Fostering Hope, Part 3: Jessica Belgarde’s fight to get her foster daughter back

Mandan, N.D. ( KXNET ) —

Jessica Belgarde has been fostering children for nearly three years.

As Alysia Huck has shared in parts 1 and 2 of Fostering Hope , it abruptly came to an end.
In part 3, Jessica says she’s been fighting to get one of her foster children back, the one she was to adopt, only to be met by silence.

When Jessica Belgarde’s two-year-old foster daughter was removed from her home, she was kept in Morton County since that’s where the report was filed.

Knowing Jessica’s home was the only home the toddler had known since birth, Morton County Social Services tried to assist Jessica with arranging visitation.

“My daughter wakes up every night with nightmares. She’s screaming because she’s not with her mom,” said Jessica Belgarde, foster mom. “And I think she does remember being taken that day. That was a traumatic experience for both of us.”

On February 14th, there was finally good news.
A Morton County social worker informed Jessica the 960 report of suspected child abuse was cleared.

She says they contacted Turtle Mountain the same day, telling them the paperwork just needed to be filed, but even that didn’t impact their decision.

“Since February 14. Morton County has been fighting to get (foster daughter) back into my care back into the home,” Jessica said. “And I would also like to state from day one Morton County has said there is no cause for concern. They wanted it to where (foster daughter) and I could live together with a family member during this time. And the director from Turtle Mountain would not accept that. (And what was their reasoning?) They had no reasoning.”

Then, an emergency court hearing regarding her foster daughter’s permanency review happened, but Jessica’s lawyer, Travis Iverson, says she was never notified.

“An order entered by the Turtle Mountain tribal court on February 7 2024, appears to indicate that the child should be returned to tribal lands so that Turtle Mountain social services can take physical custody of this child,” Travis Iversen, associate attorney, Heartland Law Office. “This hearing was done without any sort of appearance or notice to Jessica. It does not appear that any sort of guardian ad litem was present and advocating for the child on this, and it is unclear exactly what the reasoning was.”

“It states right in their laws, it stays in the child’s code, everything,” Jessica reiterated. “I have a right to be there. And (foster daughter) has a right for me to be there for her. And I was never once told about these court proceedings. This is where the judge signed off on their order to remove her from her home.”

(So now she is officially no longer considered in legal terms, your foster daughter?)

“Yeah, yeah,” Jessica responded.

“It does raise significant concerns on Jessica’s end, because it does appear that the tribe does not want the child to continue to be in Jessica’s care for the time being, but we’re not certain if that’s permanent or just temporary,” Iversen said.

With the help of her family, lawyer, Morton County Social Services and other families who have been through similar experiences, Jessica continues to search for answers and find a way to get her foster daughter home and finalize the adoption. She says with little to no response from Turtle Mountain, they just keep hitting brick walls.

“As much as the tribal code appears to indicate that certain rights and responsibilities need to be upheld, it appears that the processes that they’ve gotten used to just don’t adhere to those strict policies,” Iversen said. “And for the most part, nobody’s objecting, but just because now pointing out that something’s not right here, something needs to be done. There needs to be more transparency from social services as to what’s occurring.”

By March 1st, Jessica was officially cleared of child abuse allegations by Three Rivers Human Service Zone.

But today, more than three months since that fateful day, Jessica’s house remains quiet with no children in her care.

“It has to be frustrating for anyone trying to be part of the adoption process,” Iversen said. “I don’t imagine foster parents or adoptive parents are very simple to find, but you have a fine candidate in Jessica, who’s willing to step up and take care of a child like this. And then without sufficient reasoning, or any reasoning given to Jessica at least, this entire process seems to be halted and possibly even terminated given their actions and lack of explanation at this point.”

But Jessica is not giving up.

“She is my number one priority, and I’m trying to fight for her,” Jessica said. “And then I posted fighting for my daughter and then found out that there’s countless other children then this has happened to.”

Jessica submitted a formal complaint to the BIA in Belcourt, requesting an internal investigation of the Turtle Mountain Child Welfare and Family Services.
She also started a petition for policy reform in the hopes of bringing an end to situations like this.

All four foster children are in new placement at this time.
But Jessica is hopeful she’ll get the child she was in the process of adopting, back, as a court date has been set for June 6 for a motion to intervene on their decision to take the child from her.

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