State and Tribal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) Implementation Partnership Grants

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The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to support the creation of effective practice model partnerships between state courts and/or Court Improvement Program, state public child welfare agency and a tribe, group of tribes, or tribal consortia, including both the tribal child welfare agency and tribal court for effective implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 (Pub.L. 95-608). Demonstration sites will be required to jointly develop protocols and practices to promote effective and timely: - Identification of Indian children; - Notice to tribes;- Tribal participation as parties in hearings involving Indian children;- Tribal intervention in dependency cases;- Transfer of ICWA cases to tribal courts; and- Placement of Indian children according to tribal preferences. Partnership models must be co-created by states and tribes, jointly implemented, and designed to generate and capture clear, measurable outcomes such as: - Compliance with identification methods;- The number of Indian children identified;- Length of time from removal or petition filed until identification is made;- Number of notices sent;- Length of time from identification until notice sent (state measure)- Number of notices received (tribal measure)- Length of time for tribal intervention or participation; (tribal measure)- Number of cases in which a tribe intervenes; (joint measure)- Number of transfers; (joint measure); and- Number of Indian children placed according to tribal placement preferences (joint measure). This is a 60-month project with five 12-month budget periods.

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