OJD and ODHS outline ICWA implementation, ICWA courts and federal grant support

Officials from the Oregon Judicial Department and the Oregon Department of Human Services briefed the House Committee on Early Childhood and Human Services on April 22 about how state agencies and tribes are implementing the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and the Oregon Indian Child Welfare Act (ORICWA).

Adria Cortez, ICWA analyst for the Oregon Judicial Department, said ICWA is a federal statute that applies to involuntary child-custody proceedings involving an Indian child and that ORICWA, enacted in 2020, embeds and expands those protections in state law. “ICWA is mostly applied in dependency cases,” Cortez told the committee, and ORICWA grants tribes automatic party status and adds state-level enhancements, she said.

Cortez described a five-year discretionary grant awarded to the Oregon Judicial Department by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families in…