Idaho Tribes Having Hard Time Finding Indian Foster Parents

Despite a federal mandate, a lawsuit and the best efforts of the state and tribe, the Nez Perce can muster only one family willing to become foster parents to Indian children.

Like Idaho’s five other tribes, the Nez Perce are struggling to keep families in the foster system and make sure they have the money and support needed to raise children in their own culture.

Liz Bybee, a Nez Perce foster parent, understands why three other Nez Perce families are bailing out of the program. She wanted counseling for herself and two foster children in her care who suffered from fetal-alcohol effects. But she got little help, so she did it herself.

“I just related these kids to my kids and would teach them right and wrong. After three months, I told Health and Welfare I couldn’t handle them because I had to go to school,” said Bybee, 39.

In March, the north-central Idaho tribe had to allow three children to be placed in non-Indian homes.

“We’ve been trying to do a campaign among our tribal members,” said Stella Charles, social services manager for the 2,300-member Nez Perce Tribe, based in Lapwai.

The need for more Indian foster parents was on the agenda Thursday for an Idaho Department of Health and Welfare public meeting in Boise on services to Indian children and their families.

Health and Welfare so far has not kept track of how many Indian children are in foster care. That was one reason Idaho Legal Aid Services and several tribes sued the state last year for not adhering to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which requires that states give preference to Indian families and tribes when placing Indian children in foster care and adoption.

The Idaho lawsuit was settled last summer.