Montana ICWA community narrows priorities to cultural connections, preferred placements and tribal foster recruitment

Summary

At a February Montana Indian Child Welfare Act community-of-practice meeting, participants harvested a short list of priorities — including strengthening cultural connections, finding preferred placements and recruiting tribally enrolled foster caregivers — and agreed to return April 17 to select one or two topics for concentrated work.

Facilitators and community members at the Montana Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) Community of Practice meeting in February identified cultural connection, preferred placements and tribal foster-family recruitment as the group’s top priorities to address over coming meetings.

“The purpose of this community of practice is to foster meaningful, culturally humble collaboration among people involved in and affected by ICWA in order to preserve and empower Indian families and their connection to their culture,” said Ashley Chaney McNeil, the meeting facilitator, describing the group’s mission and framing the session’s collaborative exercises.

Members spent most of the meeting in guided small-group exercises that asked participants to list local ICWA-related challenges, converge on two priorities in pairs, then narrow to a single priority after successive enlargements of the discussion groups. The exercise produced roughly six to seven…

Montana ICWA community narrows priorities to cultural connections, preferred placements and tribal foster recruitment

Summary

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