people in forms of land seizure, boarding schools, and many other offenses. This law attempts to protect the future of Native American tribes. While I wholeheartedly agree with this law and its motives, I have seen some problems attached to it. I worked with a Native American child, an Eeyore with two siblings, since I began volunteering at Casa de los Niños. They lived at the shelter for at least five months, much longer than the 21 day maximum goal, because there were no available foster parents or adoptive parents from their tribe. Eventually, the court overruled the law and allowed all three siblings to be adopted by a non-tribal family. I understand the importance of this law and the historical precedent, but I feel morally uncertain when this particular situation occurs. Is the preservation of culture a significant enough cause to warrant a detriment to a child’s development?

Sources:

https://www.americanbar.org/newsletter/publications/gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/indianchildwelfareact.html

http://www.ncfs.navajo-nsn.gov/icwa.html

Because I have been volunteering at Casa de los Niños since August 2014, my adjustment from 5 hours a week to 15 hours a week has run smoothly. Before I started my SRP, I only worked with the toddlers, who are known as Eeyores in the Winnie the Pooh themed shelter. Now, I work with the Eeyores, the Poohs, who can crawl but not walk, and the Roos, who can speak rather well and are older than the toddlers. With this schedule, I am able to spend an equal amount of time with children from three distinctive and adjacent age groups that are very significant developmentally. Since I have been at the shelter since August, I have also observed some children who have changed age groups during their stay. Although all of the children have come from completely different backgrounds with different levels of trauma and abuse, they all now have access to excellent medical, social, and educational care and facilities. Every week when I work with each age group, I see substantial differences in each child’s physical and social abilities, appearance, adjustments to the shelter, and many other elements.

Externally from my internship, I read a research paper discussing the results of child poverty. This paper focuses on the effects of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which replaced the federal program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children with block grants to states for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, on child development. This act, which successfully provided welfare-to-work transitions to some families, forced other families into a deeper state of poverty. In categories such as personal health and achievement, there is abundant quantifiable data that consistently shows that child poverty adversely affects the ability and achievement of children. Probabilities for grade repetition and dropping out of high school, learning disabilities, teenage out-of-wedlock births, child abuse and neglect, and experiencing violent crimes is proportionately 2.0 times higher, 1.4 times higher, 3.1 times higher, 6.8 times higher, and 2.2 times higher respectively for poor children relative to nonpoor children. This data demonstrates the powerful nature of the cycle of poverty and its direct influence on the cycle of abuse. Because of ideals of the American Dream, many people believe that poverty is an individual choice, not a systemic problem. This society must recognize and understand the cycle of poverty and all of its consequences because public policies such as minimum wage laws and social welfare programs have a significant influence on poverty levels. By changing and refining the often unrealistic views of poverty, we may be able to end the cycle of poverty and the subsequent cycle of abuse.

Sources:

Duncan, Greg J., and Jeanne Brooks‐Gunn. "Family poverty, welfare reform, and child development." Child development 71.1 (2000): 188-196.

My name is Dominique Macias and I am a senior at BASIS Tucson North. For my Senior Research Project, I will be extending my volunteering hours at Casa de los Niños, a non-profit organization that promotes family stability and child well-being. I volunteer at the temporary shelter, where I help take care of children between the ages of 1 and 4. I aim to provide these children with as much individualized attention as possible, something that they severely lack. As I observe these children growing up, I will independently research the developmental effects of abuse and neglect and the child welfare system in place protecting the children. I will try to recognize the measures that we can take to improve the flawed child welfare system and the ways in which we can end the cycle of abuse.