Efforts are being made by States to, for example, monitor private agencies. I can speak for both the State of Washington and the State of Oregon, because I am very closely tied to child welfare services there. I have served for many years on the Children's Services Division Advisory Committee of the State of Oregon, so I am very close to the practice, and we also work very closely with the people in the State of Washington. So, I know that at least in these two States, specific efforts are being made to gain some control over private agencies to assist them to adhere to the requirements of the law.

Many objections have been raised with regard to these amendments as they pertain to privacy and individual freedom and confidentiality. It has been said that our basic rights are being taken away.

First of all, I think we need to keep in mind that many of these voluntary adoptions are, in fact, not voluntary but, frankly, involuntary. In the case of Jeremiah Holloway, as you become familiar with the history of that case, the situation of that mother, and the options that were placed before her, and the people who really held the power in that young woman's life-at 18 years old, had not completed high school, no training for employment, a broken love affair-I mean, this is a typical 18-year-old who gets pregnant. She is a very confused person.

In my opinion, and I am a social worker and have been working in the field for 26 years in child welfare services; those circumstances certainly do not contribute to a thoughtful, voluntary act on the part of these mothers. I would not describe Cecelia Holloway's relinquishment of her child through voluntary adoption consent as voluntary. It simply isn't.

In fact, it has long been recognized in the field of social work, not just in work with Indians, that it is inappropriate to press the birth mother with the problem of relinquishment during her pregnancy. In fact, the outcomes for the mother's health, both physical and emotional, are reduced when this individual is required to experience such stress.

It is very difficult, I know, for many non-Indian people to understand why it is that it is necessary that notice of birth be given to the tribe even over the mother's objection. And I think that if we look at the law again and contemplate the placement preference, I think we will see that the Congress in 1978 tried very hard to provide the kinds of protections that the tribes really saw that they needed.

As was explained to Congress repeatedly when the law was being developed, Indian people have two relational systems. They have a biological relational system, and they have a clan or band relational system.

It is the convergence, if you will, of these two systems in tribal society that creates the fabric of tribal life. And each of us as an Indian person has a very specific place in the fabric. We have very specific responsibilities within the fabric. Those responsibilities are our rights, individual rights. And even our mother has no right to deny us those rights.

We want that. We know ourselves, and that is necessary for these children.

Unfortunately, the resistance to an understanding of our philosophy remains strong. In fact, as we heard today, frankly, corrupted. What it appeared to me that some people were saying today was that not only do we relinquish some of these protections that were instituted ten years ago, but also nobody wants to go back to a reservation, nobody really wants to be an Indian. These children who have been separated and whose parents have been separated from reservations for years have no interest or affiliation or concern or respect for their tribal knowledge.

That simply is not the case. A lot of the work that I do is, in fact, in the State of California with Indian children who are third generation Californians. Their grandparents were the ones who were relocated to the Bay Area by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for either training or employment. We are now working with the grandchildren.

I can tell you from my own experience that the ties between these children and their relatives in the Pueblos and in other tribal areas throughout the country is extremely strong. And when these children return, they immediately get the benefit of the resources of their tribes and communities. They are named. They are accepted into a clan. They are taught how to hunt. They are taught all the things that they need to do as part of their lives.

I had hoped that one young woman with whom I am working right now from Canada would be able to accompany me, because I think that she would be able to demonstrate to you the necessity for the strengthening of the law through these amendments.

The recommendations that are being made to improve the law are ones that have arisen out of the practice of both law and social work in these past ten years. This particular young woman was adopted out of the Province of Saskatchewan through Lutheran Family Services to a family in York, Pennsylvania. At least from what I can tell from what information I have received, there was no post-adoptive work and no follow-up.

This child was physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by both adoptive parents. She was adopted when she was seven. She ran away from them finally for the last time when she was thirteen years old.

From then on, she lived in about 22 different foster homes, psychiatric wards, and group homes. You name it, she was there.

She is a classic case of abuse. She entered into prostitution. She became absolutely obese. She is completely ashamed of herself. It is hard for her to have any kind of contact with anybody. She isolates herself. She is only one example.

I have helped work on a campaign for a young man sitting right now in Stonybrook Prison in Manitoba. Cameron Curley was featured on "60 Minutes" several years ago. This child also was brought into this country, placed with a man from Wichita, Kansas who drove to Brandon, Manitoba to pick him up. No study, nothing.

Mr. Curley turned out to be a pedophile, and Cameron suffered, was shamed, beaten, physically and sexually abused under this man's care until he was probably about 14 or 15 and then he, too, began to run away. When he was about 19 years old, he returned to his adoptive home and slew his adoptive father.

These are only two cases, and these are Canadian cases, and I wanted to highlight those because the Canadians are very interested, too, in these amendments. These two cases mirror the experience of hundreds of Indian children from the U.S. who have been placed with non-Indian families for adoption.

Unfortunately, it seems that we are yet meeting the needs of the non-Indian adoption market as opposed to the best interests of the Indian child, and the numbers of disruptions that come to our attention certainly would support that position.

Before going down to testify in the Holloway case on the Navajo, I called Cecelia Sudia who works with the Children's Bureau and who has responsibility for oversight of Indian programs. I wanted to know, because I thought I might be asked on the stand, how many adoption disruptions are there where Indian children are involved.

She told me that she had absolutely no clue, because they had no figures on how many Indian children had been adopted. Now, that sort of flies in the face of Mr. Swimmer's 80 and 90 percent.

I know from just working with the Children's Services Division in the State of Oregon that we are not able to report that, because, frankly, our information systems are not set up sufficiently to be able to do that. The Indian Child Welfare Act liaison who works in the central office in Salem has been keeping pencil notes, but it is not yet a part of the information system, and I don't believe it is in the State of Washington, either.

I might call to your attention—

Senator EVANS. I wonder if you might summarize at this point. We still have one more witness, and we are running out of time. Ms. BLANCHARD. All right. I might just let you know, though, that the States of Kansas, Washington, and Michigan, through tribal-State agreements, are reporting voluntary placements. The States of Minnesota and Oklahoma, through their own State laws, are reporting voluntary placements.

So, I don't see that some of these problems that have been brought forth are insurmountable.

Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Ms. Blanchard appears in appendix.] Senator EVANS. Thank you very much.

Let's turn to our final witness, Ms. Margaret Rose Orrantia.

STATEMENT OF ROSE MARGARET ORRANTIA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INDIAN CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES CONSORTIUM, ESCONDIDO, CA

MS. ORRANTIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am Rose Margaret Orrantia from Indian Child and Family Services. We are based out of Escondido, CA. The area that we serve is San Diego County and Riverside County.

We are title II grantees. We have recently been notified that we will be funded for next year. That means that this will be our ninth consecutive year of funding under the title II grants.

I would like to say that in the nine years that the program has existed, I think that we can show a model for the Indian Child Welfare Act being implemented. We can show you a program that has

a reputation for excellence, and with limited resources, we are able to ensure that in those counties where we are working, the act is implemented. It can happen if the resources are made available.

I do not have written testimony to submit, because I was using the time prior to coming here to submit an appeal to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We were notified that we will be funded, but the level of funding is ludicrous. There is no way that the amount we were given will allow us to provide the services that are needed in this area.

For the gentleman from Beverly Hills in California that testified prior to us, I would like to say that the State of California very definitely does have an indigenous population of Indian peoples. They are not all from out of State. I think he needs to do a little homework.

Not only are there quite a number of indigenous peoples, part of the problem with the State of California is that because these indigenous peoples were small bands of Indians and because they did not have large land bases such as the Navajos have or other tribes, it is an area that is really beautifully set up to divide and conquer. And in the State of California, that is precisely what happens.

I would also like to say that the State of California, by its own survey which was conducted in 1983 and 1984, has found itself to be 85 to 95 percent out of compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. The suggestion that States be allowed to monitor their own compliance, to me, is like putting the wolf in as the shepherd of the flock. I sincerely doubt that you are going to have any kind of compliance.

In the counties that we serve, I have a current case load for April of 1988. In San Diego County, we have 51 children currently in placement. In Riverside County, we have 62 for a total of 113 children in those two counties. All but 8 of those children are in either a relative placement, in a tribal licensed home, or in a licensed Indian home.

We actively recruit Indian homes. We have enough Indian homes for the children that are referred to us. Any of those counties or any of those States where the comment is made that there are no homes available, I think that if a little research is done, you will find that there have been no active efforts made to recruit Indian homes.

Because of the difficulties that we were having with the State of California in their persistent and continuing lack of cooperation to place Indian children in Indian homes and saying that they couldn't be placed because there were no Indian homes and when those counties were doing the recruiting, there were no Indian homes, because they weren't recruiting them.

So, I can prove to you that those homes are there. They are not only Indian homes; they are good Indian homes. They are good Indian homes by anybody's standards.

I keep having this feeling that the majority population seems to feel that you have to lower standards somehow to have a good Indian home. That is not the case.

All of our homes are licensed. We use the State of California standards which we adapt, because we have that ability and that prerogative to do it because the act gives us that ability and pre

rogative, and our homes are excellent homes. We are monitored on a yearly basis. They come out and evaluate our homes, our files, and they go visit our homes. There has never in the history of our being licensed been any gross deficiencies found in any of our homes.

Then, just to further provide services, we found it necessary to apply to become licensed as a State adoption agency, because for the children who were in the case load, once parental rights were terminated and it went to adoptions, there was no way for us to have access or to have input as to where these children were going to be placed.

We began to find that, in most cases, the children were being placed in non-Indian homes and, once again, the same excuse is used, that there are no adoptive Indian homes. Once again, I will give you the same reason: they don't recruit them.

So, it is essential that there be programs such as ours that are out there, that are actively recruiting, that are doing case management, that are ensuring that the children are being placed in Indian homes, and that the homes are being monitored, which is what we do.

Those are some general comments that I wanted to make in reference to why Indian children don't get placed in Indian homes. I have some further comments that I wanted to make.

I also would like to state that this past year, our organization also did pick up the Los Angeles project which was defunded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and we picked it up on monies that were given to us by the State of California. It was a one-time only appropriation.

If you will look at that case load-and I will submit the case load profiles to you so that you can have them we asked for a printout of the case load for the county of Los Angeles, and they identified 200 Indian children in their case load. Yet, only 35 were referred to us.

Of the 35 that were referred to us, only 5 of those children are in Indian homes. All the rest are in non-Indian placements. Several of those cases are now at the point where there has been termination of parental rights. I believe the Micmac case is one of them.

Those children are in non-Indian homes, and in our experience, what happens is that the court will say that they find good cause to the contrary to place the children in Indian homes because they have already been in non-Indian homes for anywhere from months to years and that it would be detrimental to the children to be removed and placed in Indian homes.

Some of the other issues I wanted to address have been addressed in some part by some of the other people who have testified. The whole issue having to do with training- there is not adequate training. I guess I can only speak for California. There is not adequate training for the county social workers. Most of them are not familiar with the act. It has been in existence for ten years. Yet, to this day, they will say well, I didn't know there was such a thing as an Indian Child Welfare Act.

The system for notifying tribes that the State has put into effect is cumbersome. When a child is going to be adopted, county workers are instructed to fill out a very lengthy and complicated form