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

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.