Several agencies must keep Indian child placement records, provide them quickly on request, and limit release of anonymous-parent identifying records except in narrow tribal-membership and inheritance situations.
1. The department 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 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 with the records described in subsections 1 and 2. 4. A record maintained pursuant to this section by the department, 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, 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. 2003 Acts, ch 153, §14; 2023 Acts, ch 19, §648 Referred to in §232B.9