- [Joe Walker] As part of a Children's Bureau initiative
to raise awareness of Tribally engaged prevention
and intervention efforts,
the Center for Native Child and Family Resilience partnered
with five Tribal organizations,
including Indian Health Council, Incorporated
to identify and enhance culturally-based programs
designed to strengthen community and family resilience
in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
The center is committed to building the evidence base
of Tribal child welfare knowledge
and practice through evaluation and sharing
the knowledge gained through these projects with the field.
The IHC is a healthcare consortium
of nine federally recognized Tribes,
located in an 1,800-square-mile service area
within North San Diego County.
It has operated
as a 501c3 nonprofit organization since 1970,
with a mission to continually nurture a balance
of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
As part of their goal to empower
and nurture Native family wellness,
IHC has a major emphasis on community building
and continuously builds collaborative relationships
with the greater Native community.
- We were starting off with child welfare,
Indian child welfare and chasing court cases
and kids in foster care.
And once they entered into foster care,
it was really difficult to get them out
and get them back with families.
And sometimes, families didn't reunify.
And I just started thinking,
how can we do this work and prevent them
from ever getting into the eye of Child Welfare Services?
And to me, that meant working
the immediate assistance and court cases,
the middle of that, and doing prevention work,
but doing like pre-prevention work
and working with mothers who were just becoming pregnant
or starting out with their families,
and starting with young families
and trying to teach them communication skills
and good parenting skills
and kind of going back to our culture
and how we did things before
to prevent them from ever getting into the eye
of Child Welfare Services.
- I was already in the curriculum development
as a consultant, so I was helping create the curriculum.
I was paired with Art Martinez
to do the lessons of the East.
And so once Maria decided that she was gonna move on,
that's when I jumped into the position
and took on the role of the second My Two Auntie.
So the program in of itself is just amazing
in the sense that we get to follow the gestation of a child
into birth, and then up until the first year of life.
And we get to see all those brilliant milestones,
getting them ready for delivery,
and easing their minds about all the different things
that happen through pregnancy.
And is like, "I gained 10 pounds!"
In our work, we found that a lot of our youth
didn't have the connection to the culture.
With removal and with just generational trauma,
and generational or historical trauma
a lot of families have lost their culture.
And so this is a way of regenerating that tie
to the community and reculturalization. (laughs)
So it's bringing people back into the fray.
It's taking them, it's bringing them back.
It's throwing them a life jacket
in the sense that they didn't have these tools
when they were growing up,
and therefore, now here we are saying,
"Here take this book in your language.
Learn your language.
Teach it to your children.
Make it their favorite bedtime story.
Here, here's a song that you can sing during diaper changes.
Here is a lullaby when they are at unrest."
Because we know that language, that connection,
the culture speaks to our spirit.
- That stigma has been very hard to overturn
because of the trust, and for good reason.
In our community, there was a lot of distrust.
And we were seen as working with the enemy,
and not really seen as, Child Welfare Services
was a department that was there to help people.
That was really hard to convince people
because they were the people who would take children away.
So by developing a project that worked alongside
with Child Welfare,
we were able to train those Child Welfare workers
into working with our community in a way
where our community was acceptant, accepting them.
- So maybe there's a bully at school.
And mom and dad are gonna go in as Mama Bear and Papa Bear,
and maybe it's not at that point yet.
So you're trying to find somebody to guide you
in the sense that, "Oh, you know, well,
you know what I would do?
I would just tell them to beat sand,"
or something like that and just have another person
to share these troubles with in a light air.
And then the other portion of Aunties
is we're there to pick up the pieces
because as any parent knows,
you're going to have one in daycare,
one sick at home, three running around the res.
And so mom and dad might not have the ability
to slow down and see things as they arise.
But if you like pull your auntie aside,
or I want to go to auntie's house,
that's when that one-on-one comes into play.
And that's when behind closed doors,
Auntie can be like,
"Hey, you need to pay attention to this one.
They're struggling."
And that's when the term,
"It takes a village to raise a child,"
that's where that comes in we wanna be able to pick
our children up through the cracks.
Because as every parent knows,
there's always going to be blind sides.
And teaching children like the language.
So we do have story books with lullabies
in (indistinct) language.
And I think that makes them feel closer
to home and closer to their roots.
So just definitely providing these things for them,
I think, it just, it doesn't just feel
like I'm getting services from a clinic.
It's okay, this is my clinic, this is my people.
- So a colicky baby, when everything else is not working,
try that language and see if that helps.
Because I mean, especially with the languages around here,
they're very guttural.
So it's like those those hard, guttural sounds
can actually be kind of like white noise in a sense.
And it can bring the child back to a state of calm.
And then, they want to learn the culture for themselves.
And then sometimes, we also have clients
who are non-native, but have Native children
and they wanna learn the cultural traditions
and values in order to pass it on to their children.
And it's difficult as a non-native
to come into the culture and to find somebody
who will teach them.
So to have the Indigenous Ways of Knowing curriculum,
it gives them that life jacket again of,
oh, finally I found somebody who can help me
teach this to our children.
- And understanding those principles
and how they relate to today's modern world
and the skills that they need.
Simply being available to your children,
waking up with the children,
waking up before the children wake up.
Just something that simple
really helps your family get organized.
And getting kids off to school
with a meal in them helps them learn.
You know, just simple things like that.
Yes, it's our job,
but when we hire people to become an auntie,
it really is like being a part of your family,
and having that person be, just like your auntie would do,
come to your house early in the morning
or late at night when you need them the most.
- The way our clients identify with these lessons,
and they feel really comfortable with the lessons
that I've delivered so far,
they love the program.
And they feel comfortable.
And again, we are involving them,
and we're letting them know
what it's about every step of the way.
So just getting back all the positive feedback,
I think that's, and them feeling comfortable with us,
I think that's the greatest, greatest success.
- I found that one of the evaluation tools
that we use is the the mind map
of like the word cloud tracker.
And of course, that's like the mother oak
with all of her feathers, or not feathers, leaves,
and then words are surrounding that.
And in that, that's where I found the connection
with the clients.
Because in closing, that's the last thing that we do,
is we go over the word tracker
in how did today's lesson make you feel?
Or how do you feel in general today?
And I found that it really opens the door to communication
to building those connections.
Because if you're working with a client,
and one day, they go, "Oh, I'm a little stressed."
And it's just like, "Okay, that's totally understandable.
You're pregnant.
It's a lot of things coming at you right now,
and okay, cool."
- And we also have, from the grant that we run this program
out of with UCSD, and those evaluations,
they really warmed my heart,
brought me to tears because they showed the same findings.
And the findings were basically, it's working.
I think what makes me the proudest
is just knowing that we're leaving something behind,
and something that can grow
and that can become even bigger than what it is today
because it could take off with more language, more programs,
doing the Indigenous Ways of Knowing,
and bringing our culture into everything that we do,
and give that sense of pride, resilience, strength
to our little ones, all the way to our Elders.
So it's kind of leaving a legacy.
- [Joe Walker] CNCFR and My Two Aunties have collaborated
to develop a curriculum and supporting implementation guide.
These materials will help organizations or Tribes
that would like to implement this program
in their community to do so in ways
that are congruent with their culture, values,
rituals, and communities.
To learn more about the My Two Aunties program
and access program materials,
visit the Indian Health Council website
and the CNCFR website.
The Center for Native Child and Family Resilience
was funded by the Children's Bureau,
Administration for Children and Families,
US Department of Health and Human Services,
under Cooperative agreement number 90CA1853.
The contents of this product are solely the responsibility
of JBS International, Incorporated,
and do not necessarily reflect the official views
of the Children's Bureau.