By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Sitka Tribe of Alaska Social Services Department has received the top national award from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Honoring Nations Project.
STA’s Sitka Indian Child Welfare Act Partnership with the Sitka Office of Children’s Services was one of six finalists to present to the General Assembly of the 75th Annual National Congress of American Indians conference in Denver, Colorado, Oct. 25.
The STA-OCS partnership was selected for High Honors, and showcased by the Harvard Project as the top program in the nation, after multiple rounds of competitive evaluation, STA said.
The Harvard Project is run by the university’s Kennedy School of Government, which recognizes examples of excellence and innovation in various fields of tribal government every two years.
STA said that the partnership between the Sitka OCS and the tribal social services department “crosses the long-standing divide between tribes and state child protection systems, systematically cross pollinating and maximizing the strengths of each government for the betterment of families experiencing crisis.”
Sitka Tribe of Alaska representatives and representatives from the State Office of Children’s Services pose for a photo in Denver after receiving their national award. Pictured are, from left, Lara Fluharty, with OCS; Breanna Stewart, with STA; Kathleen Branch, OCS; Melonie Boord, STA; Jean Swanson, STA; Lisa Gassman, STA; Krista Perala, STA; and David Voluck, STA. (Photo provided to the Sentinel)
The partnership has been years in the making, said STA Tribal Council Chair KathyHope Erickson. She attended the conference along with Vice Chair Woody Widmark; STA General Manager Lisa Gassman; STA Social Services Director Melonie Boord; STA Outreach Family Case Worker Jean Swanson; ICWA case workers Krista Perala and Breanna Stewart; ICWA attorney David Voluck; Kathy Branch and Lara Fluharty of OCS; and Chief Judge of the tribal court Pete Esquiro.
“It was maybe very emotional, not just for the department and the work they’re doing with the state and courts but the children that have benefited from their services,” Erickson said. “I’m so pleased it’s been recognized after years heading down this path.”
“By seeking to work together, instead of against each other, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the State of Alaska will not allow even one tribal child to be lost in the child protection system,” a news release from STA said.
STA said the success of the partnership is seen through the lowest child removal rate in the state, the highest intervention rate (100 percent) and a 95 percent ICWA-compliant placement rate, STA said.
The low child removal rate refers to the fact that it’s sometimes possible to keep a child in his or her home, while still working with the family to get healthy, explained Melonie Boord, director of the social services department of STA. The intervention rate refers to times when children are taken into state custody. The state sends out notices to the tribe, and in STA’s case, the tribe is able to intervene on 100 percent of the cases involving STA tribal children.
The ICWA compliant placement rate refers to the fact that under federal law there are criteria for placement preferences if a child is placed outside the home. STA is able to place the child under ICWA criteria 95 percent of the time.
“We try to get them placed with immediate or extended family first,” Boord said.
The Harvard Project Honoring Nations program shares outstanding examples of tribal government, such as the STA-OCS partnership. It recognizes that “through effective self-governance, tribes themselves possess the keys to social, political, cultural and economic prosperity,” a handout from The Harvard Project said.
STA sends representatives to the conference every year, and Erickson and Gassman said they were pleased to be a part of it this year.
“STA was very pleased to be able to share with all of Indian Country a model for success and collaborative relationship between a tribal government and a state government that is rooted in respect, communication and an abiding commitment to the health and safety of children,” Gassman said in the STA announcement. “Tribal Chair KathyHope Erickson and Vice-Chair Lawrence ‘Woody’ Widmark and I were there to see our social services staff receive ‘High Honors’ from the Harvard Project, and we could not have been prouder.”
Erickson said it will be even more gratifying if other tribes and social welfare staff in other communities learn from the example of the STA-OCS partnership.
“It would be a wonderful thing to blaze a trail, and if everyone was going in that sort of direction – that would be even more special,” Erickson said. “My hope is that will happen, that people will see the wisdom of working together.”
Gassman congratulated the other award recipients, and thanked Sitka OCS, the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services, the Alaska Department of Law and the First Judicial District for engaging the tribe in the partnership and “helping to protect the tribe’s most precious resource: its children and families,” she said.
Other 2018 finalists were the environmental program of the Village of Kotzebue, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s health aide training program, the culture and language program of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma; the agricultural program of the Quapa Tribe of Oklahoma; and the Wellness programming of the Yurok Tribe of California.
The Harvard Project will publish the details of the STA-OCS partnership to be used as a model for other Native nations in the U.S. and across the world. It will be showcased at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
