Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska receives $250K State Court Improvement Program from the Administration for Children and Families

Tlingit & haida tribal court modernization and implementation project. Our project will build the legal procedures, case management system and court-tfys coordination framework. - tlingit & haida reported 38,769 actively enrolled citizens as of february 17, 2026, including 6,966 citizens under age 18, dispersed across southeast Alaska, anchorage, the puget sound/Washington region, portland, and northern California. The tribal court is an established judiciary, a magistrate/judge, a three-justice supreme court, and a professional clerk's office, but was built to administer intervention in state child welfare proceedings under the indian child welfare act, not to exercise affirmative, tribe-initiated child protection jurisdiction. Pending amendments to title 04 of the tribal code, currently in redline form and awaiting submission to the judiciary committee, will establish exactly that authority, enabling the tribe to receive reports, screen and investigate, petition, take custody, and adjudicate permanency in its own court. This need is independently documented, not newly asserted. The tribe's 2019 child welfare/court strategic action plan identified needs in coordination between the court and tfys, staffing, and code revision that were substantially disrupted by the covid-19 pandemic and remain largely unaddressed. A statutorily mandated, independent tribal court assessment completed january 19, 2023 separately and independently reconfirmed several of the same gaps: the court lacks a case management system, lacks a records retention and disposition schedule, and has expanded staff without a corresponding expansion of judicial officers. The court's foundational internal procedural guide for child in need of care (cinc) cases, last issued in june 2016, has never been updated to reflect legislative change, emerging best practice, or a trauma-informed, access-to-justice-centered approach. This project will, in year 1 of a five-year project period: (1) determine what the amended title 04 code requires operationally; (2) modernize the cinc legal procedure handbook, including a records retention schedule and provisions for guardian ad litem appointment, parental legal representation, and trauma-informed practice; (3) establish a formal, mou-governed coordination framework between the court and tribal family & youth services; (4) redesign the court's private guardianship and adoption packets for self-represented citizens, who bring approximately 99% of current cases without counsel; (5) determine the court's staffing needs for its expanded caseload; and (6) specify a case management system to replace current manual processes. This project also resolves a long-outstanding policy decision, whether and how to provide guardian ad litem services and parental legal representation in tribe-initiated proceedings, first identified as a need in 2019 and unresolved since. A 0.8 fte project coordinator and a competitively procured external evaluator will carry out this work under the court administrator (project director), overseen by a newly convened advisory committee. The project leaves the tribe with durable products, an adopted handbook, an executed coordination agreement, redesigned public-facing forms, a staffing recommendation, and a case management system specification, and a children's bureau-approved implementation plan carrying this work through the remaining four years of the project period.