Appendices

Appendix A
American Indian Population in Minnesota*
CHIPPEWA	Total Population	American Indian	White	African American	Asian	Two or more races	Some other race	Percent Indian
Bois Forte	657	464	185	-	2	6	-	71%
Fond du Lac	3,728	1,353	2,215	3	4	145	8	36%
Grand Portage	557	322	199	-	-	34	2	58%
Leech Lake**	10,205	4,561	5,278	9	16	311	26	45%
Mille Lacs***	4,774	1,237	3,422	27	6	77	5	26%
MN Chippewa Trust	78	64	14	-	-	-	-	82%
Red Lake	5,162	5,071	61	5	2	20	3	98%
White Earth	9,192	3,378	5,105	7	5	677	20	37%
Chippewa Totals	34,353	16,450	16,479	51	35	1,270	64	48%
DAKOTA	Total Population	American Indian	White	African American	Asian	Two or more races	Some other race	Percent Indian
Lower Sioux	335	294	28	1	-	9	3	88%
Prairie Island	199	166	33	-	-	-	-	73%
Shakopee	338	214	87	1	3	32	1	63%
Upper Sioux	57	47	10	-	-	-	-	82%
Dakota Totals	929	721	158	2	3	41	4	78%
Reservation Totals	35,282	17,171	16,637	53	38	1,311	68	49%
Source: Census 2000 http://www.census.gov
*Population numbers include reservation and off-reservation trust lands
** Leech Lake total population incorporates 4 in the Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander category
*** Mille Lacs population includes Sandy Lake

Appendix B

AMERICAN INDIAN POPULATION
BY STATE

State	Population	State	Population	State	Population
Alabama	22,430	Louisiana	25,477	Ohio	24,486
Alaska	98,043	Maine	7,098	Oklahoma	273,230
Arizona	255,879	Maryland	15,423	Oregon	45,211
Arkansas	17,808	Massachusetts	15,015	Pennsylvania	18,348
California	333,346	Michigan	58,479	Rhode Island	5,121
Colorado	44,241	Minnesota	54,967	South Carolina	13,718
Connecticut	9,639	Mississippi	11,652	South Dakota	62,283
Delaware	2,731	Missouri	25,076	Tennessee	15,152
Florida	53,541	Montana	56,068	Texas	118,362
Georgia	21,737	Nebraska	14,896	Utah	29,684
Hawaii	3,535	Nevada	26,420	Vermont	2,420
Idaho	17,645	New Hampshire	2,964	Virginia	21,172
Illinois	31,006	New Jersey	19,492	Washington	93,301
Indiana	15,815	New Mexico	173,483	West Virginia	3,606
Iowa	8,989	New York	82,461	Wisconsin	47,228
Kansas	24,936	North Carolina	99,551	Wyoming	11,133
Kentucky	8,616	North Dakota	31,329	TOTAL U.S.	2,474,243

Appendix C

Talking Circle Summary

The American Indian Policy Center conducted two Talking Circles with American Indian Social Workers to explore social work as the "hidden variable" for exploring the experience of Indians in the corrections system. The following presents summaries of these conversations in regard to:

The role of schools of social work in the preparation of social workers for culturally appropriate practice with Indians and
Social work practice with Indian people in the child protection and correction systems.

Participants have a number of concerns with academic training that prepares workers for the criminal justice field and for the training that is available for

The native social workers that participated in the talking circles had all received their Masters degrees from accredited Social Work programs. They spoke of educational experiences that were lonely because of the lack of native colleagues and faculty and inadequate because of the lack of cultural awareness among their faculty and fellow students. One participant spoke of her program as having a "noticeable lack of cultural education." Another described her experience; " My orientation was a video that told about Indian ceremonies. That was my sensitivity training. " Another social worker described a required "culture day" which might have impacted her colleagues but which was facilitated in a way that whenever the content became uncomfortable discussion was ended. She also articulated a concern of several participants when she spoke of the way faculty used her presence to compensate for their own lack of knowledge about Indian people. "On certain days I should have gotten half of the teacher's salary because I was the expert most of the time."

In addition to reporting a deep cultural inadequacy and insensitivity in their social work education, the students also had curricular concerns. They were critical of their programs' emphasis on developing clinical intervention skills at the cost of teaching about the advocacy and policy expertise that they considered of greater importance for the Indian community. One participant echoed the statements of others when she spoke of the need "for a change to a social justice focus to spend more time addressing core issues like advocacy, community organizing, political action, and engaging communities, not just individual clients, to promote and create a voice." A participant spoke of being taught a "deficit" rather than a "strengths" model of human behavior. They reported that their programs emphasized transmitting information and skill building at the expense of the personal self-assessment and awareness that they saw as essential to the educational process. One participant represented the basic frustration of the others when he stated, "We came out with a MSW, and it was sort of like a license. We didn't learn anything. In fact, we had to throw away some of our learning to be effective workers." This same social worker suggested that "It would really be nice if we could create an ah-hoc commission on American Indian social work education here in Minneapolis to start challenging the Twin Cities campus and Augsburg." Another social worker spoke of the need for the same kind if monitoring for the BSW programs in the area.

These social workers were especially concerned about the impact of social work education on non-Indian students. One of the most frequently mentioned solutions to inappropriate social work interventions with Indians was to increase the cultural competence of non-Indian professionals. The participants frequently mentioned the need for curricular content on appropriate interventions and resources for Indians. But even more often they spoke of the necessity of non- Indian social workers having direct field experience within the Indian community. They mentioned the need for a process by which social workers could be certified as culturally competent to work with native people. It was suggested that such a process would include the successful completion of academic course work and supervised experience with Indian people.

These participants were very vocal and creative in their recommendations for changes in the social work education to better meet the needs of Indians in the corrections and welfare systems. They called for the following:

A cognitive shift in schools of social work curricula toward advocacy and policy;
More experiential learning with Indians by non-Indians;
Credentialing of social workers for practice with Indian people; and
The creation of Advisory Council to BSW and MSW programs.

2. Social work practice with Indian people in the child protection and correction systems

The native social workers that came together in two different Talking Circles saw themselves as continuing in the native tradition of helping and healing. "Helping others is a part of who we are." However, these same social workers spoke of "feeling disdain for [their] own profession" because of its lack of attention to advocacy and its emphasis on social control. They acknowledged the important role social workers play in the lives of Indians, especially of those Indians in the corrections system. "From early child protection even all the way to elderly care, we have cradle to grave social workers." They saw the experience of Indian people in the criminal justice system as an outgrowth of culturally intrusive and insensitive social work practice with Indians at every stage of their lives.

The MSW trained social workers discussed the nature of social work practice from their perspective as native people working primarily "within the system." They struggle to "help and heal" Indian children and families in a system that is dominated by social workers and is the beginning of the road for many to incarceration. They described a system that is staffed primarily by non-Indians who lack cultural knowledge and sensitivity regarding Indians, who are rarely trusted by their Indian clients and who typically write crucial child and family evaluations devoid of cultural awareness to be used in court decisions.

These Indian social workers spoke of operating in lonely isolation. They spoke of the dissonance of their values and worldview in an environment that operates on the assumptions that; 1) "everyone can make it if they tried" and; 2) that it is a straightforward, "either/or" decision to take a child out of its home. Their recommendations regarding future plans for Indian children are often ignored because their superiors think that as an Indian they are "too close to the situation". They see their colleagues as lacking knowledge and/or interest in the Indian programs they could be using and usually sending children to culturally insensitive placements. Summarizing the consequences, one woman stated, " I still think that social work plays a big part in raising kids to go to prison. I really believe that even more now working in Child Protection."

Despite the challenges these social workers find within the criminal justice and child protection systems, they are adamant and creative in their recommendations to make these systems more responsive to Indian people. These social workers see themselves as advocates for change, that in spite of the difficulties of "staying on a justice mission", they intend to do so. They see the effort as one of asserting "the competence of the Indians against" the cultural incompetence they find in the system. Their suggestions to change the system include:

Encouraging more Indians to move into decision-making roles in the corrections and welfare bureaucracies;
Examining hiring practices to ensure access for qualified Indians;
Calling for more funding and scholarships to ensure that Indians receive the credentials necessary to meet hiring requirements in the systems;
Use the larger Indian community as a source of support and as a way of building collective understanding of system issues; and
Creating an Indian social work organization to monitor and influence program policy and interventions in the lives of Indian people.

This final recommendation from Indian social worker advocacy organizations was the most frequently mentioned remedy through out the Talking Circle conversations. Several of these native social workers said that they look to their" strength within" for change. They encourage each other to operate with "cultural integrity" articulating "another way" of approaching the struggles of Indian families in the child protection and correctional systems. As one social worker put it, "We have to ask ourselves if we are seeking to reform the system. It requires a close look at how Indians are treated and sentenced. We have to do something about that - that's not just a political debate; it's about asserting our sovereignty."

Contents

The Well-Being of American Indian Children in Minnesota: Economic Conditions, 1994

Research Reports

Appendices

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C