RAPID CITY - A new Oglala Sioux Tribe office in Rapid City has a simple goal: Keeping Native American children with relatives or native foster parents.
"The whole idea is to try to keep them with family," said Juanita Scherick, director of the tribe's ONTRAC, or Oglala Nation Tiospaye Resource and Advocacy Center, program. "I think that's what we all want."
ONTRAC represents the tribe in abuse, neglect and adoption court cases involving Native American children who are eligible for tribal enrollment. Under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, tribes must be notified when Native American children are removed from their parents in state child custody proceedings.
To keep Native American children connected with their culture, ICWA also states that children should be placed with relatives if possible or with native foster parents.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe opened an ICWA office - now called ONTRAC - in Pine Ridge after the law was passed. Its small staff deals with ICWA notices from all 50 states.
ONTRAC workers transfer cases back to Oglala Sioux Tribal Court, search for relatives and native foster families, as well as make recommendations to judges about where Native American children should be placed.
Scherick said her Pine Ridge office, which is staffed by her and social workers Gwen Pourier and Bill Cross, receives 35 to 50 ICWA notices daily.
Last year, there were about 840 cases in South Dakota state courts that involved Oglala children. "That's an alarming number for the Oglala Sioux Tribe," Scherick said.
With many of those cases - about 250 of them - originating in Pennington County, the tribe decided to open an ONTRAC office in Rapid City. Supporters say it will help the tribe monitor local court cases, improve communication with the court and state agencies, and provide local support for Rapid City's native families involved in child custody cases.
"The intent is to build a rapport with the state and develop better procedures in notifying the tribe so we can effectively return those children back with their families," said social worker Jolene Abourezk, who will staff the local office in Suite 214 of the Buell Building, at the corner of Seventh and St. Joseph streets. Attorney Mario Gonzalez will provide legal assistance.
Abourezk is from Pine Ridge, worked for the state Department of Social Services at Rapid City and at Pine Ridge, and also worked as a school social worker at Little Wound School.
"It's helpful just having that history," said Abourezk, whose father-in-law - then-South Dakota Sen. James Abourezk - introduced the ICWA bill in Congress. "I really feel like this is going to succeed."
Here's how many ICWA cases go. Police who encounter a neglected or abused child call a social worker, who places the child in emergency care.
The state court must hold a custody hearing within 48 hours to determine where the child should live while the court case is pending. If the child is Native and ICWA applies, the tribe must be notified and given 30 days to respond.
An ONTRAC worker with contacts in the Native community may be able to find relatives to take a child by the time the custody hearing takes place.
The tribe can choose to intervene in abuse/neglect cases (ICWA doesn't apply to divorce cases) and transfer jurisdiction back to tribal court. The state can decline to transfer a case, but must show "just cause." For example, a case might not be transferred if the tribe doesn't have the resources needed to help the child or family involved, Abourezk said.
The state Department of Social Services oversees cases in state court. When cases are transferred to tribal court, the tribe takes charge.
State and tribal officials have been working on a tribally chartered, culturally oriented social services agency, Lakota Oyate Wakanyeja Owicakiyapi.
LOWO is expected to take over child protection services on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation from DSS within the next year, according to administrative assistant Elicia Good Soldier.
Seventh Circuit Judge Janine Kern said the tribe's expansion of ONTRAC and its work on LOWO show a commitment to serving Native children.
"I think it's just wonderful that they have an office in Rapid City," said Kern, who currently handles the circuit's abuse and neglect cases.
Kern has transferred more than 30 cases to tribal court since January. Regardless of whether an abuse/neglect case goes through tribal court or state court, she said, the important thing is that the family gets the help they need.
"This is the future of our state, the children that are coming through our court system now," she said. "Their needs have to be well-served. We have to change our focus and put the appropriate funding and the priority on children when they first enter the system."
If abuse and neglect aren't addressed when children are young, "by the time they're 15, they're going to have a whole host of problems that could have been better addressed earlier," Kern said.
Kern co-chaired a state commission on ICWA that in 2004 issued 30 recommendations for improving South Dakota's compliance with the law. Collaborative Circle - a group that includes representatives from DSS, private agencies - and the state's nine tribes, was formed to carry on the commission's work, she said.
That kind of collaboration is crucial because ONTRAC and other ICWA offices don't have the staff and funding needed to effectively handle the thousands of referrals they receive each year, Kern and others say.
"Our tribal children … are also South Dakotans," Scherick said. "If we don't work together (to help them), we'll all fail, and our children are our future."
"I think the possibilities (to work together) are many," said Virgena Wieseler, director of the DSS Child Protection Division. "It's just so much easier when we're in the same location."
She hopes DSS staffers can work with ONTRAC's family locator, Susan Shangreaux, to find more native foster families on and off the reservation. (For more information on becoming a foster parent, call ONTRAC at 719-2267.)
For Scherick, this work is especially close to her heart.
"I've come through the foster system myself," she said. "I have my own perceptions about how it should be."
She and her brother were placed in non-Native foster homes after school officials reported they were being neglected by their alcoholic mother. (She has been sober for 30 years). Scherick's brother adjusted better than she did.
"I was 9 years old, but I was running (away) and hitchhiking home," Scherick said. "It was just not a happy place for me. "I try to remember how that child feels, trying to get back to their family," she said. "Every child is trying to get home."
Contact Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419 or heidi.bell@rapidcityjournal.com
