The effectiveness of an ICWA Court at achieving improved ICWA implementation and outcomes: A pre‐post intervention study

Abstract

This article presents findings from a quasi‐experimental study of the St. Louis County (Duluth, Minnesota) ICWA Court examining its effectiveness at achieving improved ICWA implementation and a better case process and outcomes for Indian families. Using a case file review method, cases prior to implementing the ICWA Court were compared to post‐ICWA Court cases on demographics, case characteristics, application of ICWA requirements, presence of parties at hearings, achievement of child permanency outcomes, and permanency timeliness. Compared to pre‐ICWA Court, this study found several statistically significant improvements in the ICWA Court's handling of cases, including taking less time to confirm the case as an ICWA case, greater appearance of tribal representatives by the Dispositional review hearing stage, more active efforts findings, more placements with relatives at earlier stages of the case, more placement with relative outcomes when reunifications were not possible, and timelier permanency.

Measuring due process and fairness in the child welfare court system

“…A study of a sample of 151 ICWA cases across five court sites in three states found that the time taken to determine ICWA status ranged from 0 to 1252 days, with an average of 151 days after petition filing (Summers, 2023). This is similar to the finding of Gatowski et al (2023), who reported that in one state, it took an average of 141 days for the court to make a determination of ICWA status; this decreased to an average of 44 days after a specialized ICWA court was implemented.…”

“…The CFSR process reviews state child and family services programs to monitor conformity with the requirements in titles IV-B and IV-E of the Social Security Act. Gatowski et al (2023) reported less than half of 110 ICWA cases documented completed notification to tribes, but after implementation of a specialized ICWA court docket, this rose to 92% of cases. The speed of notification of the tribes may be important to understand.…”