Kate Fort & Peter Vicaire on Child Welfare and American Indian Active Duty Servicemembers and Veterans

Kathryn E. Fort and Peter S. Vicaire have posted “The Invisible Families: Child Welfare and American Indian Active Duty Servicemembers and Veterans,” forthcoming in the Federal Lawyer.

The abstract:

Child welfare issues as they involve Native military families are rarely discussed. In the recent case of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the Supreme Court erased them entirely. The federal government, tribes and states can address issues affecting Native military families in a number of ways discussed in this article, including:

• Kinship placement in contested adoptions put on hold due to deployment;

• Ensuring Memorandums of Understanding between military bases and states include reference to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA);

• Identifying and educating attorneys — including Judge Advocates — on both ICWA and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act;

• Training Veteran Treatment Court judges on issues specific to Native veterans;

• Modeling specialized state Indian Child Welfare Act dockets on Veteran Treatment Courts;

• Opening conversations between child welfare courts and veterans courts, and assigning one judge per family;

• Encouraging the development of tribal court veterans treatment dockets and engaging with the Veterans Administration (VA) through Veteran Justice Outreach Specialists (VJOs)