{"id":32122,"date":"2016-03-03T16:11:21","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T00:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/historic-agreement-gives-tribe-foster-care-control\/"},"modified":"2016-03-03T16:11:21","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T00:11:21","slug":"historic-agreement-gives-tribe-foster-care-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/historic-agreement-gives-tribe-foster-care-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic agreement gives tribe foster care control"},"content":{"rendered":"

When children are taken out of their homes due to neglect or abuse, they\u2019re under the responsibility and jurisdiction of the State Office of Children\u2019s Services. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now, through an agreement signed Wednesday night at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall between the State of Alaska and Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the Central Council will be able to take over child welfare cases of tribal children. <\/p>\n

Instead of going through the state court system, these cases will go through the tribal court system. Instead of state workers overseeing the cases, tribal case managers will work with families. Instead of the state licensing the foster homes, Central Council will recruit and license tribal foster homes and be reimbursed by the state for the cost of foster care placement. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis truly is a government-to-government agreement that recognizes that tribes are uniquely and supremely and ultimately qualified to be able to meet the needs of tribal families,\u201d said Valerie Davidson, Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner. \u201cThat\u2019s not new. And quite frankly \u2014 if I may as an Alaska Native \u2014 we have known that for thousands of years.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Barbara Dude is a child welfare specialist with Central Council\u2019s Tribal Family & Youth Services. She said parents trying to get their children back will have a better working relationship with a tribal entity than with the state, and be more successful at reunification. 
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies are just more willing to work with us because we\u2019re the tribal workers. They\u2019re more willing to sit down with us and help their case plans,\u201d Dude said. <\/p>\n

She also noted that tribal court \u201cis just a friendlier environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Richard Peterson said Central Council has been working toward the agreement for 16 years and thanked the Office of Children\u2019s Services for working collaboratively. He said Alaska Native families continue to work through issues stemming from historical trauma and the agreement \u201cwill begin putting our families back together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Central Council will start by taking just a few Juneau cases from the state. Right now, 24 Tlingit and Haida children are in foster homes, the majority of which are in Juneau, according to the Office of Children\u2019s Services.<\/p>\n

Francine Eddy Jones, director of Central Council\u2019s Tribal Family & Youth Services, said it\u2019s important to be methodical and cautious. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a process of learning together \u2014 Office of Children\u2019s Services, the tribe, the state court and tribal court \u2014 to figure out what that handoff looks like,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jones said Central Council hopes to provide a lot of support and encouragement to families who\u2019ve had children taken away and tribal foster families, many of whom don\u2019t trust the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really means taking care of our own,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt means being responsible and respectful and honoring them with the values of the tribe, making sure we\u2019re holding up those families whatever that situation is for why their children are removed, embrace them and provide them the support and services they need to get back on their feet, and hopefully be reunited with their children. That\u2019s our commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is only the second such agreement between the state and a tribe. The first was with the Tanana Chiefs Conference in 2013. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


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When children are taken out of their homes due to neglect or abuse, they\u2019re under the responsibility and jurisdiction of the State Office of Children\u2019s Services.  Now, through an agreement signed Wednesday night at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall between the State of Alaska and Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":32123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32122"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}