This second in a three part series on ICWA will begin to address how ICWA applies during the period of a dependency case following an initial shelter care hearing.  We will cover ICWA’s notice requirements, what stages in the case are “child custody proceedings” under ICWA, what additional protections exist when the court is making a foster care placement, qualified expert witnesses, active efforts, departing from placement preferences, and other aspects of dependency practice that are unique to cases under the Indian Child Welfare Act.  The webinar first in this series already covered the law of removal and “reason to know” —  this segment will move through the life of the case and identify areas in which ICWA requires a different practice from non-ICWA dependency cases.  The third part of the series will address strategies for engaging Tribes, petitions to invalidate, alternatives to termination including Tribal Customary Adoption, and termination.

Presenter Biographies:

Tara Urs is the interim civil practice and policy director at the King County Department of Public Defense where she helps direct the department’s civil practice, working on policy reform, supporting the divisions’ civil practice, and assisting in training. Before joining DPD’s management team, she practiced family defense in The Defender Association Division and, prior to that, worked as a staff attorney at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project. Tara received her BA from Wesleyan University and her JD from New York University School of Law, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow and winner of the John Perry Prize for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights. She clerked for Judge Deborah A. Batts, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Immediately following law school, she worked in Cambodia as a resident fellow with the Open Society Justice Initiative designing and evaluating outreach systems for the Khmer Rouge trials. Tara is the author of several law review articles on child welfare law, transitional justice, and domestic violence and has taught legal research and writing at Seattle University School of Law and Brooklyn Law School.

To register, email wda@defensenet.org with “ICWA 2” in the subject line. 1.0 Law and Legal Procedure credit has been requested from the WSBA for this webinar.