Family

Saying they now have new information that significantly changes the case before them, the Supreme Court justices sidestepped a constitutional decision on the latest Obamacare challenge and sent the government and the religious organizations back to the drawing board.

In a unanimous decision, the court said it was not deciding the central question in the case: whether Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate substantially burdens some organizations’ right to exercise their religion.

As we reported when the case was argued, the Affordable Care Act does not require religiously affiliated employers to provide contraceptives to their employees. It does, however, require them to write a letter notifying the government that they object to the coverage and who their insurance provider is. That provider would then offer contraceptive coverage to the employees.

The organizations suing the government argued that writing the letter made them “complicit in sin.”

After the case was argued before the Supreme Court, the justices asked the government if “contraceptive coverage could be provided to petitioners’ employees, through petitioners’ insurance companies, without any such notice from petitioners.”

According to the court opinion out Monday, the government said it was a feasible option, and the religious organizations suing said they could live with a solution where they “need to do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception.”

NPR’s Nina Totenberg tells our Newscast unit that it’s likely to be a tough negotiation that will be hashed out in lower courts once again.

The Supreme Court was considering the fate of four different decisions from the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, 10th and D.C. Circuits. The court vacated all those judgments and sent each respective case back to the lower court.

If there is still disagreement between the parties, one or more of those cases could end up before the Supreme Court yet again.

“The devil is in the details,” Nina said. “How can religious organizations not have to notify the government themselves or the insurance company themselves that they are not providing contraceptive coverage? Is there a way to keep their hands off it so that the government knows who should be provided that coverage independently by working with the insurer without any input from the religious employer.”

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Kuskokwim villages say they’re feeling the effects of Bethel’s new liquor store. The shop opened last week in the Kuskokwim’s hub after decades of banned sales.

In Akiak, Tribal Police Officer Cynthia Ivan has been keeping a call log to compare how alcohol sales in Bethel have increased the amount of emergency calls in her village.

“Assault four domestic violence, I got four of those, suicide threats, public intoxication, and intoxicated children,” Ivan said.

Ivan has been keeping the log for weeks and says the number of calls she received this week has been “insane.”

She says keeping alcohol out has shifted from difficult to impossible. And bootlegging has spiked among people who didn’t do it before.

“And only because the liquor store was open, and it was right there in front of her. It was available. It’s cheap. She bought it; she brought it back to the village; and she sold it,” Ivan said about a woman she recently caught reselling large amounts of alcohol purchased Bethel.

In Napaskiak, a 20-minute boat ride downriver from Bethel, the people are also feeling the impacts of Bethel’s legal alcohol sales.

“It’s been a very rough week since the liquor store opened,” said Brenda Carmichael, Napaskiak Mayor, who says she’s seeing an unusually high amount of inebriated people in the street this week.

Napaskiak is a dry village, like most of the villages immediately surrounding Bethel. But Carmichael says now that Bethel has a liquor store, so does Napasiak.

Carmichael’s main concern is that her city’s small police force won’t be able to handle the crime caused by increased intoxication.

“I’d be surprised if they lasted any longer,” the Mayor said.

Pete Suskuk, Kwethluk Tribal Police Chief, shares this concern.

“We usually have jail guards, and right now we don’t have any jail guards because of budget cuts,” Suskuk said. He says that the department was managing before alcohol sales started but now it’s having trouble.

“Now the officer is going to have sit here all night long until someone is able to come in and relieve him or her and will have to stay in the building. We can’t leave the building, even though we got another call,” Suskuk said.

This means that if they get a domestic violence call or hear of gunshots being fired their lack of staff will leave it unanswered.

All of these officials say they’ve failed to prevent the booze coming into their communities. As for how to fix the problem, none of them has been able to come up with a plan to keep their dry towns from getting soaked.

https://youtu.be/UtTTV4kaKSg

“And that’s my cousin up there!” shouts 6-year-old Chloe Lewis as she runs about the playground.

She’s playing freeze tag with her classmates but pauses to grab the microphone from my hand and shout about her favorite things.

“Give me it. Give me it! Look. I like to find eggs.”

She’s not talking about plastic Easter eggs hidden in a yard. Chloe is growing up in the village of Kwigillingok. It’s 80 miles from Bethel by air. There, “finding eggs” means looking in the tussocks of the tundra for hidden nests filled with gull, goose, and swan eggs. Her elders did it, so she does, too.

According to Lillian Kiunya, that’s how many things should work in Kwigillingok – following the ways of the elders. Kiunya is a founding member of the village’s Child Protection Team.

“Yup’ik culture, all our counsels from our elders, are prevention,” says Kiunya, a founding member of the village’s Child Protection Team. “They’re always prevention.”

The volunteer group was founded about 20 years ago. Tribal members were sick of children being abused and neglected then taken from the village, so they decided to intervene – before the abuse starts.

Kiunya says the team works “because this team is from the community.” Like most of the village, the team members’ first language is Yup’ik. They grew up there or nearby.

Kiunya works at the school where she sees the kids every day and is on the lookout for signs of neglect. If something seems amiss, she talks to the rest of the team then they speak with the parents.

“We have different needs,” she explains. “Sometimes we just need someone to talk to and just having a caring person there to listen to you. It will give a person a sense of support.”

Sometimes all the child protection team does is teach the parents about what neglect means and what happens if the Office of Children’s Services gets involved.

In other cases, like for Emma Oscar, it took more than just stern counsel.

Oscar grew up in Kwigillingok then moved away to Bethel and Anchorage. She started drinking when she was 16 years old. OCS took her oldest daughter when the girl was only one. For the next decade, Oscar gained and lost custody of her six kids multiple times.

“It was really hard for me to see my kids going through what they’ve been through.”

Oscar eventually returned home to try one more time to get her kids back. The protection team offered to help, but they didn’t want to just reunite the family. They wanted to get to the root of the problem – her drinking.

“I was really skeptic about it at first, thinking this isn’t going to work.”

After helping her find a job and housing, they sat down together for a Talking Circle. Team members shared challenges they overcame in order to help Oscar open up about her past, and eventually she did. Now, she’s been sober for three years and has custody of her children. Her youngest sits silently on her lap, clutching her mother’s shirt.

“It feels good. I feel complete now. At first, I felt empty inside,” she pauses, reflecting. “But now I feel full.”

“We can do anything we want to, accomplish anything we want,” says Andrew Beaver who was the village’s child welfare worker when the team was formed. Now he’s the tribal administrator.

Beaver says when they began, 10 to 15 kids were removed from the village of 400 each year. Now, with the help of the protection team, cases of neglect are down and very few kids become involved with OCS. The team is officially part of the tribal government, but they aren’t paid.

“They have internal commitment. They have a passion (for protecting) children within their community. Because these team members are the ones who were lectured by elders. They have that knowledge. They want to pass down this knowledge to this new generation.”

In instances where children do need to be removed from their homes, the Child Protection Team works with OCS and the tribal court to make sure they are placed with relatives in the village. And not just close relatives, like grandparents or aunts. Team member Lillian Kiuyna says they rely on the extended network of family members recognized by Yup’ik traditions.

“I think we’re able to help look after even my cousin’s children,” she says with a smile.

Kiuyna says the team isn’t that busy these days, in part because it’s working. They still organize conferences and bring in speakers to teach the community about problems like domestic violence and suicide. But they have fewer cases than before.

Kiuyna says her elders predicted this.

“You guys will be our leaders someday. You guys will be our counselors someday,’ she says her elders told her over and over. “Then, when I was small, it seemed impossible.”

But the success of the Child Protection Team shows they were right.

This is the fifth in a five-part series “Fostering our Future.” Check out the other pieces here:
Part One – Number of foster kids at record high, case workers overloaded
Part Two – Changing what it means to be a foster parent
Part Three – Reuniting families with community support
Part Four – Preventing child abuse through social networks

The Alaska Republican Party wants to require drug testing for welfare recipients. That’s one of the new planks it added to the party platform at its convention in Fairbanks over the weekend.

The party wants drug screening for applicants, as well as random testing for recipients. The statement passed with overwhelming support.

Jeff Landfield, a state Senate candidate from south Anchorage, was a lonely voice against the drug screening plank, and even he says he understands the appeal.

“Because nobody wants somebody who’s a drug addict getting welfare,” Landfield said. “But the reality is I don’t think it’s very many people who are doing it. But the real problem is it costs so much money.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 15 states have passed laws on drug testing for people seeking public assistance. It’s not clear the laws save money, in part because testing catches few drug users, according to a 2011 federal report. Laws in Michigan and Florida that required universal testing of applicants were struck down in court.

Underage children caught drinking alcohol won’t rack up a permanent charge on their record under a bill that passed the legislature last week.

Imagine a high school party. All the children are underage — some are drinking. When police bust the party, they issue citations- even to children who haven’t had a drop of alcohol.

In Alaska, 75 percent of alcohol related charges are for minors consuming alcohol. That makes it the No. 1 alcohol charge statewide — affecting about 3,000 young people each year.

Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, sponsored Senate Bill 165. He says the punishment can stay with children forever.

“What we were doing before is a misdemeanor criminal offense that went on court view and compromised not only their success throughout the rest of high school, but when it became time for scholarships or applying for a job even after coming back from the university. They essentially had a life-long record.”

According to The Justice Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage,  the majority of those charged are convicted.

Under the new bill, instead of a misdemeanor charge, those under the age of 21 caught drinking will face a $500 fine that could be reduced if they complete an alcohol safety action course.

Zara Smelcer runs the Anchorage Juvenile Alcohol Safety Program and works closely with children charged with MCA’s.

She thinks the change is important, but wishes the legislation had gone a step further

“I feel like the educational component being mandatory is actually more important than any fine being paid directly to the court. Because they’re getting the education and treatment to help them make the decision not to do it again until they’re of legal age.”

Before this bill can become law, it must be signed by Gov. Bill Walker

Slade Martin was in foster care for 14 years. He says it wasn’t easy because people make a lot of negative assumptions about foster kids.

“They’re gonna steal, they’re gonna be a bad influence on the younger kids, they’re gonna get pregnant or get someone pregnant. They’re gonna be on drugs. They’re not gonna go to school,” he says.

Sometimes he and other kids misbehaved because they felt like they didn’t belong with their foster families or anywhere else, he explained. They couldn’t express themselves through their own clothes, music, or culture.

But now, foster parents are trying to change that, so the kids are more successful.

Laura Ingham gives the homework instructions as she heads to the basement to show off many years’ worth of family portraits.

“This is my oldest son, D’Angelo,” she says, pointing to a photo of a young man. “And these, these are my boys.”

Right now she has six kids, though two have moved into their own apartments.

“The best times is when they’re all here cause this house is popping, and I just sit and watch the ‘lalalala’ and the oldest two are so animated,” she says.

Ingham knows what it’s like to be in foster homes. She and her older brother spent most of their childhood in them.

“I got put with a lot of white families that didn’t know how to take care of black kids,” she reflects. “And so that made it difficult.”

She says they bounced from placement to placement because 20 years ago, what was then known as the Division of Family and Youth Services, didn’t value permanency. She shut down and learned not to attach and not to love.

“I was in foster care. … You didn’t really feel much,” she says.

Twelve years ago, she took in her younger siblings and everything had to change. She had to learn to open up. When her sister left the house, Ingham started taking in teenagers and has up to five kids living with her at a time.

Ingham says she and other foster parents are approaching foster care differently than when she was in the system.

“They weren’t really trying to incorporate you into what they really had going on,” she says. “It was actually a temporary thing. And now they’re advocating more for permanency in actual homes. That wasn’t happening back then.”

Ingham cares for teenagers who most likely cannot be reunited with their biological families, which is different from younger kids who will likely go back. According to Office of Children’s Services data, the median length of time spent in foster care in Alaska in 2015 was only one and half years.

But some ideas for making kids feel less stigmatized apply in all situations. Now foster families are trained to learn about the kids’ cultural backgrounds and cook foods from their homes. They learn about the impacts of trauma, how it can affect a child’s behavior, and how to react to it.

Aileen Mcinnis, the director of Alaska Center for Resource Families, which trains foster parents, says foster families may only be together for a short time, but the parents’ attitude can make any interactions impactful.

She says parents need to show the children in foster care “that there’s hope in this world, there’s people that love, there’s people that care for each other, and that being in a family doesn’t have to hurt.”

Ingham says she builds her family by getting the kids to try new things together at least once. She remembers dragging her youngest son, Evan, to climb Flattop Mountain in Anchorage.

“But he was like, ‘Oh I don’t want to go. I just wanna play basketball.’ It was the summer. But he was the first one up Flattop. He was up there waiting for us and ready to take pictures and selfies and all this crazy stuff.”

She glances back at the row of portraits and points to a picture of Evan from when he first arrived at her house and then a new picture from three years later.

“You can just look at his face,” she says. “How his face is changing from when I first got him. There’s a smile when there was nothing when I first got him.”

Ingham says making kids feel like they are part of a family doesn’t always work. Some kids have left her home because they were violent. She’s had fights and holes punched in her walls. She says it’s not easy, and foster parents need patience.

But her trick for helping kids heal from trauma and abuse?

Love.