Foster Family; kids have been in our home for 18 months

June 7, 2006

Hello … my husband and I are currently the custodians over 2 native American children. Recently the … tribe …  took jurisdiction from the state of Nevada leaving us in doubt of what will happen to the children that we have had in our home for the past 18 months. We are trying to get any legal assistance to support our case for wanting to keep the children. The children, twins age 3, have been our home since Dec of 2004 and our intention for the entire time has been adoption. Their biological mother is the only parent in the picture and she is my first cousin making the twins my second cousins. I have no Native blood and neither does my husband, the twins are 1/8 …and whatever the biological father would be if any. The twins have been removed from their birth mother since the age of 10 months first living with their maternal uncle until the burden of his sisters 5 children became a strain on his own family. After looking at numerous sites they all point to the fact that emotional harm could come to the children if removed from our home. I am requesting any assistance in obtaining legal aid weather it be a private attorney or a free legal clinci that could represent us in this matter. Any help you can offer to us would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE June 8, 2006

…I am not having any luck in locating a lawyer not am I getting any assistance from the tribe as they have no social services director, workers or case managers. And also since the tribe that my children are enrolled in is in Calfornia I would appreciate any assistance you can offer.

UPDATE June 17, 2006

I spoke with John and like you said he was a terrific man with a list of contacts. I contacted a lawyer in California and he was going to make some calls for us and get back to us on what he found out. I have not heard anything back yet. I would very much appreciate a newsletter from you when you do your mailings. I’ll keep you posted as to our progress.

UPDATE January 29, 2008

The kids are doing great and we actually WON…our adoption went through last month 10 days shy of the 3 year mark when they first came to live with us…