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Lakȟóta Parents of Children Placed in Foster Care: Resistance and Lack of Motivation or Grief and Loss
Herzberg, Linda K
Herzberg, Linda K
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Abstract
Children of color are over-represented in foster care, which is a social justice issue, especially Native American children. The social work profession and academia has long ignored the child protective system which has led to a sparsity of literature and understanding of parents of children in foster care. This lack of resources has been even more exacerbated for Native American parents in general and Lakȟóta parents specifically. It has been said that parents of children in foster care are unmotivated and uncaring or angry and resistant thus failing to complete the services necessary for the return of their children. This belief can interfere in the social worker’s ability to build rapport and to provide the appropriate services for these parents. It has been suggested that it would be better to view the parents as grieving the death of a child (Horejsi, Heavy Runner, & Pablo, 1992). In order to address the gap in the literature, the purpose of this study is to explore how Lakȟóta parents of children of foster care experience that placement. This study used Grounded Theory (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) to investigate grief and loss in Lakȟóta parents who currently have or have had a child in foster care and have had to interact with the foster care system. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 Lakȟóta parents who had children in foster care, either currently or in the past. These Lakȟóta parents were interviewed in order to gain an understanding of their experiences of the placement of their child in foster care, how it affects their daily lives, and how it affects their ability to participate and complete the necessary services for reunification of their children. A constant comparative method of analysis was used to allow themes to develop from the data. The findings represent the participants’ lived experiences of the placement of their children in foster care and suggestions on ways to improve the system. The findings suggest that the Lakȟóta parents experienced grief and loss during the foster care placement and years after the return of the children and even a lack of recovery as a family. Implications for social work policy, education, practice, and research are discussed. The findings from this study will help in developing training to try to influence social workers’ attitudes toward their Lakȟóta clients and to provide more effective interventions for those clients. More effective interventions could lead to shorter times for the completion of services and quicken reunification, thereby reducing the cost of foster care, and the negative impacts of foster care on the family.
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2020-01-01
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University of Kansas
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This item contains archived web content.
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Keywords
Social work, Native American studies, biological parents, child protection system, foster care, grief, Native American, Social justice