Health

There was a steady hum of chatter at the Haines/Klukwan Senior Center during a recent Wednesday lunch. On the menu: lasagna, apricot salad, bread and steamed veggies – all for just $5, for those who could afford to pay.

Lunch may be what brings seniors to the building three days a week around noon. But it’s far from the only draw. Haines resident David Kohlstaedt, who was sitting at a long table chatting with friends, said the space is a crucial social outlet.

“Three meals a week, I don’t have to cook,” he said. “I come almost an hour early every day, and we come around and shoot the breeze.”

Christal Verhamme, who manages the center for the Juneau nonprofit Catholic Community Service, says Kohlstaedt isn’t alone.

“A lot of them say this is the only thing that they do, their only outlet. Their only way to get rides,” she said. “And for some, it’s their only way to get a cooked meal.”

The Trump administration’s ongoing effort to downsize the U.S. government is fueling concerns over the future of this center – as well as other programs that serve people across Alaska.

At issue is the Administration for Community Living, a federal office that funds programs for older people and people with disabilities – including Catholic Community Service – from within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Or at least it used to. The Trump administration said late last month it’s dismantling the office and integrating its “critical programs” into other agencies. The announcement also said thousands of department employees would be cut, including many Administration for Community Living staff members.

The move is among several Trump policies fueling uncertainty for nonprofits and the people who rely on the services they provide, said Erin Walker-Tolles, executive director of Catholic Community Service, which operates 10 senior centers in Southeast Alaska.

“We’re just concerned that about additional cuts and lack of resources from the administration, because community need is only growing as the senior population continues to grow in Southeast,” she said.

So, what is the Administration for Community Living?

The Administration for Community Living was created back in 2012 to streamline federal efforts to support seniors and people with disabilities.

The office doles out grants to programs that run senior centers, provide rides and distribute millions of meals — including through Meals on Wheels. Catholic Community Service, for instance, received roughly $3 million from the office last year, much of which comes through tribal partners. That’s nearly 40% of the organization’s budget.

Walker-Tolles said that it remains unclear what the reshuffling will actually mean for programs, but that she assumes funding will be administered some other way. She added that she understands the importance of reducing costs and streamlining resources – but that the lack of clarity around these moves has consequences.

“As these changes come through, there is no plan that we are aware of to ensure that things are simpler. Instead, it is more work,” Walker-Tolles said. “It is chaos.”

That’s especially concerning in Southeast, where the population is older than most of the state. Haines specifically has long held the title of being Alaska’s oldest borough. The median age here is just under 50 years old, compared to about 37 statewide.

‘It’s very scary’ 

The Trump administration’s firings and program cuts at the Administration for Community Living – and to the broader department – won’t just affect seniors.

Southeast Alaska Independent Living, for instance, provides a bevy of services, including in Haines. Among them: loaning out walkers, crutches and wheelchairs, and supporting students with disabilities as they transition into adulthood. A report from last year says 20% of the organization is federally funded – at least some of which comes from the Administration for Community Living.

There’s also REACH Inc., a Juneau-based non-profit that supports people with disabilities. The group doesn’t get funding from the Administration for Community Living, said Naomi Studevan, the organization’s executive director. But it does get funding from another federal agency that focuses on medicaid and medicare, which reportedly lost 300 employeesto layoffs in recent weeks.

“There’s already a waitlist that is there when it comes to people accessing services in the first place. So to think that there’s going to be fewer people there to review applications, fewer people there to have oversight,” Studevan said. “It’s very scary.”

Back at lunch in the senior center, all seems normal. People eat, visit, participate in a book club and play disc golf on a Wii gaming system. But all it takes is one question about the administration’s recent moves to reveal lingering anxiety about the future of the senior center.

“We’re worried about it,” said Haines resident Todd Wagner, who comes to the center most days that lunch is served. “We don’t want it to get messed up where they don’t have it anymore. That could happen, we know that.”

Then there’s Donald Poling, who is 82 and has lived in Haines with his wife Dottie since the 1990’s. He said they heavily rely on the facility’s services, including for rides to the ferry and airport when they leave town to seek medical care.

Asked what he makes of the recent announcement, Poling took a swipe at Elon Musk, who has been spearheading White House efforts to downsize the government.

“It looks like President Musk is kinda taking the government apart,” Polling said. “And that means public services, services to poor people, services to seniors, even Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

The emails started arriving late on a Monday night.

“The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposes to reassign you as part of a broader effort to strengthen the department and more effectively promote the health of American people,” the email read. “One critical area of need is in the American Indian and Alaskan Native communities.”

Amid the Trump administration’s massive layoffs at HHS, these reassignment emails accelerated an apparent purge of leadership at federal health agencies. Top officials in different parts of HHS were put on administrative leave with the option of relocating to a new job in Alaska, Montana, New Mexico or other postings within the Indian Health Service (IHS).

“I did not see this coming at all,” a senior executive at the Department of Health and Human Services told NPR. The executive asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the administration.

William “Chief Bill” Smith chairs an organization that advocates for the IHS on behalf of tribes, the National Indian Health Board. “Any major leadership changes within IHS should be made in full consultation with Tribal Nations, as required by law,” Smith wrote in a statement to NPR. “Tribal Consultation is not just a procedural step—it is a fundamental responsibility of the federal government.”

“Utmost disrespect”

The number of health leaders who got the emails and the reasons for who was picked remain unclear. The email doesn’t specify what will happen to those placed on administrative leave if they don’t accept the offer.

HHS did not respond to NPR’s questions about the scope of the reassignment offers. NPR has confirmed nine leaders got the reassignment email; there may be more.

“The move displays the utmost disrespect for public service. It is clearly designed to force talented scientists and health experts to leave government,” says Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropy focused on health. “It is also an insult to those health care professionals in the Indian Health Service who dedicate their lives to providing health care services on tribal lands.”

It is unclear if anyone took the offer or plans to take it.

“I’m a career public servant. I’ve worked for Republicans and Democrats,” the HHS executive told NPR. “Public service is noble work and the ability to serve our country and impact entire populations just by coming to work is a gift. So there’s a sadness that comes with this.”

Connections to Fauci

At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), some sources who spoke to NPR suspect the targets were picked as retribution dating back to the pandemic.

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who took over as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases after Dr. Anthony Fauci departed, got the offer, according to an email obtained by NPR.

So did Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, the top bioethicist at NIH, along with two others close to Fauci, according to a source who was not authorized to speak about the situation.

Fauci, who left the NIH in 2022, became a hero to many during the pandemic, but has also been vilified by critics of the government’s response. Dr. Francis Collins, who also worked closely with Fauci as NIH director, was recently forced out of the agency.

The offer appears to be “an opportunity to try and say they’re not being let go, they’re being offered a new opportunity,” said Susan Polan, associate executive director of the American Public Health Association. But that “does not seem to be the ultimate goal. The goal really does seem to be to undermine the leadership in these agencies.”

IHS used as “a pawn”

Polan spoke during a briefing last week by public health advocates and officials decrying cuts of about 10,000 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH and other agencies.

“IHS needs are not being met and it is being used as a pawn in the game of forcing HHS staff to resign instead of being fired,” Polan added later in an email to NPR.

“It’s a way to try to get people to quit,” added Dr. Phillip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, at the briefing.

The Indian Health Service provides crucial services and deserves to be adequately staffed with the most qualified workers, Huang and others at the briefing said.

The officials, who got the offer on Monday, March 31 or Tuesday, April 1 had until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2, to respond to the offer, according to the email obtained by NPR.

The email reads: “This underserved community deserves the highest quality of services, and HHS needs individuals like you to deliver that service.” It is from Thomas J. Nagy Jr., deputy assistant secretary for human resources at HHS.

Reassignment locations

Nagy’s email gives the officials the options of working in a variety of places that are a mix of states, cities and reservations. They appear to correspond to IHS areas, an official designation, with some exceptions. This is the list from the email:

• Alaska
• Albuquerque [New Mexico]
• Bemidji [Minnesota]
• Billings [Montana]
• Great Plains [South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa]
• Navajo [Arizona, New Mexico, Utah]
• Oklahoma

“We would like to understand your preference across these potential reassignment opportunities,” the email says.

“Specifically, we would like to know which regions you would accept a voluntary reassignment and the order of your preference, if any, across the regions,” it states.

Health leaders offered transfer

According to sources who shared information with NPR on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, officials in addition to Marrazzo and Grady who received the IHS reassignment offer include:

– Dr. H. Clifford Lane, deputy director for clinical research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who had long worked with Fauci.

– Dr. Emily Erbelding, director of the division of microbiology and infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

– Renate Myles, director of communications for NIH;

– Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities;

– Dr. Shannon Zenk, director of the National Institute of Nursing Research;

– Dr. Diana Bianchi, the director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

– Brian King, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products.

IHS is a priority for RFK Jr.

The Indian Health Service was an early target of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, when 950 employees were fired in February. But HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. quickly intervened and said all of those staff should be rehired. “The Indian Health Service has always been treated as the redheaded stepchild at HHS,” Kennedy said at the time in a written statement to ICT, a nonprofit news organization that covers Indigenous people.

Kennedy announced he would be visiting the Navajo Nation in a western trip Monday through Wednesday. Kennedy dubbed it a “MAHA tour” — referring to his Make America Healthy Again slogan. He will also go to Arizona and Utah and meet with tribal leaders, though HHS did not share a precise itinerary in a press release on the trip.

Indian Health Service and all HHS divisions have been ordered to cut contract spending by 35%, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon confirmed to NPR.

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says broader cuts to federal health programs affect tribal communities, too. “When they cut grants or close down CDC programs they also directly and indirectly cut IHS programs,” he says.

Benjamin says he doesn’t think the intent of the NIH reassignment offers was to “hurt or demean” IHS, but to “take a person trained in clinical skills that has not been practicing clinically is usually not helpful if the job is a clinical one or even a clinical manager job.” He added: “The most cynical view is this is a way to get senior people to quit.”

Smith, who is from Valdez in Alaska and who chairs the National Indian Health Board, says tribal leaders need the chance to weigh in on any changes.

“We urge the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to uphold this obligation and engage in meaningful Tribal Consultation before moving forward with any reassignments,” Smith wrote in the statement.

Other top federal health officials who have been recently forced out include Dr. Peter Marks, who was the top vaccine regulator at the FDA.

The Trump administration froze $1 million in funding for Planned Parenthood in Alaska at the end of March, according to Rebecca Gibron, CEO of Alaska’s regional Planned Parenthood alliance. She said programs in twelve states are impacted by the freeze.

The funds are through the federal Title X program, which covers family planning and preventive reproductive health care for low-income families. The funding can’t be used for abortions.

Gibron said if the funds aren’t restored, healthcare for Alaskans will suffer.

“We’re talking about cancers going undiagnosed,” she said. “We are talking about people not having access to annual wellness exams. Sexually transmitted infection rates will spike, so this is a program that absolutely must be protected at all costs.”

According to reporting from Politico, the administration froze funds for possible civil rights violations related to diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI initiatives. And, because the clinics serve people regardless of immigration status, the letter freezing funds pointed to an executive order prohibiting using taxpayer funds for undocumented immigrants.

Gibron said Planned Parenthood will operate as normal in the state for now, while they evaluate next steps in the courts. A representative for the organization wrote over email that they are “looking at everything possible to ensure Alaskans do not lose access to the essential health care they need and deserve.” The two centers see about 5600 patients in person in the state per year and Gibron said about half their patients use Title X funds.

There’s only one other provider in the state that uses title X funds, Kachemak Bay Family Planning Clinic in Kenai.

Gibron said Planned Parenthood is examining legal options and will push back.

“There are not other providers who will be able to absorb the number of patients with low income who are in need of sexual reproductive health care,” she said. “So we are going to fight this every step of the way until these funds get released.”

Gibron said Planned Parenthood was notified March 31, two days before they were supposed to receive the funds, that the money wouldn’t be available.

The Alaska Department of Health abruptly laid off 30 public health employees last week after the federal government canceled a series of grants unexpectedly early.

“Their last day of employment is today, and they found out — I believe — earlier this week. So it is very abrupt,” said Heidi Drygas, director of the Alaska State Employees Association, the union that represents 22 of the 30 laid-off employees.

The layoffs are believed to be the first round of significant Alaska state-government job losses caused by President Donald Trump and the arm of the White House named the “Department of Government Efficiency,” coordinated by Elon Musk.

Trump-ordered cuts have already had significant effects on federal government programs and nongovernmental organizations that rely on federal grants, but until now, state-government jobs had been relatively protected.

“I fear that there are more (layoffs) coming,” Drygas said. “I’m worried that this is the tip of the iceberg, and this rapidly evolving news story … is causing a lot of anxiety for our members, many of whom work under federal grants, or they work on a daily basis with their federal counterparts. It’s hugely disruptive.”

Alex Huseman, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Health, said the federal government brought an early end to two major COVID-19 response grants.

Those grants had been expected to expire no later than 2027. The state’s current operating budget and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposal for the coming year list millions of dollars in expected grant spending.

“The amended notice of awards for the impacted grants now reflect an end date of March 24, 2025,” Huseman wrote by email. “The reductions in federal funding had an impact on 30 employees. The DOH is working with the Division of Personnel and the Rapid Response Team from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, in accordance with the respective union contracts and regulations, to assist affected employees.”

Drygas said the affected positions are spread across the state, and that as with any job losses, these cuts will have ripple effects in the local communities, since state salaries lead to local spending.

“In some of these smaller communities, there’s not that many jobs, and so it could have a huge impact, or a disproportionate impact,” she said.

Alaska Native youth are living through a pivotal time, bearing witness to the dramatic impacts of climate change that have occurred during their lifetimes: rapidly melting permafrost, warming oceans and declining salmon runs. Subsistence living, which is critical to Alaska Native culture and rural food security, has suffered in turn, whether it involves Iñupiaq whale hunts, Gwich’in caribou harvest or Tlingit salmon fishing. The threat to a shared way of life is uniting many Indigenous people across the state, calling them to protect Alaska Native homelands and cultural continuity.

In light of this, many Alaska Native youth are dedicating their careers to protecting the environment and bringing Indigenous knowledge into mainstream spaces, including environmental science, policy work, increased tribal co-management and conservation initiatives. High Country News talked to four young Alaska Native women from different parts of the state who are working in climate advocacy, from community organizing to fishery sciences.

JAZMYN LEE VENT

Siqiniq Jazmyn Lee Vent (Koyukon Athabascan and Iñupiaq) has attended Ambler Road meetings for half her life. Vent, who is 24, went to her first meeting at 12 years old. At that time, the Ambler Road project — which would build a 211-mile-long highway to a mining project through sensitive habitat — was in the beginning stages, and different road maps were still being considered.

“I remember that, in our hall, a bunch of our elders (were) sitting in the meeting, and even though they might have not known exactly what was going on in those early stages of the proposed development, they knew that it was really important to show up and speak out against it,” Vent said. “So I really try to carry that with me.”

Vent co-founded No Ambler Road in 2023 to amplify the voices that oppose the proposed road, which could harm caribou migration patterns and habitat along with salmon spawning streams. For Vent and many others working on No Ambler Road, the project is much too risky, given that caribou populations are declining in Alaska and across the Arctic, and people can’t fish in the Yukon River.

Projects like these are often at the whims of the current administration. Last year, the Biden administration rejected the Ambler Road project, citing the harmful impacts it could have on the environment. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers never fully revoked the project’s permit, and Alaska’s congressional delegation and Gov. Michael Dunleavy support building the road, while President Donald Trump has long been enthusiastic about resource extraction in Alaska.

Vent wants the federal government to uphold the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) and its obligation to sustain subsistence hunting and fishing. Most of all, though, Vent wants Alaska Native people to be centered in these decisions and for companies, politicians and governments to leave their homeland alone.

“People might think this is crazy,” Vent said, “but I really envision a future where Alaska Native people have title to our land and are able to engage in these decision-making processes that directly impact our livelihoods.”

SOPHIE SWOPE

Anaan’arar Sophie Swope (Yup’ik) founded the Mother Kuskokwim nonprofit three years ago at 24 in her hometown of Bethel, Alaska.

Previously, she was the self-governance director for Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council, which was in consultation with federal agencies about the Donlin Gold Mine project. If built, it would be one of the largest open-pit gold mines in the world — and it would be located dangerously close to salmon spawning tributaries in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta).

“I noticed the energy was low,” Swope said. “I kind of stood up and was like, ‘Hey guys, this stuff is really important, and we have to really fight to take care of all of our natural resources. Because it’s all that we have, and it creates who we are.’”

It was a key experience that inspired her to found Mother Kuskokwim. Swope now works full-time on fighting the Donlin Gold Mine, a project that is supported by her own Native corporation, Calista Corporation, despite its potential impact on salmon populations.

She helped organize a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, arguing that its environmental impact statement was insufficient — a lawsuit the group recently won.

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If chemicals from the mine get into rivers and food, it would be devastating for people in the Y-K Delta, who already suffer from extremely low salmon runs. And Swope doesn’t want future generations to have to worry about toxicity in their food or having a large tailings dam nearby.

“One day, I will have children, and hopefully I’ll have grandchildren, too,” Swope said. “I want them to have the same access to these resources that our DNA was literally created to thrive off of.”

Her elders taught her how to find her own voice. Now she wants younger generations to realize that they can and should use their voices when their way of life is threatened — and that they, too, have an obligation to take care of this place for future generations.

“Our time here on this Earth is very short,” Swope said. “We were gifted all of the things that we have by our ancestors, and we’re only borrowing this space on earth from the future generations.”

MALIA TOWNE

Malia Towne, who is Haida and Tlingit, grew up subsistence fishing every summer on her family’s traditional lands near Ketchikan, Alaska. As the years went by, they watched as the salmon population that their community had relied on for centuries began to fluctuate and decline. “It made me realize that something needed to be done,” said Towne.

Towne’s Tlingit values drove her to work in fishing sustainability.

“Everything is circular within traditional values,” she said. “What I do today affects tomorrow. It’s the whole reason I got into this work, because I want to be able to continue practicing what my ancestors practiced and want future generations to be able to do the same.”

Now a senior at Northern Arizona University, Towne, who is 20, studies environmental science, hoping to help ensure healthy fishing populations within Alaska. Last summer, she worked at the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable fishing practices and flourishing coastal communities. Her goal is to protect subsistence salmon harvesting and create more access for subsistence fishers, many of whom are Alaska Native.

“My mom says it’s genetic,” joked Towne. Her grandfather worked in fishing sustainability, and her sister does as well. “It’s in our blood.”

Towne aims to create policies that prevent environmental damage from happening in the first place, as opposed to laws that merely slap Band-Aids on serious injuries that have already occurred. These policies would incorporate an Indigenous approach to conservation, protecting the environment while still allowing for sustainable harvesting and resource use.

Towne cited the recent movement to list the king salmon as endangered. “It’s something that needs to be protected, but you shouldn’t cut off all access, because that hurts more people,” she said. “It’s incredibly detrimental to subsistence fishers.”

After graduating, Towne plans to return to Alaska and continue working on fishing sustainability, ideally in tribal co-management. She hopes that the policies she works on today will help salmon populations thrive for generations to come.

“What we do now is important, whether or not it’s recognized or appreciated today,” she said. “It will be appreciated eventually. Eventually, we’ll be thankful for it.”

MACKENZIE ENGLISHOE

Mackenzie Englishoe’s great-grandparents taught her to live off the land, using Gwichya Gwich’in knowledge that had been passed down for centuries. Englishoe’s great-grandparents, who experienced the dramatic changes caused by colonization, dedicated their lives to ensuring that her generation would be able to continue living the Gwich’in way of life.

“Our relationship to the land, it’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual,” said Englishoe, who was raised between the remote Chandalar Lake in the Brooks Range, and Gwichyaa Zhee (Fort Yukon), a village of roughly 500 people on the Yukon River. “When I think about the future, I cannot — I will not — live in a future that does not have that, or where I’m not able to provide that for my family.”

Englishoe, 21, is living during another time of change. Using the traditional knowledge her great-grandparents taught her, she works on climate crisis issues that impact villages in Interior Alaska: fostering healthy caribou and moose populations, protecting Indigenous land rights and water and improving wildfire management. She’s been particularly involved in efforts to combat king salmon’s decline in the Yukon River, advocating for closing salmon fishing in Area M near the Aleutian Islands and ending bottom trawling.

“Seeing the king salmon decline over time has really broken me,” she said. “And then seeing people who do not have this connection to the salmon, people who are not from these lands, making decisions about it, and a lack of action from them. … It’s just broken me.”

Last March, Englishoe was elected the emerging leaders chair for the Tanana Chiefs Conference, representing 42 Alaska Native communities in the Interior Region through her role as youth advisor. She wants young Alaska Natives to know that they’re capable of making change and that they deserve to have a seat at the table.

“Indigenous people, we do this work out of a place of love. For our community, for future generations, but also for people who are not Native,” she said. Everything is connected, she explained, from the salmon to the bears to entire food systems beyond Alaska. “So we’re trying to protect everybody, out of love.”

How Alaska Native youth are protecting the land for their future ancestors was originally published on April 1, 2025, at High Country News. 

Tali Stone was nine years old when her foster mother brought her to North Star, an acute psychiatric facility in Anchorage. Stone said she had been refusing to go to bed and got in a fight with her foster mom. She said her foster mom had talked about North Star before, as leverage sometimes if one of her nine foster kids wasn’t behaving.

“She always described it to me as a prison,” Stone said. “She said that they’ll lock you up. She said that it was moldy inside the building, like an actual prison.”

But this time it wasn’t an empty threat. Typically, to be admitted to a psychiatric facility someone needs to be at risk of suicide or violence, experiencing psychosis, or unable to care for themselves. Stone said during the intake, her foster mom exaggerated her behavior and lied that she was seeing ghosts.

“Even the staff said, themselves, ‘I’m not sure why you’re here,’” Stone said. “And I was like, ‘I’m not sure either.’”

Stone was at North Star for four weeks, according to her psychiatric records. And over the next two years, she was admitted to North Star a total of four times, each stay several weeks at a time.

Stone was one of the thousands of kids under the care of the Office of Children’s Services in Alaska, or OCS, who have spent time, sometimes unnecessarily, in acute psychiatric facilities. OCS is under-resourced, with a high staff turnover rate, and a serious shortage of foster families. The Department of Justice reprimanded the state in 2022 for overreliance on psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment, and the office has made improvements since then.

OCS officials did not agree to an interview for this story, but commissioner Kim Kovol from the department that oversees OCS, wrote over email that there is a lack of appropriate placements nationwide for youth with serious behavioral and emotional challenges. She wrote that they will continue to use “all existing services to the greatest extent possible,” and work towards the least restrictive care settings.

But Amanda Metivier, who runs the nonprofit Facing Foster Care, said that lack of placements means foster kids stay in psychiatric facilities for too long.

“They do an intake at a hospital, they get a diagnosis, and then they linger there,” Metivier said. “[It] used to be for months on end, but because of court cases, it’s now weeks.”

Right now kids have the right to a court hearing within 30 days of admittance, but the bill passed by the state House March 26 would reduce that timeline to seven days. That’s still much longer than many states, which require a hearing within 72 hours.

Timeliness is important because kids say these facilities are traumatic.

“What happens in these facilities?” Metivier said. “Children are physically restrained, chemically restrained, put in quiet rooms or in seclusion.”

She said even if kids in facilities don’t experience those directly, just witnessing them can be traumatic.

If the bill passes, when a child does get a court hearing, all people invested in the child’s care would have to be there: birth parents, foster families, tribes, behavioral health care providers and OCS. Every kid over ten would also have their own lawyer who could advocate for them being in the least restrictive setting appropriate.

State Representative Andrew Gray, who sponsored the bill, said there’s a lot at stake.

“The absolute human rights violation of having your freedoms completely taken away and no one coming to help you, that alone is enough that we have to fix it,” Gray said. “But, if you want to just look at it from a fiscal perspective, we’re wasting tons of money on keeping a child in the most expensive possible placement.”

He said inpatient care can cost more than a thousand dollars a night per child, a cost that is usually shared by the state and federal government.

The legislation didn’t pass last session when it included a shorter 72-hour time period before a required hearing, but Gray is optimistic it will pass this year. He said it’s important kids don’t get stuck in these places.

Metivier worked with kids in foster care to help draft the bill, and said it would add a sense of urgency to the process of assessing the care.

“We need to act quickly on either identifying a higher level of care or different therapeutic intervention, or releasing them,” she said.

Tali Stone, who entered North Star at age nine, didn’t get that kind of grace. She said she never got a hearing at all to assess whether she should be there. And she said her experience at North Star, totaling about four months, changed her from an outgoing kid to one who was reserved and numb.

“I didn’t have anyone else to tell me that you’re just a kid,” she said. “You’re just dealing with stuff that’s natural, if you’re going through this situation, telling me that I’m not a bad kid, that I’m loved, stuff like that.”

Stone said now, at age 19, about nine years after her last stay, she still feels the effects. She struggles with self esteem and self hatred.

But she recently got a job she loves, she said, with a coworker she admires.

“Every day, he’s just being himself, and I look up to him,” Stone said. “I want to know how that feels one day.”

She said she really hopes this bill passes. It now heads to the state Senate. She wants foster kids in institutions to know they’re not forgotten, and there are people out here looking out for them.