A federal grant funds Tlingit & Haida's plan to hear child protection cases

The Tlingit & Haida Tribal Court is preparing to open its own child protection cases involving tribal children, rather than only intervening in the state's, under a federal court improvement grant that started this month.

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska received $250,000 for the first year of a five-year project. The grant description lays out the plan; it does not say when the court expects to take its first case.

The stakes show up in the state's own numbers. In August, Alaska Native or American Indian children accounted for 1,661 of the 2,348 children in out-of-home care reported by the Office of Children's Services, or 71%.

Tribal authority in these cases does not depend on owning territory, which is what makes Alaska different. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that land conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to the Native Village of Venetie was not Indian country, and Metlakatla's Annette Island Reserve remains Alaska's only reservation. The Alaska Supreme Court then held in 1999, in John v. Baker, that tribes keep inherent authority over custody disputes between parents when the children are members or eligible for membership. In 2011, in State v. Native Village of Tanana, it confirmed that Alaska tribes may also start child protection cases involving their children, whether or not those cases arise in Indian country.

So the authority already exists. What the grant pays for is the machinery to use it.

The tribe has helped define that authority before. In 2016, in a case brought by the Central Council, the Alaska Supreme Court held that tribal courts can determine child support for a child who is a member or eligible for membership, including when custody is not in dispute. State policy treats most tribal child protection jurisdiction as concurrent with the state's, with the Indian Child Welfare Act providing for transfer of qualifying state cases to tribal court.

According to the grant description, the court has a judge, a three-justice supreme court and a clerk's office, and its child welfare work has centered on intervening in state cases. It already hears original cases in custody, support, adoption and guardianship. Proposed amendments to the tribal code, still in redline and awaiting submission to the Judiciary Committee, would set out how the court receives reports, screens and investigates them, petitions for custody and decides permanency.

The same description says a January 2023 independent assessment found the court had no case management system and no records retention schedule, and that its child protection procedure guide was last issued in June 2016. First-year work includes updating that guide, setting up a coordination agreement with the tribe's family and youth services division, and redesigning guardianship and adoption packets. The tribe estimates about 99% of its current cases are filed by people representing themselves.

Tlingit & Haida reported 38,769 enrolled citizens in February, including 6,966 under 18, across Southeast Alaska, Anchorage, the Puget Sound region, Portland and Northern California. Through separate federal programs this month, it also received first-year awards of $1,437,982 for school mental health services and $1,572,239 for a first responder overdose project.