Indian Child Welfare Act: A Brief Summary And Analysis

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The strengths that the Native Americans used to face the oppression against their race would mainly be resilience and liberation from their oppression. Burnette and Figley determined that “indigenous peoples have not been merely passive recipients of historical traumas, but rather have been resisting oppression and demonstrating “survivance” and resilience throughout history. Survivance includes the ingenuity indigenous peoples have continuously demonstrated despite the adversity imposed by colonization, such as a commitment to their homeland, strength of spirit, and humor” (2017). Instead of outright deflecting the oppression, indigenous people found other ways to overcome oppression. The Native Americans incorporated strength and resilience, liberation and recovery into their way of life so that they were not drowning in the oppression that others tried to hold them down with. …show more content…

This act mainly helps the children of indigenous people who have been separated from parents and communities by private adoption agencies and child welfare. The ICWA crafted ways to help these children be reunited and throughout the process, the Indian Child Welfare Act provided resources for these families. The resources included the following: “providing active efforts to the family; identifying a placement that fits under the ICWA preference provisions; notifying the child’s tribe and the child’s parents of the child custody proceeding; and working actively to involve the child’s tribe and the child’s parents in the proceedings” (“About ICWA”). These protections were put in place to help the Native children and to stop the systematic abuse they were receiving from the