Culturally Based Practice

The infusion of culture into tribal child welfare programs is intricate and multifacited. Importantly, it involves much more than common child welfare cultural compentency recommendationshave typically called for, such as accepting that some families may wish to incorporate traditional practices in their service plans or being comfortable with and seeing value referring children or families to cultural activities such as powwows or tribal-specific gatherings. Instead, culture in tribal child welfare programs creates a common bond amoung families, children, workers, and communities and lies at the heart of programs' and workers' commitments to serve. As such, the majority of tribal child welfare programs operate from a foundation of cultural and tribal values (of which non-Natives are typically unfamiliar) that are reflected in the overall program philosophy and that shape the attitudes and approaches that workers take in delivering services.

Culturally Based Practice Resources:

• Traditions Renewed: The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Improves Its Indian Child Welfare
  This research chronicle describes how one tribal nation, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, came together to address the high number of children placed in non-native foster care and residential settings through an innovative redesign of its child welfare programs.

• Cultural Diversity Resource Manual - American Indian and Alaska Native Resource Manual
  This resource "American Indian and Alaska Native Resource Manual" was prepared by Jamie Grant, Ph.D. and Teresa Brown The Nation's Voice on Mental Illness (NAMI).
   
• Tribal Best Practices: There are Many Pathways
  This culturally based PowerPoint's objectives was that one will have an understanding of the challenges Native Americans and minorities face with "Evidence Based Practices", and that get an understanding of work in process with current efforts culturally validating "Practices Based on Evidence" for Native American communities.
   
• Evidence-Based Practices and Minority Families and Consumers
  This PowerPoint was presented by Holy Echo-Hawk in February 2006 at the 19th Annual RTC Conference which was presented in Tampa FL.
   
• Native Best Practice
  American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children experience a myriad of risk factors for developing psychopathology, yet there is a paucity of evidence based prevention and intervention practices specifically addressing their needs.
   
• Native Social Work - Indigenous People and the Social Work Profession: Defining Culturally Competent Services
  This resource was written by Hilary N, Weaver in May 1999.
   
• Urban Indian Guide - Working with Urban American Indian Families with Child Protection and Substance Abuse Challenges
  This resource was authored by Nancy Lucero, MSW, LCSW on May 2007 and Provided by Denver Indian Family Resource Center - Rocky Mountain Quality Improvement Center.
   

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