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Past Projects

 

Since 1996, the Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) has participated in the creation of innovative programs and resources.  Below is just a small sampling of TLPI's work. If you are interested in working with TLPI to replicate or extend similar work, please visit our Current ProjectsFee for Service, and Request Technical Assistance pages for more information. 

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Capacity Building
Center for Tribes

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TLPI was a major partner in the Capacity Building Center for Tribes. The Center for Tribes was a cooperative agreement between the Federal Children's Bureau and the Butler Institute for Families, at the University of Denver. The Center for Tribes was comprised of four organizations (DU, TLPI, University of Southern Maine, Westat), each with experience working with tribal and state partners designing, delivering and evaluating technical assistance and capacity building services in Indian country.

This project provided capacity building assistance with American Indian and Alaska Native Nations to help strengthen the child and family systems of Native nations in order to nurture the safety, permanency, and well-being of Native children, youth, and families.

TLPI implemented Tailored Services that provided individual technical assistance and support with Tribal child welfare programs to enhance their capacity through organizational change and system improvement. Training, coaching, consultation, and other services helped agencies to assess their needs, develop or enhance their capacities to improve performance and services, and achieve positive outcomes for children and families.

For information about the current TTA provider, please contact the Children’s Bureau at Nanette.Bishop@acf.hhs.gov, or at info@tribalinformationexchange.org.

Resources will remain available at the Center for Tribe's Tribal Child Welfare Information Exchange.

Sponsored by the Children’s Bureau, the Center for Native Child and Family Resilience (the Center) is a partnership between JBS International, Inc., the Tribal Law and Policy Institute, and Mathematica Policy Research.  The Center gathers and disseminates information about Tribally relevant practice models, interventions, and services that contribute substantively to child maltreatment prevention efforts and family resilience developed by and for American Indian and Native Alaskan populations. We also provide technical assistance and capacity building services and support to organizations working in Indian Country to develop, adapt, or expand these programs.

Many prevention and intervention models in Indian Country build resilience by using Tribal cultural values, the transmission of family traditions, and the experiences of Tribal youth. Guided by these values, traditions, and experiences, Tribal community initiatives have shown great promise in developing resilience-based models for child abuse prevention.  The experiences of Tribal communities suggest that these approaches are often effective in enhancing family resilience and reducing the risks of harm to children and adults—yet rarely have these strategies used collaborative community-based evaluation to demonstrate their effectiveness.  

 

As part of a Children’s Bureau project to raise awareness of Tribally engaged prevention and intervention efforts, the Center supports and enhances resilience-related approaches to Tribal child welfare by supporting Tribes in developing and building evidence-based standards of care. The Center embraces the unique opportunity to honor these valiant community efforts that improve Native family resilience and to help empower Tribal communities of care by using culturally engaged, community-based evaluation models to demonstrate the effectiveness of these efforts and disseminate Native solutions to the field.

Tribal Coalitions Sexual Assault/Sex Trafficking Technical Assistance Project

Task Force on American Indian/Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence

TLPI completed a Tribal Coalitions Sexual Assault/Sex Trafficking Technical Assistance Project with the overall goal of increasing the knowledge and capacity of tribal coalitions to address sexual assault and sex trafficking in tribal communities.

 

The project – funded by the Office on Violence Against Women – included the TribalCoalitions.org website which was created to provide tribal coalitions with quick access to information and resources their advocates need to address sex trafficking and related issues – including a comprehensive Victim Services Directory.

TLPI provided technical assistance to the Attorney General's Task Force on American Indian/Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence:

 

National Child Welfare Resource Center for Tribes

Indian Nations Conference

TLPI operated the National Child Welfare Resource Center for Tribes under Children’s Bureau grants from 2009-2014. TLPI provided T/TA for tribal Title IV-B grantees and prospective grantees designed to improve child welfare systems and to support states and tribes in achieving sustainable, systemic change that results in greater safety, permanency and well-being for children, youth and families. The following are a few NRC4Tribes accomplishments:
 

 

NAICJA Administrator

Starting in 2002, TLPI has coordinated and hosted a series of seven National Indian Nations Conferences which bring together victim advocates, victims, tribal leaders, service providers, and federal/state agency representatives to share knowledge, experiences and ideas for developing programs that serve the unique needs of Indian country crime victims. Information and resources from prior conferences can be accessed at ovcinc.org.  

Co-Occurence of Child Maltreatment and Domestic Violence 

​​TLPI served as Administrator for the National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA) from May 1998 – December 2000. TLPI provided the lead role in all NAICJA activities including;

 

  • Development of the Initial NAICJA Website

  • Design and delivery of NAICJA’s annual conferences

  • Design and delivery of the NAICJA Violence Against Women (VAWA) grants.

  • Design, development, and establishment of the National Tribal Justice Resource Center under Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) grants.


Following the establishment of the National Tribal Justice Resource Center, TLPI also designed and developed the Initial National Tribal Justice Resource Center Website, including the initial searchable database of tribal court opinions and tribal codes.

Under a grant from the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), TLPI conducted a research project that served as an initial inquiry into the issue of the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment in Indian country. Using a mixed method approach, this investigation sought to identify those practices that seem to be moving toward Native-specific promising practices, and to develop recommendations for further action in Indian country. This project culminated in 2011 with a final draft report, OVW approval is still pending, entitled Responses to the Co-Occurrence of Child Maltreatment and Domestic Violence in Indian Country: Repairing the Harm and Protecting Children and Mothers.

Office on Violence
Against Women 
Technical Assistance 

Project Peacemaker: 
Tribal Legal Studies

TLPI provided a series of tribal domestic violence technical assistance programs for Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) grant recipients. Components included:

 

  • Tribal code development and implementation

  • Violence Against Indian Women course for tribal colleges

  • Coordination and communication among OVW tribal technical assistance providers

 

Activities included regional trainings, onsite technical assistance, development of resource materials and workbooks, and online reference materials. This project focused on the safety of Indian women and children, while helping strengthen the ability of tribal justice systems to hold offenders accountable for violent behavior.

TLPI worked with the UCLA American Indian Studies Center, Turtle Mountain Community College, and other tribal colleges to:

 

  • Develop, pilot, and implement Tribal Legal Studies curricula for tribal colleges

  • Formalized the design, development, and printing of Tribal Legal Studies textbooks

  • Formalize the design, development and printing of instructor guides for each of the nine Tribal Legal Studies courses

Tribal Youth Program 

Tribal Court CASA

TLPI provided the OJJDP Tribal Youth Program (TYP) training and technical assistance from 2010-2015 under subawards from the Education Development Center, including: 
 
  • TYP webinars

  • Onsite and conference presentations

  • Developed, pilot tested, and provided juvenile code development/enhancement T/TA utilizing TLPI’s Tribal Juvenile Justice Code Resource including tribal juvenile code virtual communities of practice (VCPO) and T/TA presentations

From 1996-2009, TLPI has been working with the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association to provide training and technical assistance for the development and enhancement of tribal court CASA programs which provide volunteer court appointed special advocates (CASAs) for abused or neglected Indian children.

 Children's Justice Act Training and Technical Assistance 

SANE/SART Training and Technical Assistance

From 2000-2009, TLPI provided training and technical assistance to tribes receiving Office for Victims of Crime Children’s Justice Act funding directed at improving system and community response that will result in reducing trauma to tribal children who are victims of child abuse, especially child sexual abuse victims.
​From 2011-2014, TLPI served as the training and technical assistance provider for the SANE-SART (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner/Sexual Assault Response Team) initiative of the Office for Victims of Crime. The primary goal of the project was to work closely with three tribal demonstration sites to support and enhance their capacity to provide effective and sustainable, high quality, victim-centered multidisciplinary services and support for adult and child victims of sexual assault through the development of a SANE-SART demonstration project.

 

Tribal Court Assistance Program: Outreach to California Tribes and South/East Tribes

Violence Against Indian Women Resource Development 

TLPI received limited subawards through the Northern Plains Tribal Judicial Institute from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to provide Tribal Court Assistance Program (TCAP) training and technical assistance for two specific geographic groups of tribes and tribal courts including both (1) training and technical assistance for TCAP grantees and (2) capacity building for non-TCAP grantees.
 

 

Tribal Sexual Assault Resource Development 

HUD Tribal Legal
Code Program

We have developed a comprehensive Tribal Legal Code Resource to assist Indian Nations in the development of the legal infrastructure needed for housing and community development. The Tribal Legal Code Program includes a revised Tribal Housing Code.

Hopi Appellate Program

The Hopi Appellate Program worked in conjunction with UCLA Native Nations Law & Policy Center and the Hopi Appellate Court to provide a clinical program which trains and supervises law students to serve as law clerks for the Appellate Court of the Hopi Tribe of Arizona.

TLPI provided an Establishing Tribal Domestic Violence Courts and/or Dockets. The project provided Native nations with information and resources  geared toward the development and implementation of a tribal domestic violence court or docket. Under the project, TLPI worked with tribes on domestic violence training for all systems and services interfacing with victims/survivors. TLPI also worked with tribes on collaborating and coordinating the systems in order to promote victim/survivor safety and batterer accountability.

~Tribal Domestic Violence Courts/Dockets Brochure

Strengthening Tribal Response to Violenc

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Strengthening Tribal Response to Violence Against Native Women - provided training, technical assistance and resources designed to help individual tribal governments and tribal communities enhance victim safety and more effectively address offender accountability.

Capacity building training and technical assistance support were available to any tribal government or tribal community not currently OVW grant funding. Initiative partners provide individualized training, technical assistance and resources to strengthen the response of tribal governments to effectively address sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.

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