The Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies: Systems change through a relational Anishinaabe worldview

• Published in: Children and youth services review 2020-12, Vol.119, p.105601, Article 105601
• Main Authors: Haight, Wendy, Waubanascum, Cary, Glesener, David, Day, Priscilla, Bussey, Brenda, Nichols, Karen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: American Indians; Changes; Child welfare; Children; Collaboration; Collaborative approach; Continuing education; Courts; Disparities; Ethnography; ICWA; Indigenous; Indigenous peoples; Legislation; Policy making; Professional training; Regions; Representativeness; Social work; State; Support networks; Systemic racism; Systems change; Tribes and tribal systems; Welfare state; Wisdom; Worldview
• ISSN: 0190-7409; 1873-7765
• DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105601

•The Center is guided by a relational, Anishinaabe worldview.•The Center facilitates child welfare systems change Center staff creates bridges across Tribal Nations and child welfare systems.•Exemplars: state legislation to strengthen ICWA, continuing education, & ICWA court. The dramatic overrepresentation of Indigenous families in North American governmental child welfare systems remains one of the most pressing and neglected issues facing Tribal Nations, child welfare policymakers and practitioners today. This paper is the third in a series of three papers (Authors) presenting an ethnographic study of the Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies in the Department of Social Work, University of Minnesota – Duluth. The current paper focuses on the perspectives of the Center’s staff and allies, which is grounded in an Anishinaabe worldview, on the process of systems change in child welfare. It draws upon in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 13 participants with diverse roles and extended relationships with the Center. Participants provided knowledge and wisdom on how to create and sustain trusting, collaborative relationships within sovereign Tribal Nations, county and state child welfare systems. They described how Center staff members are then able to create bridges (mesosystems) across Indigenous communities and child welfare systems with the trust built within each of those systems. These mesosystems are sustained over time through continued opportunities for engagement and collaboration. These processes are illustrated through several case exemplars of change affected by the Center, tribes and their collaborators: state legislation to strengthen ICWA, implementation of statewide continuing education for child welfare professionals, and an innovative ICWA court. The primary barrier to system change noted by participants is structural racism. Advice for those motivated to support systems change includes establishing close links with Indigenous communities.