Native Children
Watch

Before a non-emergency Tribal foster-care placement is finally approved, federal law requires specified criminal-record and abuse-and-neglect registry checks. Those checks are a safety floor—not a substitute for the Nation’s own placement standards, home study, cultural-safety decisions or support for relatives.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ current child-protective-services page still links its May 2018 Native American Children’s Safety Act guidance. For placements made by a Tribal social-services agency, the guidance says every person age 18 or older living in the foster home must be checked through a fingerprint-based national criminal-history search, any Tribal abuse registry, and the child-abuse and neglect registry in the person’s current state and any state where they lived during the preceding five years. NACSA’s final-approval rule does not cover emergency placements; the guidance offers separate promising practices for those situations. This is an enduring federal requirement, not a new rule, approval of a particular home or guarantee that harm cannot occur.

The National Indian Child Welfare Association’s 2024 second-edition guide says background checks must be included, while each Tribal Nation must define how results are interpreted and what safe care requires beyond a database search—including cultural safety, home conditions, discipline, transportation and family support. The guide credits standards and review from distinct Nations, including the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. NICWA is Native-led; the guide is not one code for every Nation.

NICWA’s relative-caregiver guide says a relative may agree to a background check to become a placement resource and can still support a child when placement is not possible. Approval and case status remain with the authorized Tribal or state agency and court. No child’s name, placement, family history, address, records or Tribal-affiliation details belong in a public recruitment post.

A cleared check is one safeguard—not the whole child’s safety plan.