ICWA Law Center Parent Mentors: A Unique Support For Families
Parent mentors are individuals with “lived experience” in the child protection system, and often implicating the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). These individuals have sat in child protection courtrooms, over and again, fighting to be reunified with their children. Because of their own experiences, they understand in a different way what it means to families represented by the Law Center when a decision is made, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, to withhold visitation, bus cards, cell phone minutes, or referrals to needed services.
The attorney on the case can sympathize, share the mother’s frustration, and advocate on their behalf. However, when a family wishes to pursue a course of action that seems against their interests, the attorney must counsel the family on the potential risks of the family’s desired course of action. In this way, the attorney’s fulfillment of her ethical obligations can lead the family to view even their own attorney yet as another obstacle.
The Law Center’s parent mentors come alongside the family as a mentor, unencumbered by the obligations of advocating as an attorney. That’s the entire point. Although there’s no claim to identity of experience, because everyone’s experience is different, parent mentors know what it’s like to have one’s child physically taken and placed with a stranger, and then to have reunification depend on compliance with a case plan and the interpretation of county social workers, county attorneys, and the judge about whether the reunification plan has been satisfied, and when reunification might be possible. Law Center attorneys can sympathize and support from a compassionate perspective, but only a parent mentor can say, “I remember when…” and provide that extra depth of support.
Parent mentors support families in many ways. They integrate traditional practices into their work with clients, including the use of traditional medicines, recommending culturally appropriate case plan service providers, and sharing personal understanding of generational and historical trauma. Parent mentors communicate and collaborate directly with clients, Law Center attorneys and staff, county social workers, case plan service providers, and community elders to serve as a bridge for each client to access the specific assistance that client needs.
The parent mentors’ knowledge, experience, and expertise are widely appreciated. Caroline Buckanaga says that her ICWA parent mentor “was awesome, met with me, helped with everything, and made sure things got done.” Sheena Roy, now a Law Center board member, remembers that her ICWA parent mentor “cared about my entire family, not only the children on the petition, and supported me as a person, not just another case in the system.” The all-encompassing support described by Ms. Buckanaga and Ms. Roy is exactly what parent mentors strive to provide.
The popularity and appreciation of parent mentors extends well beyond the families they serve. Dan Lancette, a retired Hennepin County ICWA social worker, says, “I typically relied more on the parent mentors than on Law Center attorneys because I valued the lived experience that the parent mentors brought and knew the clients did too.”
Bench officers also speak glowingly of parent mentors. Justice Ann McKeig of the Minnesota Supreme Court describes the Law Center’s parent mentor program as “a great addition” and says “we need more of them.” Judge Bruce Manning, currently the designated ICWA judge on the Hennepin County District Court says, “I admire the work of the parent mentors, themselves survivors of the child protection system, who lead parents to strength and who guide them to and through culturally appropriate service providers.”
Parent mentors are praised and valued by all actors in ICWA proceedings and around the community. Assistant Hennepin County Attorney (ICWA Division) Ron Walters says, “Parent mentors are invaluable to the Law Center’s deeply important spiritual work in telling each parent’s story.” Lynn Braveheart, Minnesota’s lead ICWA guardian ad litem, credits parent mentors with helping guardians by demonstrating the benefits of active contact with parents. Laura Newton, ICWA program director at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, calls the parent mentor program “a huge help” and “a uniquely important part of the Law Center’s mission to preserve Indian families.”
Finally, Kate Fort, the director of the Indian Law Clinic at Michigan State Law School and the national expert on ICWA, says: “I have always liked the way I understand the Law Center’s parent mentors to work, providing a bridge between the parent and the attorney so that the parent’s voice is heard and accounted for in the direction of the representation.”