Off-Reservation Indian Foster Care | Fond du Lac Lake Superior Band of Chippewa

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In 1991, only 30 percent of children in foster care in Saint Louis County, MN were in Indian homes, despite the legislative attempt of the Indian Child Welfare Act to improve this statistic. The Fond du Lac Band had reached a saturation point for eligible foster homes, and if more Indian children in need of foster care were to receive the benefits of placement with cultural integrity, those placements could not occur on the reservation. It was vital for Indian children to be placed in off-reservation Indian homes. By establishing a separate non-profit entity, chartered under state laws, which then contracted the Fond du Lac government’s Division of Human Services to provide all programmatic and administrative services, the Band could legitimately work toward expanding the availability of Indian foster homes in northeastern Minnesota.