Office of Children’s Services

Alaska OCS-Tribal Services Compact

December 6, 2017December 6, 2017Kate Fort

We’ve been getting a number of questions about this compact, likely due to the level and type of press coverage about it in Alaska (see here). We’ve hesitated to post on it, given all the people who know it much better than we do, but it’s important to see what this compact does and doesn’t do.

The compact is HERE (now as a searchable PDF because that’s how we do things).

The compact is, without question, a big step forward for the state of Alaska. It is the result of a lot of hard work of a lot of tribes, and opens doors that Alaska has long kept closed to tribes. There is recognition of tribal court protection and child support orders, as well as ensuring a child’s eligibility for federal funding regardless of tribal or state custody. The compact (Sec. 6.2.1) allows for the sharing of confidential information, and access to databases. This section alone are of particular importance and relevant for all tribes facing state intransigence on confidentiality and child welfare.

The compact is not the final step, however. The document provides an agreed upon framework for future negotiations between the state and individual tribes or tribal consortiums. The compact allows the state (OCS) to shift responsibility for providing services–and importantly, the related state funding–to tribal social services departments. But the compact does not address tribal jurisdiction, transfer to tribal court, or assume that if a tribal department takes over services that the tribe will take jurisdiction. Therefore, the compact doesn’t address tribal courts at all, or if state funding follows a child in to tribal court (spoiler alert: right now it doesn’t).

There are a lot of tribes in Alaska increasing their tribal court capacity right now, and it does seem the next step would be for tribes to exercise jurisdiction over their children without losing the funding due to those children as state citizens. It will also be interesting to see the individual tribal/tribal consortium compacts that address the details of how the services will be divided between the state and tribe.

Alaska SCT Applies Adoptive Couple to Affirm Non-Native Adoption

September 15, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher5 Comments

Here is the opinion in Native Village of Tununak v. State, Dep’t of Health & Social Services, Office of Children’s Services (Alaska).

An excerpt:

We asked the parties to provide supplemental briefing and oral argument on the effect of the Supreme Court’s Baby Girl decision on the adoption appeal currently before us.26 We now hold that because the United States Supreme Court’s decisions on issues of federal law bind state courts’ consideration of federal law issues — including the Indian Child Welfare Act — the decision in Baby Girl applies directly to the adoptive placement case on remand and to this adoption appeal. We discern no material factual differences between the Baby Girl case and this case, so we are unable to distinguish the holding in Baby Girl. Because the Supreme Court’s holding in Baby Girl is clear and not qualified in any material way, and because it is undisputed that Elise did not “formally [seek] to adopt” Dawn in the superior court, we conclude that, as in Baby Girl, “there simply is no ‘preference’ to apply[,] [as] no alternative party that is eligible to be preferred under § 1915(a) has come forward[,]” and therefore ICWA “§ 1915(a)’s [placement] preferences are inapplicable.”27 We affirm the superior court’s order granting the Smiths’ petition to adopt Dawn and vacate our remand order in Tununak I requiring the superior court to conduct further adoptive placement proceedings. We do not otherwise disturb our decision in Tununak I.

We posted briefs here.