232B.13 - RECORDS.
232B.13 RECORDS.
1. The department of human services shall establish an automated
database where a permanent record shall be maintained of every
involuntary or voluntary foster care, preadoptive placement, or
adoptive placement of an Indian child that is ordered by a court of
this state and in which the department was involved. The automated
record shall document the active efforts made to comply with the
order of placement preference specified in section 232B.9. An Indian
child's placement record shall be maintained in perpetuity by the
department of human services and shall include but is not limited to
the name, birthdate, and gender of the Indian child, and the location
of the local department office that maintains the original file and
documents containing the information listed in subsection 2.
2. Each county department of human services, state-licensed
child-placing agency, private attorney, and medical facility involved
in the involuntary or voluntary foster care placement, preadoptive
placement, or adoptive placement of an Indian child shall maintain in
perpetuity a record of the placement. The record shall include, but
is not limited to, all of the following information:
a. The name and tribal affiliation of the child.
b. The location of the child's Indian tribe or tribes.
c. The names and addresses of the child's biological parents.
d. The child's certificate of degree of Indian blood.
e. The child's tribal enrollment or other membership
documentation, if any.
f. The child's medical records.
g. The social and medical history of the child's biological
family.
h. The names, ages, and gender of the child's siblings.
i. The names, ages, and gender of the child's kinship or
extended family members.
j. The names and addresses of the child's adoptive parents.
k. The identity of any agency having files or information
relating to the placement.
l. All reports concerning the child or the child's family,
including detailed information regarding case plans and other efforts
to rehabilitate the parents of the child.
m. A record of efforts made to place the child within and
outside of the placement preferences under section 232B.9.
n. A statement of the reason for the final placement
decision.
3. If a court orders the foster care, preadoptive placement, or
adoptive placement of an Indian child, the court and any
state-licensed child-placing agency involved in the placement shall
provide the department of human services with the records described
in subsections 1 and 2.
4. A record maintained pursuant to this section by the department
of human services, a county department of human services,
state-licensed child-placing agency, private attorney, or medical
facility shall be made available within seven days of a request for
the record by the Indian child's tribe or the secretary of the
interior.
5. Upon the request of an Indian individual who is eighteen years
of age or older, or upon the request of an Indian child's parent,
Indian custodian, attorney, guardian ad litem, guardian, legal
custodian, or caseworker of the Indian child, the department of human
services, a county department of human services, state-licensed
child-placing agency, private attorney, or medical facility shall
provide access to the records pertaining to the Indian individual or
child maintained pursuant to this section. The records shall also be
made available upon the request of the descendants of the Indian
individual or child. A record shall be made available within seven
days of a request for the record by any person authorized by this
subsection to make the request.
6. Upon application of an Indian individual who is eighteen years
of age or older and was the subject of an adoptive placement, the
court that entered the final decree shall inform the individual
regarding the individual's tribal affiliation and any of the
individual's biological parents, and shall provide such other
information as may be necessary to protect any rights arising from
the individual's tribal affiliation. In addition, the court shall
provide the individual, through an appropriate order, if necessary,
with information described in subsection 2 as may be secured from the
records maintained pursuant to subsection 2.
7. If a parent of an Indian child wishes to remain anonymous,
identifying records concerning any such parent shall not be released
unless necessary to secure, maintain, or enforce the Indian child's
right to enrollment or membership in the child's Indian tribe, for
determining a right or benefit associated with the enrollment or
membership, or for determining a right to an inheritance. Section History: Recent Form
2003 Acts, ch 153, §14
Referred to in § 232B.9