 Bureau for her work with customary adoptions at the White Earth Tribe. Jeri Jasken has been the Director of the White Earth Indian Child Welfare Division since 1996. During her tenure, Ms. Jasken has expanded the child welfare program to meet the needs of Tribal members of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Serving an average of 115 youth, this program provides services such as mental health social workers and substance abuse counselors, independent living skills, urban social services, child protection services, and foster care. Ms. Jasken does everything possible to reunify children safely with their parents and works tirelessly to provide culturally appropriate services to meet the needs of Native American youth, including talking circles, tribal-family meetings and traditional healers. Ms. Jasken was instrumental in developing the customary adoption process that is a successful tool used by White Earth Tribal Court and other Tribes to provide permanency for Native American children. Her vision and perseverance spread to Tribal elders, attorneys, judges, and members of the Tribal Court who all worked together to develop the code that would later give authority for the court to complete adoptions. Her active leadership has helped over 250 Native American children find permanency through the customary adoption process in the White Earth Tribal Court. Ms. Jasken's unwavering dedication also resulted in White Earth becoming one of only three Tribes in Minnesota to begin implementing a grant that helped build systems collaboration between the Tribal and county services and transferred responsibility to provide child welfare services for American Indian children and the related funding from the county to the Tribe. The project also improved permanency outcomes for children at risk of or in out of home placements and provided substance abuse treatment and services to caregivers and their children in rural areas. Jeri Jasken, Director White Earth Adoption Agency P.O. Box 358 White Earth, MN 56591 jerij@whiteearth.com About the Adoption Excellence Awards An annual program, the Adoption Excellence Awards grew out of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. The awards recognize outstanding accomplishments in achieving permanency for America's children waiting in foster care. The Adoption Excellence Awards honor States, local agencies, private organizations, courts, businesses, individuals, and families who are making key contributions to increasing the number of children from the foster care system who are adopted or placed in other permanent homes. This year the awards were presented at a Children's Bureau Policy to Practice conference on October 12, 2011. Photos of the 2011 Awards ceremony are also available. |