The Salt Lake Tribune

FORT DUCHESNE - Kesslar LaRose's job with the Ute Tribe is this: Keep kids with their parents or relatives by providing them food and clothing rather than passing them off to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.

"You just don't go in and shove a kid to DCFS," LaRose said. "We go in and help them."

That can be nearly impossible, he said, because he's asking extended family to take in abused and neglected children even as funding for basic needs like food and clothing is scarce.

"Almost all of the ones I've placed over the last year and a half don't get money," he said.

The advantage to putting children in DCFS custody? Money.

The federal government does not "pay foster-home money if [children] are in tribal jurisdiction," said Thomas Jenks, head of social services for the tribe. "If [children] are put in state custody, they do, even though they are in the same home."

And that's because of the 1978 federal Indian Child Welfare Act, designed to reverse the historical practice of taking children from their tribes and trying to assimilate them with the rest of society.

Instead, the act gives tribes the authority to provide child protective services to any child of tribal descent who would otherwise be placed in the state's child welfare system.

The problem is that Congress never gave the tribes independent access to federal funding so they could provide those services without state assistance, and proposals to provide such funding have languished for the last three years.

Today, many tribes are struggling to go it alone. But the state and the Ute Tribe have joined in a tag-team effort to protect abused and neglected children while maintaining tribal culture in their lives.

Of the 58 cases the tribe is involved with now, at least 50 percent of the children are in DCFS custody, Jenks said.

Not everything is perfect, both sides agree, but the system is working. The tribe would like more independence, and it is hoping to negotiate that in the coming year.

Tribes across the country find themselves in similar conundrums, said David Simmons, public policy and research director for the National Indian Child Welfare Association in Portland, Ore.

"The tribes are doing the best they can," Simmons said. But sometimes that isn't much, leaving tribes able to respond only to crises.

"[Caseworkers] ask the family, 'Can you take these kids in? But I can't offer you much help. Call us if anything goes really wrong,' ” Simmons said.

Though the Ute Tribe and DCFS officials say that's not happening on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation, recent cases have stoked concerns.

Jose, Emilio and Mona Rodriguez were placed with their grandmother in early August in Fort Duchesne. Three weeks later, Jose was in a coma and Emilio was bruised and burned. The grandmother has been jailed on seven counts of assault.

In another case, Teresa Lopez alleged her son, Casey Barrow, was abused while he was in Ute foster care. Barrow was taken to a hospital in July 2003, suffering from extreme dehydration that a doctor said was due to severe neglect.

No one was charged in that case, but Barrow was transferred back to a DCFS approved foster home in West Valley City, where he died. His foster mother pleaded guilty to abuse changes and is serving a prison sentence.

Even so, Jenks said, "It is a good system. I worry [about public perception] because we are working."

Adds DCFS caseworker Jeff Stagg: "We do not have problems when we're all involved. When we are not all involved, that's when we have problems."

Building on an agreement signed in 1997, the tribe and DCFS workers began sharing office space four years ago in a Ute-owned building that stands alone on a two-lane road connecting Fort Duchesne and LaPoint. DCFS isn't charged rent and the agency shares its extensive computer system with the tribe.

"This is a prime example of what [child welfare] should be about," LaRose said. And the caseworkers talk about a constant flow of communication between the two sides.

But barriers remain. Among them are requirements, based on federal law and settlement of a 1993 class action suit against Utah's child welfare system, that don't match with the tribe's goals.

For instance, the tribe rarely terminates parental rights, believing that family connection is vital. The state is required by federal law to do it within specific time frames, depending on the age of the child, that are all within two years from the point of removal.

Cases with children staying in foster care - even though it is in a relative's home - for longer than two years "would not pass an audit," said DCFS Director Richard Anderson.

But such hurdles don't stop the collaboration.

"When we try to focus on what we should, that is protect Ute children, those differences are overcome," Dave Emmett, who supervises the DCFS unit on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation, said.

In coming months, the tribe and the state plan to revise the contract that created the working relationship. For their part, the Utes hope to convince Anderson to pass foster care money directly over to the tribe.

"We're not looking to bring money into the tribal coffers," Jenks said. "We're just trying to take care of the children."

Anderson, however, worries about meeting each and every federal guideline for such funding.

"Any failure on their part, they impact the whole system and you lose money for every child," Anderson said. "We can't put the whole system in jeopardy."