Judge William Thorne as told to Antoinette Robinson
Shortly after I started working as a tribal judge, one of my cases involved whether to remove children from their family. I didn’t know much about the child welfare system and I needed to do some research. But I also trusted that the child welfare system knew the answers. The more I researched, though, the more I learned that the system was broken.
Since the 1880s, the United States … Read More
In 2005, Native Americans in South Dakota reached out to human rights lawyers because more than 700 Native American children in South Dakota were taken from their families every year. Here, Chase Iron Eyes, South Dakota counsel for the Lakota People’s Law Project, and Sara Nelson, its executive director, describe how people came together to bring about change:
Q: What led the Native American community to organize to reform child welfare?
Iron Eyes: … Read More
Around the country, a number of child welfare agencies are beginning to partner with communities to keep kids of color out of foster care. In 2007, NYC’s Administration for Children Services partnered with the parent advocacy organization Child Welfare Organizing Project on a new approach—offering parents at risk of removal the support of another parent who has dealt with the child welfare system.
In NYC, the decision whether to place a child in foster care is … Read More
