Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978 to address the widespread practice of state entities removing American Indian and Alaskan Native children from their homes and families. Congress found “an alarmingly high percentage of Indian families are broken up by the removal, often unwarranted, of their children from them by non-tribal public and private agencies and that a high percentage of such children are placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes and institutions.”
This publication is a companion to others developed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) regarding ICWA for judges, court staff, attorneys, child welfare professionals, and other stakeholders involved in child welfare cases. It focuses on the use of active efforts as an essential tool in the implementation of ICWA and as a best practice in child welfare. It is intended to provide the history behind ICWA and, in doing so, outline both the why and the how of active efforts in ICWA implementation.