Marisa Miakonda Cummings, Administration for Native Americans

May is Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) Awareness Month, an annual time to raise awareness about the alarming number of Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit individuals, and people who have experienced violence and trauma in the United States. This is an important issue where everyone has a role to play in awareness and prevention, including child support professionals.

MMIP refers to the American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and the Indigenous peoples of Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands who have been victims of violence, homicide, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation. For generations, Indigenous people and Native communities have struggled with high rates of violence and trauma caused by the devastating legacy of assimilationist policies of forced removal, boarding schools, and bureaucratic oppression. Repeated traumatic experiences over generations have made Native people vulnerable to all forms of violence, diminished their resilience, and weakened their health. Preventing that susceptibility and healing from inter-generational trauma are directly associated with long term positive health outcomes.

Economic and social mobility important to prevention

Economic mobility for Native people is a priority for the communities that ACF serves. Native families deserve to enjoy the benefits of employment, education, and skill-building opportunities that increase their earnings for future well-being, prosperity, and success. Economic and social mobility has been systematically and intentionally restricted for Native people who choose to retain culture, language, and traditions in their home communities and tribal nations. Often, economic and social mobility requires Native people to leave their home communities to access skill-building and empowerment opportunities like education, employment, and housing. Additionally, safe and healthy environments are often sought outside of home communities and tribal nations. Leaving kinship systems in home communities and tribal nations increases vulnerability.

ACF’s Action Plan

ACF is committed to harnessing its resources to confront the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous People, which has disproportionately harmed Native communities. To counter the cumulative impacts of this historical trauma, ACF will prioritize working in partnership with Native communities using its grant funding and technical assistance resources, as well as rulemaking authority where appropriate.

This ACF Action Plan is called Culture is Prevention: A Strength Based, Culturally Grounded Journey Toward Prevention, Intervention, and Healing (PDF). ACF recognizes that enduring change must be grounded in culture and self-governance. It’s important for non-Native persons to understand that culture to Native people is not merely a social preference but an ancient cognitive map on how to be and a way of knowing. Moreover, hundreds of years across many generations have shown that culture-based activities and interventions improve Native/Indigenous health and well-being. Accordingly, this MMIP Action Plan blends cultural values with the four public health pillars: prevention, intervention, healing, and response. This plan is designed to support optimal outcomes in the delivery of ACF programs and services to Native people and communities.

The Action Plan states that tribal sovereignty is rooted in self-determination and self-governance. It also advances the whole of government commitment to addressing the MMIP crisis and sets out a multipronged approach to advance ACF’s work in preventing violence to Native people and promoting healing from historical trauma. Importantly, it adopts responsive administrative processes such as self-governance and Indigenous knowledge, as well as identifies ways to leverage ACF’s grant funding, community engagement, and rulemaking authority.

These administrative actions are in alignment with Executive Order 14112 Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations To Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination through lessening the administrative burden of grant programs, eliminating non-federal match requirements, and minimizing grant reporting burdens. By reducing grant administration burdens on tribal nations, we focus on the impact and reduce governments paternalistic oversight.

Child support and MMIP prevention and intervention

The Office of Child Support Services works to help tribes and states in establishing paternity and obtaining child support. OCSS promotes responsible parenting, family independence and self-sufficiency, and child well-being, and recognizes the essential role of both parents in supporting their children. Currently, tribes operate child support programs providing services to Native American families consistent with tribal values and cultures. While many tribal members use child support services provided by tribal child support agencies, a significant number of Alaska Natives and American Indians use child support services administered by state agencies. OCSS partners with tribal communities to build child support programs that foster the economic stability of tribal families through consistent and reliable child support payments.

Native people may not seek child support services for fear of violence or retaliation. If a mother is a survivor of domestic violence in addition to generational violence through historical trauma, she is likely to avoid child support services to reduce her and her family’s exposure to violence. This reduces her potential income and therefore economic and social mobility. Economic oppression and poverty are risk factors that create a vulnerability for violence and affect all areas of an individual’s social determinants of health. This includes her and her children’s access to safe and functional housing, quality education, healthy and traditional food sources, and quality integrated health care.  

OCSS offers training for child support agencies that provides caseworkers with information and model practices on safe access to child support services. These trainings also help support economic and social mobility of Native children and families by striving to reduce the risk factors associated with MMIP. Child support programs can request this training by emailing Michael.Hayes@acf.hhs.gov. OCSS also created a domestic violence awareness tear sheet for tribal communities (PDF) that includes contact information for the StrongHearts Native Helpline. Tribes can post these tear sheets to promote the Helpline, which offers safe, confidential, and culturally-appropriate support to those experiencing domestic and dating violence.

You can visit the ANA website for more resources and information on MMIP.

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Bob Prevost, Deputy Director, Community and Child Support Services Division

Colorado’s Arapahoe County Child Support Services started the Parents to Work program in 2009 because we found that even willing payors, primarily dads, were struggling with child support expenses. This program helps unemployed or underemployed payors find and keep employment. To demonstrate the importance of a dad’s role in their children’s lives and to nurture this relationship, our Fatherhood program is offered in conjunction with Parents to Work.

Unfortunately, we learned that even if we did everything we could for a dad—addressed all issues, provided opportunities to become gainfully employed, and increased parenting skills—dad often remained outside of the family and not a part of the children’s lives unless mom was equally as committed. We needed to address moms’ needs too. 

We began an exhausting and extensive search for an existing Motherhood program to complement our Fatherhood program. But a program like we envisioned didn’t seem to exist anywhere—we had to build the program from the ground up. We previously partnered with the Center for Relationship Education for our Parents to Work program, and they were already providing our Relationship Education classes. They were a natural partner to help our moms. They designed a curriculum and have facilitated the Motherhood program since we launched it in 2018.

The Motherhood program doesn’t teach moms how to be moms. Instead, it:

• Speaks to the vital role both parents play in a child’s life
   
• Addresses the importance of having a relationship with their child’s dad so that both parents can participate in their children’s lives
   
• Enables better communication between parents on normal and complex issues 

The program also addresses the top issue for many moms: social capital. The program is a chance for moms in similar situations to find support among peers. It gives them a group to lean on during difficult times. Our Motherhood groups have found mentors and formed friendships. Even after completing the program, many keep in touch to ensure they’re no longer isolated. 

We expanded the program beyond those involved with Child Support Services. Now, any mom receiving any type of services from the larger Department of Human Services can join the Motherhood program. We’ve found that understanding how important both parents are to their children, building self-esteem, and eliminating isolation are stepping stones to better employment. When moms have better relationships with those in their lives, specifically with their child’s father, it increases the likelihood that dad will become a consistent payor and a consistent part of their child’s life.

Visit our classes and workshops page for more information. 

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Visit the ACF and Behavioral Health webpage to get resources for communities, parents and caregivers, teens and young adults, tribes, grantees, and service providers.

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