Tribal Family Coaches

About this recommendation

A tribal family coach works closely and culturally with Native American and Alaska Native families who may need support to safely avoid child welfare involvement. This is similar to a family coaching program, with cultural identity/needs coming to the forefront of all our interactions.

How to do this

• Determine how you will identify an individual or family’s tribal status. Remember that someone calling the hotline may have no or inaccurate information about a family or child’s status, so it’s always best to ask families directly when possible. In Oregon all screened out Hotline calls who have a tribal member from one of Oregon’s nine tribal nations are automatically sent to the tribal social services.
• Work with local tribes to co-design a referral system that works best for the tribal nation. For example, one tribe may want to receive and handle all screened-out calls for members of their tribe, while another may want notification but accept the assistance of a tribal family coach. Not all tribes have navigation capacity which is a key to serving tribal families.

Outcome data

With the collaboration and hard work of the Klamath Tribes and the ODHS tribal family coach, Oregon’s D11 has become the only district in the state to both significantly reduce the number of Klamath Tribal children in foster care, and the only district to have zero and or minimal over-representation of Native American or Alaska Native children in foster care.

Who's doing this

• Oregon’s District 11 Klamath/Lake Counties started a tribal family coach program in 2020 as a response to the Klamath Tribe’s concern about families having multiple screened out calls that eventually led to a removal of their tribal member. The Klamath Tribes concern was the lack of support to families addressing issues that caused the call to the hotline despite the call not raising to the level of a CPS investigation. Screened-out reports related to Native American and Alaska Native families are shared with the ODHS tribal family coach by the tribe, for potential assistance. The coach reaches out to the family together with a Klamath Tribal support person, to offer assistance, and has the flexibility to assist them with a wide range of needs.

  In Oregon’s D11, the Klamath Tribes support their own members in collaboration with an ODHS Family Coach. The ODHS tribal family coach can support all other Native American and Alaska Native families who may be from any tribe nationwide as well as tribal members from any of Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes.

  The ODHS tribal family coach works closely with the Klamath tribal TANF team to support families in a coordinated way.

  Here is Oregon’s position description and logic model for jurisdictions looking to create their own coach program.