Studies from the late 1960s and early 1970s revealed that public and private agencies removed an alarmingly high number of American Indian children from their homes and placed them with non-Indian families or in federal boarding schools. Studies further showed that these children were at increased risk for depression, suicide, and antisocial behavior and that they were being alienated from their Indian culture and values. These findings, coupled with increased legal concern about protecting civil rights and recognizing the need to protect diversity, led to the enactment of the Indian Children Welfare Act (ICWA) (1978), which explicitly aimed to protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families by facilitating the placement of Indian children in homes reflecting Indian culture. This policy was intended to help tribes retain their children and avoid a white, middle-class bias in considerations of children’s out-of-home...
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Levesque, R.J.R. (2011). Indian Child Welfare Act. In: Levesque, R.J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_186
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