Native Children
Watch

A child-welfare record can carry a child’s story, family ties and culturally sensitive knowledge. The National Tribal Child Welfare Center’s current guidance begins with a different question from “What can be collected?”: which Tribal authority decides who may access and use it?

The Center’s current services page lists “Data Management: Circle 2” for eligible Tribal child-welfare professionals on September 23, but it does not publish a completion record. The durable guidance matters beyond that listing: technical-assistance agreements are co-designed with each Tribe and set roles and safeguards for Tribal data, stories and community knowledge. The Center’s data-management page says Tribal programs retain control and that each Nation and Alaska Native Village has distinct priorities. The Center is federally funded; this letter does not describe it as speaking for every Nation.

The federal status line is separate. ACF’s December 2024 final rule adds more detailed Indian Child Welfare Act information to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. A later Federal Register correction says the relevant 45 C.F.R. § 1355.44 amendments take effect October 1, 2028. Those expanded fields are not yet a complete current national data set, and they should not be turned into a present-day prevalence, compliance or outcome claim.

The National Indian Child Welfare Association, a Native-led nonprofit with an elected all-Native board, said in its September policy update that Tribal Nations and state agencies can begin discussing accurate data entry, training, sharing and use before 2028. NICWA does not represent every Tribal Nation. No child’s name, placement, case document, family history, Tribal-affiliation detail or culturally sensitive knowledge should be placed in a public post to illustrate this issue.

Better data should not mean less Tribal authority over a child’s story.