1st Annual Hibulb Center Film Festival, April 12, 13, and 14, 2013
Event Location: Tulalip Tribes Hibulb Cultural Center & Natural History Preserve, 6410 23rd Avenue NE
Tulalip, WA 98271, www.hibulbculturalcenter.org
The 1st Hibulb Cultural Center Film Festival will be held April 12, 13, and 14, 2013, at the Hibulb Cultural Center in Tulalip, Washington. This year’s theme is ‘Our Land, Our Relations’. The Hibulb Cultural Center is seeking features, documentaries, short films, and animation. Films with strong voices of old cultures and connections to land and families are particularly welcome in anticipation of Earth Day.
Photo courtesy of Rep. John McCoy Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, during his Air Force duty in the 1960s. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, McCoy was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, a major supply base for U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.
There was no heroes’ welcome. When Tim McDonald and other Americans returned from their Vietnam War duty, they were ignored or worse.
“Many Vietnam veterans, myself included, we didn’t feel the support of the nation at all,” he said Thursday.
McDonald, 65, was in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. He was in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971.
It was 40 years ago today — March 29, 1973 — that the last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam, officially ending direct American military involvement in the Vietnam War. Two years later, in 1975, the Saigon government fell.
McDonald lives on Whidbey Island. He is retiring today from his job as director of the Snohomish Health District’s communicable disease control division. Not only does the Vietnam War seem like ages ago, he said, “it seems like an entire separate universe.”
One major difference between then and now is the honor accorded servicemen and women returning from war. Today, Americans are united in our gratitude for veterans’ military service.
During the Vietnam War era, that wasn’t so. Troops came home to anti-war demonstrations, and were ignored or insulted.
Today, our state takes a step toward righting a wrong. At 9:15 a.m., Gov. Jay Inslee plans to sign House Bill 1319, an act declaring that March 30 be recognized each year as Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Washington state.
Not a legal holiday, it’s a day of remembrance on which public places will display the POW-MIA flag along with the American flag. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Norm Johnson, R-Yakima, and a number of co-sponsors, including Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip.
The proposal was brought to Johnson by a member of the Yakama Warriors Association, an American Indian veterans group in Eastern Washington.
An Air Force veteran, McCoy was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1968. That was the year of the Tet Offensive, heavy attacks by North Vietnamese forces. Clark Air Base was the major supply base for U.S. forces in Vietnam.
McCoy didn’t serve in Vietnam, but his memories of seeing what happened there are vivid.
“My place of work was across the street from the base morgue. I did see coffins stacked up,” McCoy said Wednesday.
He said his wife Jeannie had the harder time. A civilian worker in the base hospital’s records section, “she had to take records all over the facility,” McCoy said. “Hallways, waiting rooms, everywhere was clogged with the wounded, still in battle uniforms. It took her a long time to get over that.”
It is decades late, but McCoy hopes the day to welcome Vietnam veterans home will make a meaningful statement.
“My hope is that it brings closure for the troops, that their service is acknowledged and that it was not in vain,” McCoy said. “We still have veterans — that war will never leave them. They still struggle with it,” he said.
After Inslee signs the bill, the state House and Senate will honor Vietnam veterans. There will also be a short ceremony today at the Washington State Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Capitol campus.
“Too often our Vietnam veterans returned home to a less than grateful nation, so it is fitting that we embrace these heroes today,” Alfie Alvarado, director of the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs, said in a statement Thursday. She said Washington is home to more than 200,000 Vietnam veterans.
Heidi Audette, a spokeswoman for the state’s veterans department, said Vietnam veterans are encouraged to seek the benefits they earned. “There are specific problems tied to exposure to Agent Orange. It’s not too late to go back to the VA, for either health care services or disability compensation,” she said.
Tim Davis is the manager and head clinician at the Everett Vet Center, a facility of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“The treatment Vietnam vets got after they got back home from Vietnam was almost criminal. They felt the rejection by the general population,” Davis said.
He believes that even if Vietnam veterans say the welcome-home day is coming way too late, the state’s action will touch them. “What they will say is, ‘It’s too late.’ The reality will be something different,” Davis said.
In recent years, veterans have told Davis that strangers have come up to thank them after seeing a baseball cap or other indication that they served in Vietnam. “They tell me this in tears,” he said.
Davis served in the Army from 1969 until 1991. During the Vietnam War, he worked in amputee services at Valley Forge Army General Hospital in Pennsylvania.
Today, he helps veterans of all ages who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
“It doesn’t matter if it was Somalia or Vietnam or Iraq, it’s all the same. But these young kids coming back have some appreciation from the country,” Davis said. “It’s different from Vietnam. They don’t understand what it feels like to be rejected by your country.”
McDonald, the Vietnam veteran from Whidbey, appreciates the welcome.
“The legislators who wrote this law did it to try to balance what happened in the past,” McDonald said. “They were doing something good. They really had their hearts in the right place.”
Herald writer Jerry Cornfield contributed to this story.
Genna Martin / The Herald From left, Katie Hots, 4; Calista Weiser, 5; KC Hots, 7; Irwin Weiser, 8; Kane Hots, 5; and Aloisius Williams, 2, play Monopoly as Natasha Gobin and her spouse, Thomas Williams, make dinner at their home in Tulalip. Gobin, who teaches Lushootseed language classes, asks her children, KC, Kane, Katie and Aloisius, to count in Lushootseed as they play the game.
A long time ago, a young girl sat at the base of a cedar tree and cried.
She was all alone.
The tree asked why she was crying.
I am very sad, she said. I have no friends.
The cedar tree decided to distract the girl, and told her to pick up some of his roots.
You are going to make a basket, the tree said.
I don’t know how, the young girl said.
I will show you how, said the cedar tree.
—
In a classroom at the Hibulb Cultural Center at Tulalip, a group of mothers practice the pronunciation of a language that almost disappeared.
Generations ago, at government boarding schools on the Tulalip reservation, caretakers beat the young people who dared to speak their native language, called Lushootseed.
The women in the classroom say the words, taking great care. The sounds are foreign, with back-of-the-throat glottal stops, tongue clicks and exhalations from the sides of their mouths.
Lushootseed was the language of the Coast Salish people living along the inland waters of what would become Washington state. Included were the Snohomish, Skykomish and Snoqualmie, who now are part of the confederated Tulalip Tribes.
Throughout Western Washington, various tribes are working hard to keep the language alive, especially as the elders die, taking with them a firsthand knowledge of Lushootseed.
Natosha Gobin, 32, has been with the department since she was a Marysville Pilchuck High School student volunteering at the tribes’ annual summer language camp. She started her seventh annual language class for families in February; the eight-week class ended on Tuesday.
The women start this final class by practicing in Lushootseed some commands such as “wait,” “hurry up,” “get ready” and other motherly things they plan to say at home.
“Pronunciation is crucial,” Gobin says. “You don’t want to ask your daughter to brush her hair and then have it sound like you want her to brush her squirrel.”
Using Lushootseed is not a female-only avocation. Some dads attend class when they can, but it’s primarily mothers in their 30s who have the passion for it.
Their children, who soak up the Lushootseed they are taught in their Montessori preschool on the reservation, color pictures of animals and birds in an adjacent classroom and practice the Lushootseed words for them. Occasionally a child runs into the adult classroom to exchange a picture for a kiss.
“When I think about traditional upbringing of children, the women took the kids along when they dug roots and went clam digging, while the men hunted and fished,” Gobin said. “Educating the children was a mother’s job, and that still carries through in many ways. It’s the nurturing and mothering bone in our bodies.”
—
So the young girl gathered up some cedar tree roots to make a basket.
When she was done weaving as the tree had instructed, she showed off her basket.
Go to the river, the cedar said to the girl. Dip the basket in and gather up some water. Then bring it back.
But the water was dripping from the basket and by the time she got back to the tree it was almost empty.
The cedar tree told the young girl to weave the basket again. This time, the tree said, it must be tighter.
The girl was upset, but she did not give up.
—
Before the settlers, Lushootseed was spoken from south Puget Sound near Olympia north to the Skagit River watershed, and from Hood Canal east to the Cascade Range.
It was not a written language.
Northern Lushootseed was used by the Skagit, Samish, Swinomish, Stillaguamish, Sauk-Suiattle and others. Southern Lushootseed was the language of the Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Nisqually, Skokomish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie and others. The Snohomish people spoke a mix of northern and southern dialects.
In the 1960s, a few elders in the region could still tell the ancient stories of the Coast Salish people.
That’s when Vi Hilbert, a member of the Upper Skagit tribe, began to help University of Washington linguist Thom Hess and music teacher Leon Metcalf record the language. Hess devised the system for written Lushootseed, with a symbol for each sound. Hilbert, who died in 2008, went on to become a revered teacher of the language and the author of numerous books.
In a video recording of Hilbert made a few decades ago, she talks about believing that the Creator had wrapped around her the work of keeping Lushootseed alive.Natosha Gobin shares the feeling.
“This is what I was meant to do,” Gobin said. “When I was a kid, I could say dog, cat, owl, goodbye and a cuss word. Now I dream in Lushootseed. My colleagues and I have attained a level of fluency. And we are better now than we were five years ago.”
The language department also includes Toby Langen, who learned Lushootseed from the Moses family and worked with Hess at the University of Washington; Michele Balagot, who teaches in the preschool, runs the summer language camp and has a master’s degree in education; and Michelle Myles, who teaches children and college students and has a bachelor’s degree. Four others are in training to be teachers who may soon help teach Lushootseed in the elementary schools and at Heritage High School.
Gobin, who earned an associate degree in Native American studies, has worked for the department for nearly 13 years.
A great-grandmother on her father’s side was one of those beaten for speaking Lushootseed.
“She didn’t want the family to be harmed, so she stopped speaking our language,” Gobin said. Along with banning the language among children, government officials tried to stop the practice of potlatches and other cultural traditions among the tribes.
“On my mother’s side, my great-grandmother Elsie spoke our language at home, as some people still do, with friends and family. My grandmother Della would sit underneath the kitchen table and listen to them joke and giggle together. That same great-grandmother also tried to keep the language going by teaching classes in the community. That’s where I get my passion for it.”
Not everyone shares that passion or can take the time to learn the language, Gobin said.
“We live in a fast-paced world and I understand that,” she said. “But we will keep trying to reach out to share it. That’s what my grandfather, Bernie Gobin, would have wanted me to do.”
—
The second time the young girl came back from the river, only about half the water had leaked out of the basket.
She tried a third time, but the basket was still not woven tight enough and a few drops leaked out.
On the fourth try, she did her best work.
She returned to the cedar tree with the basket full of water.
Your basket is very nice, the tree said. You did such good work and you did not give up.
—
The first hour of the family language class is spent eating supper, usually pizza and salad. It’s a time to relax and share the news of the day. After the children are dismissed to their activities, the parents get to work.
This year, the class curriculum focused on words and phrases that could be used in everyday conversation at home. The goal is to keep the children speaking what they have learned already, Gobin said.
The moms ask Gobin for resources, such as flash cards, translations of family songs, framed phrases to hang up around the house and a phonetic pronunciation guide.
The word in Lushootseed for sibling is very similar to the term for cousin. Since many of the women in the class are related, there is a familial atmosphere.
“The women here are comfortable with each other. We want the same thing,” said Udora Andrade, 31, a mother of two. “We want our kids to understand the ancestors and claim the cultural habits.”
Clarissa Young-Weiser, 30, is Tulalip and Shoshone-Bannock. She and her children, Erwin, 8, and Calista, 5, often practice Lushootseed or listen to recordings of the language in their van on the way to school or the store.
With the kids confined in the car, it is a good time for them to help her refine her pronunciation.
Young-Weiser plans to take Gobin’s class every year and each summer to put her children in the language camp. It is important because she grew up without a focus on American Indian culture, Young-Weiser said.
“At one point, I thought about learning another language, like French, but later it clicked for me that I really didn’t want a foreign language, I wanted my language,” she said. “I want my kids to be able to speak to each other in Lushootseed. I want them to know who they are. I want them perhaps to have the honor of being asked someday to offer up prayers for the community in their tribe’s language.”
Norene Warbus, 32, married into the tribe. She and her husband, Shane, teach their children at home, where they work on Lushootseed together.
“I want my children to be able to tell the tribe’s stories in their language,” she said.
Her friend Zee Jimicum says her own focus on the language is not about studying the past, but looking to the future.
“I wasn’t raised at Tulalip, so I missed out on traditional storytelling,” Jimicum said. “So for me, it’s about revitalizing the language and the culture. Besides, when I use one-word Lushootseed commands on my kids, they say ‘Ooh-kaay.'”
Brianne DiStefano, 33, is taking college courses in Lushootseed, as well as the family class with her children.
“It’s an enlightening process, getting to know more about one’s own people and the way they thought,” DiStefano said. “It’s not surprising that the class is mostly women. The Idle No More movement, which is sort of the American Indian Movement of today, was organized by native women in Canada. As mothers, we care about tribal sovereignty, the environment and natural resources. We’re not just thinking of ourselves, but of everyone who lives in America.”
—
Now, take your basket and give it to the oldest woman in the village, the cedar tree told the young girl.
The girl was upset about having to give away her first basket, but she loved the elders.
Back in the village, there was a gathering. The speaker granted the girl permission to present her basket.
The oldest woman in the village was happy and excited to receive the young girl’s first basket.
The woman knew how difficult it had been for the girl, but she was pleased that the skill had been handed down.
— “Her First Basket,” a traditional Coast Salish story
—
At American Indian naming ceremonies, funerals, potlatches and other gatherings that require witnesses, traditional items are given to those witnesses. Children of the Tulalip Tribes learn to respect the speakers at these events and to listen intently. They also learn that when they first make a craft, it must be set aside to be given away at a gathering.
The grandparents at Tulalip are always pleased about young children learning traditional ways, Gobin said.
“I yell at my kids, but I want them to learn all the teachings. I want them to be seen and not heard,” she said. “It is not for my benefit. It is so they learn to be good people.”
Gobin has four children: KC, 7, Kane, 6, Katie, 4, and 2-year-old Aloisius.
They understand her commands in Lushootseed, and most of the time they comply. The language is part of the routine at home.
“In a world where they will be labeled, often negatively, I hope my children will know who they are,” she said. “The words of our language have depth and are empowering. It feels spiritual to speak it and to understand it. It teaches our values, such as respect for one another and the world around us. Sometimes we forget what is important and what life is really all about, but the language connects us with our ancestors.”
When Gobin was pregnant with her oldest child, she had the idea that she would raise a first speaker of Lushootseed and not immediately speak English with him.
“The hard part was that I wasn’t as fluent back then and I was really the only one around him speaking Lushootseed,” Gobin said. “When KC got to preschool, he came home and said, ‘My teacher, Miss Virginia, knows how to talk like you, Mom.’ I told him, ‘It’s our language, son.’ Then I realized my kids were thinking their mom was a nut case. They thought what I was saying wasn’t real. I told KC, ‘It’s real, son. It’s real.’ ”
At the last class on Tuesday, Gobin thanked her students and presented Tulalip language department T-shirts to all.
“Without you,” she said, “I am just that crazy lady talking to myself. You make my job worthwhile, because it’s not about me, but about a language that belongs to a whole region of people.”
Gobin said she will never stop teaching or speaking Lushootseed.
“I’m a lifer. I will not give up. I will be one of those elders who talks to the kids and continues to tell our stories.”
Learn more about the Tulalip Tribes’ Lushootseed Language Department and its classes, and check out audio and video clips at www.tulaliplushootseed.com.
TULALIP – Fires have a long cultural tradition at Tulalip, and heating a home with wood is both affordable and comfortable. But wet wood, an old stove, a broken seal, or even just cold outside air means our cozy fires can create too much smoke and soot. When this happens, some in our community can be at risk of asthma episodes and even premature heart attacks. For our kids, woodsmoke is one reason they cough, wheeze and get more infections in the wintertime, when we use wood heat more often. For adults with asthma, bronchitis or emphysema, woodsmoke is known to put more of those folks in the hospital. Others at risk include elders, because woodsmoke weakens their body’s ability to fight off infections.
The good news is that there are things we can do to burn cleaner and safer. In fact, there are many solutions, like drying (seasoning) your wood, upgrading to a new wood stove, or using the clean-burning Presto type log. The Tulalip Air and Indoor Environment program wants to know which solutions work best here at Tulalip, so that we can then seek grants and resources. To do this, we’d like to invite those who rely on wood heat (burn more than four times a week), and have a tribal member living in the home, to participate in a survey. It takes about 35-40 minutes and can be done on-line or over the phone. When you are finished, we will send you a $30 gift card. Our goal is to learn more about burning practices, firewood use, and health effects. (All information will be confidential and will be used to help us find programs and funding for cleaner wood heat.)
To find out if you are eligible to participate in the survey, please contact Gillian Mittelstaedt, Tulalip Air and Indoor Environment Program, at (206)512-3293, or by email: gillianmitt@hotmail.com
Easter may be a few days away, but on March 29th kids at the Tulalip Montessori School got an early visit from the Easter Bunny.
After much smiling, laughing and hugging, the kids made a dash through the playground, hunting for candy and eggs, which they stashed in their own hand-decorated bags.
TULALIP, Wash. Attendees at the Tulalip Hibulb garden work party gathered together on Friday, March 22 to do some needed garden preparations. Gardeners and gardening volunteers worked together to prepare the garden for the growing season.
Pruning encourages fruit production, so Master Gardeners Frank Sargent and Rob and Richelle Taylor pruned fruit trees located in the orchard on the north side of the Hibulb Museum.
Master Gardeners Frank Sargent and Rob Taylor prune the fruit trees. Photo by Richelle Taylor
Community gardeners worked in the greenhouse, transplanting over 100 seedlings of cabbage and sowing new seeds. Seedlings are being started and kept warm in the heated greenhouse and soon the plant beds around the museum will be made ready for transplanting.
The community is invited to attend the garden work parties and the Gardening Together as Families events. Gardeners will help tend the beds throughout the season and enjoy the rewards at the end of season harvest. Gardeners will learn about the many aspects of gardening through hands-on experience, working side-by-side with master gardeners.
To learn more about the Hibulb Gardening events please contact Veronica Leahy at 360-716-5642 or vleahy@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
Tribal member Malaki Hernandez transplanting a cabbage sprout.
Mytyl Hernandez and son Malaki with transplanted pansies. Photo by Richelle Taylor
Seedlings
Corn seedlings
Tribal member Marvin Jones and Master Gardener Veronica Leahy transplanting cabbage sprouts.
Family photo Nineteen-month-old Chantel Craig died Oct. 8. She and her sister were found in a car on the Tulalip Reservation. The girls were suffering from malnutrition and severe dehydration.
TULALIP — They were asked to inspect the net.
Maybe somehow it can be woven tighter so another little girl won’t fall through, dying before she learns to twirl on tiptoes or color inside the lines or dream of being a princess or a firefighter.
It seems an insurmountable job — searching for all the potential gaps. How do you predict the unimaginable?
It happened in October down a dirt road on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Chantel Craig and her sister were left in a broken down car, going without food or water for days. The toddlers’ world was restricted to the car seats they were kept buckled into. Their bodies were covered with sores, feces and maggots.
Chantel wasn’t breathing. She had no pulse. She suffered, for how long no one can really say, and then her body gave out. Her sister, 3, fought to stay alive.
Chantel died from neglect, five months shy of her second birthday. Her mother, Christina Carlson, is charged with murder.
Last month, state social workers faced tough questions about their interaction with the girl’s family as a team of experts reviewed the circumstances surrounding Chantel’s death. The examination was required by state law. Findings were made public Thursday.
After six hours of discussion the team didn’t find what the state calls “critical errors” on the part of Children’s Administration employees.
Instead, the panelists made some findings and recommendations for the future, mainly focused on what child welfare workers do to locate families. There’s a need for experienced social workers to handle the cases governed by the Indian Child Welfare Act and consistent review by supervisors. And the girls’ case demonstrates the need to more clearly define the responsibilities of state and Tulalip tribal social workers when conducting joint investigations.
The six-member fatality review committee included a medical doctor, a Marysville police detective, a Snohomish County human services manager and three other professionals connected to social services. They asked questions of the state social worker and her two supervisors. Panelists agreed they were there because of a horrible tragedy. Their conversation, however, was tempered. They all work with families, often in crisis. They know others will slip through.
“These reviews are so important,” said Cammy Hart-Anderson, the division manager for Snohomish County Human Services Department. “I volunteer as a way to assist, offering my perspective from the alcohol and drug field.
“I also believe it’s a way to honor the child who died. We’re trying to do something so her death won’t be in vain.”
The law required the state Department of Social and Health Services to convene the search mission into Chantel’s death — to look for any gaps in a system that relies on cops, courts and social workers to save other people’s children and to help patch together families, many affected by generational poverty, addiction and violence.
The Children’s Administration, a division of DSHS, is tasked with completing a fatality review within six months after a child under state care or receiving state services dies unexpectedly, or nearly dies. The idea is to closely examine how state workers were involved with the child and family, and whether policies and practices can be changed to tighten the safety net.
“We would all love to have a system in place where we never have a child in these circumstances,” said Ronda Haun, a critical incident review specialist with the Children’s Administration.
The state invited a Herald reporter to observe the typically closed-door discussion. The reporter agreed not to attribute to individual participants any statements made during the process. The Herald also agreed not to report information about the child or her family that hadn’t already appeared in public records. The newspaper also delayed publishing a story until the review was completed and available to the public on the state’s website.
Tribal law prevented anyone from the tribes to formally participate in the review.
The committee was advised at the start that they weren’t being asked to conduct a forensic, criminal or personnel investigation. They also were reminded of the complex legal framework that limits the actions of state social workers.
The courts have called parental rights natural and sacred, said Sheila Huber, an assistant attorney general who represents the Children’s Administration.
“Parents have constitutional rights when it comes to the care, custody and control of their children,” Huber said.
There are restrictions on when the state can interfere with those rights, she added.
State and tribal social workers had been investigating allegations that Chantel and her sister were being neglected after receiving a call from their grandmother in December 2011.
Generally the law requires state social workers to close a Child Protective Services investigation within three months. In this case, the social worker kept the investigation open for 10 months, citing concerns because of the mother’s past and her lack of contact with her own family. By keeping it open, the state could offer voluntary services to the parents. In a terrible coincidence, state social workers closed the case hours before Chantel died because they hadn’t been able to find her or her mother.
The state social worker last saw the girls on Dec. 14, 2011. There was no evidence then that they were in imminent danger, which would have been necessary to remove them. There also were no signs of abuse or neglect. The social workers agreed to continue to try to assist the family.
About two weeks after the first visit, the tribal social worker learned that the parents weren’t seeking help for their alcohol and drug abuse problems, as they claimed they were.
The fatality review committee last month questioned the state social worker about the protocols followed to locate families. The team was concerned that there appeared to be a stretch of time that no attempts were made to find the children.
Social workers are allowed to check state databases, including the rolls for those receiving state benefits. Police generally aren’t asked to get involved unless there is concern that a child is a victim of a crime.
Relatives told social workers that Carlson likely was hiding from authorities. She had lost custody of at least three other children because of her drug use and neglect, court papers said.
It is unclear if the Tulalip authorities continued to search for the family.
The Tulalips declined to participate in last month’s child fatality review.
Tribal authorities sent a letter to the state, explaining that the Tribes’ own laws prevent anyone from the tribes from commenting on their social service investigations. That is done to protect children and avoid stigmatizing families, tribal officials told The Herald last year.
Tribal social workers are allowed to share sensitive information with state social workers to assist protecting children and to provide them and their families with services. However, tribal laws don’t contain provisions about information-sharing once a child has died. That conflict prevented the tribal social workers from participating in the review.
In the letter, the Tribes asked the panel to begin the review with a prayer, seeking guidance and healing. The daylong session opened with a moment of silence.
The committee acknowledged the challenge of fully understanding the history of the case without input from tribal social workers. They knew that they were only receiving part of the story and would be left with unanswered questions.
“They were asked to look at the state’s work. I think that objective was accomplished by the committee,” said Haun, who served as one of facilitators. “We are not in the position to review the work of the Tulalip Tribes. That is their responsibility.”
The Tulalips and DSHS have an agreement sharing responsibility for child welfare investigations and providing services to Tulalip children. The agreement is meant to define the role of the state and create cooperation between the two governments.
The role of tribal and state social workers varies depending on the local agreements with specific tribes. There are additional layers of complexity because of the state and federal Indian Child Welfare Acts. The laws govern how states should respond to cases involving Indian children and spell out the tribes’ jurisdiction over their children. The federal act was passed in 1978 in response to the disproportionate number of Indian children being removed from their homes and placed in non-Indian homes away from their tribes.
The Tulalips began assuming jurisdiction over dependency cases more than a decade ago. Their child welfare services program, beda?chelh, investigates all reports of child abuse and neglect. This includes any allegations that aren’t accepted for further investigation by the state.
Among the main recommendations, the panelists encouraged the state and the Tulalips to revisit their local agreement for handling child welfare cases. They concluded that state social workers need more clarification about their individual responsibilities.
For example, state workers have protocols to locate families, but aren’t allowed to seek out tribal families without permission from the tribes to be on the reservation.
The team also urged the state to provide more consistency and stability in the unit specifically assigned to investigate allegations involving tribal children. Social workers need to be familiar with the Indian Child Welfare Act. They should be seasoned workers. Increased stability in the unit would go a long way in building relationships with tribal social workers, the group said.
The team also recommended that if a supervisor leaves the unit, the cases should be reviewed by both the outgoing and incoming supervisor to make sure complex cases don’t get overlooked. The team pointed out that the Carlson case hadn’t been reviewed by a supervisor for months. They questioned whether that was because there had been a change in supervisors.
The panelists also concluded that DSHS should make it a priority to hire CPS social workers and supervisors.
Hart-Anderson said she also walked away from the review convinced that more needs to be done to offer drug and alcohol treatment resources to families.
The county used to partner with DSHS and stationed drug and alcohol counselors in local CPS offices. They were an immediate resource for parents. That program was cut about five years ago for lack of funding.
“Alcohol and drugs are so prevalent in so many CPS cases,” Hart-Anderson said.
In the Carlson neglect case, she is accused of leaving her girls alone for hours on Oct. 8 while she tried to contact a drug dealer. Witnesses told investigators that the 36-year-old mother smoked heroin in the car while the girls were in the backseat. Tests showed that the surviving child had been exposed to opiates.
It is hard to fathom a parent’s neglect for a child, Hart-Anderson said.
“Addiction is a very powerful disease, so powerful that some people are not capable of parenting, and their number one priority is their addiction,” she said.
Social workers have an overwhelming job, Hart-Anderson said.
“As a society we don’t appreciate that enough,” she added.
Dan Bates / The Herald (From left) Susan Marshall, Tanner Bellows and Karrington Jessup relax on a comfy white leather couch, just above the tide line, while they watch the house moving.
MISSION BEACH — Kippy Murphy brought tissues. Her brother, Mike Dutton, brought beer.
It was a sentimental occasion for the Everett siblings. The two-story gray house on the beach where they’d spent decades of summers was being moved across the Sound to Whidbey Island, where it would have a new family.
“I had to come out and have my last beer at the beach house,” Dutton, 53, said Tuesday as he stood on the flat white shore southeast of Tulalip Bay.
It marks the end of an era for generations of tenants of more than 20 homes on a quarter-mile stretch of beach owned by the Tulalip Tribes. The tenants owned the homes, but not the land, and the tribes want to restore it back to natural beaches for use by members.
Tenants had seven years notice to not only vacate the premises, but to take their homes with them. Most houses were stripped and demolished.
Murphy, 46, didn’t want to destroy her family’s summer getaway — a five-bedroom, 3,000 square-foot home built in 1993 to replace a rustic fishing cabin.
“My dad built it to be barged because he knew that eventually the leases would expire,” she said. “Our parents have passed, so it made us feel good to know that we saved the house.”
Murphy and her brother sold it for $1 through the house moving company, Nickel Bros.
“It’s sad,” she said, “but I’m happy that somebody is going to use it.”
The home’s new owners, an Issaquah couple with two young kids, couldn’t be happier.
“It was the perfect house for us,” said Annie Schinnerer. “I’m excited. I can’t wait.”
It cost about $60,000 to move their $1 vacation home to Mutiny Bay in Freeland, she said. “When it’s all said and done, it will be about $150,000, which is still $50 a square foot and a great deal.”
The two families chatted on the beach Tuesday evening as workers bustled around the jacked-up house for its daunting sprint to the nearby barge.
Spectators brought chairs, blankets, beer, dogs and grandkids to watch the work take over place over several hours Tuesday.
A crew of men in orange coveralls and hardhats put planking over the sand using what looked like giant Tinker Toys.
From there, the boxy home was hoisted onto a flatbed truck that had to pull a tight sharp turn away from a retaining wall. The crunch of wooden planks resounded from the home’s weight, stirring the crowd of onlookers armed with cameras at the ready.
The truck lurched forward, groaning. It slowly carried its oversized cargo up a skinny steel ramp tilted over the shore.
Silence prevailed at the precarious spectacle. Would the house topple?
A few people stepped back, just in case.
A cheer erupted when the house rolled onto the barge deck intact.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. The barge got stuck in the sand and couldn’t leave until Wednesday morning.
By Kim Kalliber and Jeannie Briones; photos by Jeannie Briones
Students, instructors and Tulalip police officers celebrate the 21 radKIDS graduates.
Empowerment, self-esteem and safety skills – these are a few of the core values of the radKIDS program and 21 proud radKIDS graduates are now armed with these important life skills. Tulalip police officers, instructors and
Tribal member Nakoyia Fryberg and Tulalip Police Officer Mark Nelson.
students celebrated the graduation at Quil Ceda & Tulalip Elementary School on March 26.
RadKIDS, which has been in operation at Quil Ceda & Tulalip Elementary for two years, is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to providing effective lifesaving skills to children. Through this program, kids become empowered to recognize and avoid dangerous situations, and to replace the fear and confusion they may feel in these situations with confidence and self-defense skills.
“There is no other program like it for safety. Students benefit from learning about safety, like being safe from a bully, staying away from drugs and alcohol and keeping safe from someone who’s trying to harm them,” said Rochelle Lubbers, Tulalip Police Department Emergency Services Manager and radKIDS Instructor.
During the graduation, students received a certificate and got to demonstrate their newly acquired self-defense skills against the “redman.” Tulalip police officer Mark Nelson wore the padded red suit to protect himself from the kids slick moves like shin kicks, toe kicks and knee kicks.
This training includes kids and their parents creating a password. A password is a word that is used as a safety check should a parent need to send another adult to pick up a child from school, sports, etc. The purpose of the password is to protect your child from going with someone under false pretenses. When approached by a stranger, the child will ask for a password, if the stranger does not know the password, the child is then taught to run away or seek help.
“We can get away from who tries to take us. It feels good to be safe,” said Nakoyia Fryberg, radKIDS graduate and Tulalip tribal member.
To learn more about the radKIDS program visit www.radkids.org
