First Things First, Arizona’s early childhood agency, has worked over time with the many Native American tribes in the state to develop a tribal consultation model that works for both sides. With the shared goal of supporting healthy development for young children and their families, they’ve found ways to balance the state government’s data and policy needs with protecting the privacy and power of sovereign tribal nations. Host Karen Ponder speaks with Councilwoman Carletta Tilousi, an elected member of the Havasupai tribal council, and Liz Barker Alvarez, chief policy advisor at First Things First.
More information about Arizona’s First Things First here.
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Karen Ponder: Hello, and welcome to Critical Connections, a podcast from The BUILD Initiative. I'm Karen Ponder. This series focuses on the importance of strong state and community connections for developing equitable early childhood systems. You'll hear about key ingredients needed to build and sustain this work, and you'll also hear some lessons learned from some of the early developers. Today, we're talking about Arizona's Early Childhood Statewide system and highlighting its state and local structure created in 2006.
Karen Ponder: Arizona First Things First includes a system of regional community partnerships covering the entire state. The initiative is governed by a state-level board, known as the Arizona Early Childhood Development and Health Board. The statewide board and regional partnership councils in local communities across Arizona share the responsibility of ensuring that early childhood funds are invested in strategies that will result and improve education and health outcomes for young children. Today, we're going to focus on First Things First partnership for young children with Native American tribes and nations across Arizona. Joining me today are two leaders who helped build Arizona State and community approach, and who are continuing to lead as the work of First Things First evolves and changes over time.
Karen Ponder: Councilwoman Carletta Tilousi is an elected member of the Havasupai Tribal Council. She's worked for more than 25 years promoting social and environmental justice for the Havasupai Indian Tribe and indigenous people of the Grand Canyon. She served also as a delicate to the United Nations and has defended the interests of indigenous people, both in Arizona and internationally. Councilwoman Tilousi represents the Havasupai Tribe on the First Things First Coconino Regional Partnership Council. Welcome, Councilwoman Tilousi. I'm honored that you could join us today.
Carletta Tilous...: Thank you for allowing me to join you today.
Karen Ponder: Liz Barker Alvarez is the Chief Policy Advisor at First Things First in Phoenix. For the past 13 years, she's worked on policymaker engagement in the important work of early childhood. As such, her unit is responsible for overseeing First Things First's efforts in working with tribal communities and has established, built and leveraged relationships with 19 Indian tribes and nations throughout the state. I'm so glad you're part of our conversation today, Liz.
Liz Barker Alva...: Thank you for having me, Karen.
Karen Ponder: Thank you both for your willingness to both be here at this important time in your own work, and then to discuss the state's work and the progress you're making along the way. Liz, First Things First has a very unique origin story and structure. Can you just share a bit of that story to give us some background for what we're going to discuss today?
Liz Barker Alva...: In 2006, child advocates throughout Arizona got very tired of programs and services for young children not being a priority in our state, being subject to the shifting political winds and shifting financial situations of the state, and they really wanted to create some intentionality and stability around serving young children in Arizona, and so they wrote a ballot initiative and went about the task of convincing Arizonans throughout the state to vote for this ballot initiative. Although First Things First is a state agency, it was not created by our state legislature. It was created by the people of Arizona through a ballot initiative. That ballot initiative not only established the Arizona Early Childhood Development and Health Board, but it also requires the board to work with communities to split the state up into what we call regional partnership councils, and those regional partnership councils are the ones that are charged with studying the needs of their communities and making recommendations to the statewide board on how these early childhood funds should be spent in their community to improve outcomes for children in their area. Under the initiative, Arizona's Indian tribes and nations determine how they would like to participate with First Things First, in a nation can decide to have its lands treated as its own regional partnership council or the nation can decide that they would like to have their lands treated as part of an adjacent regional council. We have 10 tribes throughout Arizona who had their own regional partnership council, and then we have nine tribes who have elected to become part of their local regional partnership council.
Karen Ponder: Councilwoman, what do you appreciate most about First Things First's focus on engagement of local leaders in decision-making?
Carletta Tilous...: What I appreciate the most is that Native American tribal leaders are asked to do what is best for their community, and we have been engaging with First Things First to identify some of the crucial needs in our community, and our voices are taken into consideration and implemented into the work plan of First Things First. The other thing I really appreciate is that on the staffing side and the board are all include tribal members from other tribes, and that really helps us as tribal leaders to be able to see Native Americans serving a staff on First Things First. Those are the things that I appreciate, the racial balance and the tribal outreach that the First Things First staff puts a lot of work into, and you can see all the hard work that the staff did to implement the working relationship with tribes. I know it takes a long time to create a relationship and trust, and First Things First staff has really put a lot of effort into that, and you can tell by members of the tribe in Arizona.
Karen Ponder: That is so impressive. I was in Arizona a few years ago, and while I was there, I attended a reception where a leader of one of your Native American tribes spoke about the relationship of his tribe with First Things First, and he said that prior experiences in working with state programs hadn't worked out so well in most cases, and he highly praised the work of First Things First in their partnerships with tribes. I was struck by his passion and support, and I've always felt like this is a great example of really doing what it takes to work together in the best ways. Liz, I know the strong partnerships were developed from the very beginning of First Things First. Can you tell us how collaboration with Arizona tribes is being addressed in your government structure, as well as in your programmatic work?
Liz Barker Alva...: The most important aspect of First Things First work with Arizona's Indian tribes and nation is the concept of honoring tribal sovereignty. Every Indian tribe and nation is a sovereign nation with its own government, with its own culture, language, traditions, needs, strengths, challenges, et cetera, and when we honor that sovereignty, when we make it the core of how we do our work is when we're starting from the right place. We recognize that Arizona's Indian tribes and nations have very good reason to distrust outsiders wanting to partner with them on behalf of their children. In the past, this has been used to take children from the community, and those children never come back sometimes. In the past, they have been placed in boarding schools, they have been taken from the community through the Child Welfare System, and this has created a great deal of trauma in tribal communities, and so we need to acknowledge that past, respect those feelings and come to this work with a great deal of humility and willingness to listen and willingness to learn and adapt, and that is at the core of how we approach our partnership with Arizona's Indian tribes and nations.
Liz Barker Alva...: This respect for tribal sovereignty permeates everything that we do at First Things First from our statute, which asks Arizona's tribes and nations every two years how they want to partner, if they want to partner, and how they want to partner with First Things First, and then it just grows from there to the fact that we look for culturally responsive service models and our programmatic work, that in our contracts with community organizations implementing the work, we require that their staff either have experience working in tribal communities, understand the language of the tribal communities are going to be serving. We work with those grantees to ensure that they are taking any cultural trainings that are offered by the tribes and nations that they will be working in, that they are introduced to tribal leadership in that area so that tribal leadership understands who is doing this work on behalf of First Things First in their communities. I mean, it permeates everything that we do. The biggest example is probably our Tribal Consultation model. We have been told by tribal leaders that sometimes government entities that are doing tribal consultation schedule a consultation as a checkoff on their lists.
Liz Barker Alva...: We've made already policy decisions and we're going to let tribes know that we're doing this, and we can check off and say that we've had a consultation. That is not how we approach consultation at First Things First. First of all, it's in-person. We do not do consultation by phone. We invite tribal leaders to come and spend the entire day.
Liz Barker Alva...: We have an agenda of what we're going to talk about. Mostly, First Things First is going to listen. We're not there to debate. We are not there to say what needs to be done. We are there to listen.
Liz Barker Alva...: Tribal leaders give us their feedback and we take that feedback into account prior to making our decisions. The following year, when we have Tribal Consultation, we also let tribal leaders know what we did with their feedback. How did our practice or policy change as a result of what they told us? There are many examples of what has happened from that from a consultation on early learning. We actually developed a training on how to work effectively with tribes for coaches and assessors that were working with childcare and preschool programs and tribal communities.
Liz Barker Alva...: Another consultation led to the development of templates for seeking data agreements with multi-year data agreements with tribes, and out of another grew the concept of regional tribal consultation, so in addition to doing one statewide consultation a year to which we invite all tribes, we will do one-on-one consultation formally with a tribe to discuss particular needs or issues in their area.
Karen Ponder: Thank you, Liz. Councilwoman, Liz stressed honoring travel sovereignty. Can you tell us more about why this is so crucial when engaging with tribal communities?
Carletta Tilous...: Tribal sovereignty is very important to the Havasupai tribe when it comes to data collection and publishing some of our internal data. The tribe has worked closely with First Things First and asked them to work with us to protect the family's internal information, and that was something that the Tribal Council and First Things First went back and forth and had round tables over this information, and we all agreed that ... We met at a middle line, and we met halfway, and we both felt confident that some of the data that has to be collected under the requirements of the state and the funding, we decided to not show everything, every detail of our families to protect their privacy, because the tribe had a very bad experience with Arizona State University collecting data and misusing our blood samples, so we were very careful as we approach this type of information being shared for report purposes, for funding purposes, and I believe First Things First understood that as a sovereign nation, we are in control of our data. We are in control of some of the information that has to go out to the state and the public. I really felt that First Things First understood that.
Carletta Tilous...: It wasn't an easy task for all sides, but we found a middle ground, and that's just an example of how tribes can manage our information, manage our laws and manage our agreements with outside entities coming onto our reservation to provide services for our tribal members, so that's just an example of where and how tribes can put their foot down.
Karen Ponder: That was important. I mean, from a historical perspective, no one could misunderstand that that is sensitive information that has in the past been used in the wrong ways, in ways that weren't supportive of the community, and so I love hearing that you talked and First Things First listened, and that through that, you were able to come to a point where First Things First could have enough data to actually get funding for you and make it work for you, and yet, they were protective of things that you were concerned about, so that partnership just, is one of my favorite examples of this kind of work together across the country. Thank you for sharing more about that. Liz, you've mentioned also tribal consultation. What have been some of the best practices and some of the lessons learned in this area of your work?
Liz Barker Alva...: Well, as I mentioned before, in-person, building the relationship. We don't take just 30 minutes to discuss something. Our tribal consultation is all day, because sometimes people need time to think and process before they can share insights, and sometimes we're dealing with delicate topics that people need to feel a certain level of comfort before they can talk about, so in-person is very important, but I think the most important thing that we take from Tribal Consultation in our experience is that you have to do something with the feedback. You can't ask tribal leaders to take time out of their busy schedules to spend the day with you, to give you their feedback on something an issue that's very important to the people of their tribes and nations, and then not tell them what you do with the feedback or not do anything with that feedback. As I mentioned before, for example, out of one consultation on early learning, we developed a working effectively with tribes training that was provided to coaches and assessors that were working in our quality improvement and reading system with childcare and preschool programs on tribal lands.
Liz Barker Alva...: Tribal leaders shared that they felt that sometimes the coaches and assessors might not be as culturally sensitive as they really needed to be and might misunderstand some of what they were seeing or hearing in tribal communities because they lack the cultural understanding, so we developed that training and provided it to our coaching and assessors, and it went so well that our program staff asked if we could please share that with all grantees that were working on behalf of First Things First and tribal communities. After that, it was, "Could you share it with other folks doing work?," not on behalf of First Things First, and then after that it was, "Can you share it at a conference?," et cetera, so we're proud of the training not as a gold star for First Things First, but we're proud because it shows that we listened and it shows that what came out was effective. We've also, for example, developed multi-year tribal data agreements. That's a nice, little term, but folks don't even realize what that really means. Every tribe as a sovereign nation owns its own data.
Liz Barker Alva...: Every tribe has its own process for getting data, so we work through each of 19 data processes to obtain the data that we need, and not just to obtain the data, we obtain the data. We come back to the tribe and say, "This is how we're interpreting this data. Is this correct?," because we may not understand the context in tribal communities that's behind the numbers, so we may misinterpret the data if we don't come back and check our assumptions and our conclusions with the tribe. After the tribe gives us their feedback, then we come back and say, "This is what we are intending to publish about the data. Is this okay?"
Liz Barker Alva...: "Is this correct?," et cetera. That's what we mean when we say develop the relationship related to data. It's not just permission to gather numbers. Those are a couple of examples of a couple of things that have come out of our Tribal Consultation model.
Karen Ponder: It is a model, I'm telling you. The more I hear about it, the more I feel like it needs to be widely, widely spread across all of our states. I'm just thinking about all that you've done over these years and how you've made this such a strong partnership, and I'm wondering if you were speaking to another state or community, what advice would you have for organizations that really want to engage more meaningful with tribal nations, some organization, to know they're not doing a good job, or they know that there are things that aren't working really well, and so what is your advice for them? I'll start with you, Councilwoman. What would you say to them are the most important things to remember?
Carletta Tilous...: I believe the most important things to remember when engaging with the tribal community is communication and trust-building, and figuring out capacity-building. I think those are the three things to me that I know took a long time. The trust probably took several years for us to really trust and understand the organization and the services that would be beneficial for our tribal members and children, and communication. Now that we have internet, it's a little bit better to communicate than it was 20 years ago by telephone in the village. My village is in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We're one of the most remote villages in North America, so communication sometimes is a challenge, also figuring out our capacity.
Carletta Tilous...: What can the tribe do? Do they have staff? Do they have office? Do they have cellphones? Those are all the critical things that we needed to get lifted off the ground, and before, we even provided services to some of the families.
Carletta Tilous...: It took my tribe a while to identify the tribal members on the ground that needed the training, needed the support before the services were provided, and that took several years. Then, the patients of First Things First staff was very important. They didn't come rushing in and saying, "Oh, this is what we want," and then leave. They came multiple times down to the village, and it's not easy for them to get to the village. You have to either hike or take a helicopter down, and I know on a couple of occasions, they hiked down, and to me, that was very impressive, is them, First Things First staff taking the time to hike down and sit with us and face-to-face and multiple times, and that was very important to the tribe to see faces and identify the three crucial points I just mentioned, that will lift a good program off the ground.
Karen Ponder: Thank you. The image of caring so much about a community that you are willing to hike the Grand Canyon to be there is powerful. Thank you for sharing that. What about you, Liz? What kind of advice do you have for organizations that want to have a better relationship?
Liz Barker Alva...: Number one, honor sovereignty. Recognize that you are dealing with a sovereign nation and act accordingly. Next, educate yourself. Educate yourself about the community that you're working in, their history, their culture, their language. Educate yourself as much as you can about their traditions, et cetera, because that's the core of the perspective that the tribe is coming from.
Liz Barker Alva...: Third, listen. Listen. It's okay to have silence. Wait. Wait for the feedback to be shared with you. Listen, and when you listen, act on what you hear.
Liz Barker Alva...: Be a true partner. Don't come in with preconceived notions. Be a true partner. Listen to the needs. Listen to the challenges.
Liz Barker Alva...: Work together on what can be, and I guess lastly, approach the work with humility. You're going to make mistakes. Acknowledge your mistakes, ask how you can do better, and then do better.
Karen Ponder: Wow. I feel like that advice is good for working with anybody anywhere. That's impressive. Thank you, Liz, for sharing that. As we're starting to think about closing our session, I'm just curious if either of you has any final thoughts or any other important lesson that you've learned in this work that you would like to share as a closing to our session. Councilwoman, anything else you'd like to tell us that's really important for us all to know?
Carletta Tilous...: During this pandemic, our Canyon was closed. We were in shutdown to protect our families, and during that time, First Things First worked very hard to bring supplies that were very much needed for the families, and including staffing support, office supplies, snacks for the kids, and learning tools were all shipped down to Havasupai, down in the bottom of the Canyon through a helicopter, and that really helped the families feel supported and be able to have access to food, and also to learning tools for the children and the families of the village. With that effort from First Things First, the Tribal Council were very happy that this type of support, which was greatly needed during this pandemic occurred, and the ground staff and First Things First staff were remarkable. It wasn't easy to get all this stuff loaded up. It was like 72 boxes of supplies and they were heavy, and we were able to get them down to Supai and directly to the families, and we really appreciate the support for the young families in our community during this difficult time.
Carletta Tilous...: The lessons I've learned is that First Things First is a very big organization, and there's a lot of people that play a lot of important roles. It took me a long time to figure out and maneuver who does what, and once I figured it out, then I started learning the faces and the names and what each person did, and then learning how the First Things First tribal consultation was set up, and our tribe really made sure we made those tribal consultations. We really wanted our voice to be heard, and mind you, we've been asked to go to a lot of tribal consultations, but I believe my tribe really focuses on the children, and the children is our future, and this was something that the Tribal Council decided to invest in. It takes a lot of time. A lot of us are volunteers, and it really showed the commitment that the Tribal Council made with First Things First, and I saw it struggle in the beginning.
Carletta Tilous...: There was not a really, a trust there, but I've always learned how to create bridges on behalf of my tribe and I really put a lot of effort into creating this bridge. I lobbied my tribal council and my community that this First Things First, even though it seemed very complicated in the beginning, like MOUs and learning, reading all this data they provide to you and the council has to approve it, it was a lot of work, but once all of that is understood and lifted off the ground, I believe that each tribe will then provide the critical services and support that is needed for small families, single mothers, single fathers and children that live in these remote communities in Northern Arizona and Southern Arizona that need the services. A lot of our families don't live near cities where they can go right into counseling. A lot of our families need that critical support, and I've learned that First Things First can provide that and is providing that for the Havasupai people in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Our families are, feel supported.
Carletta Tilous...: The home visitation program has been a powerful tool. At first, I wasn't really, think that the home visitation program was going to work, because as Native Americans, we're very private people, like you only go to somebody's home when there's either a ceremony or the invitation, so but it really worked out where we had our own tribal members on the ground and that were doing the home visitation, and that lifted itself off the ground, so that I learned so much of capacity-building, of trust, of legal agreements, MOUs. It takes a lot to have this type of program get lifted off the ground, and I will say it wasn't easy. I will say that, but the product, now I'm able to see the children and the families get the services and the support that's greatly needed.
Karen Ponder: That's a great testimony. It reminds me that not only does the state have a responsibility for what it does, but communities have to know how to engage, and it sounds like you knew just exactly how to proceed to help your community embrace this opportunity for the children and families, and you shared so many important things about what made that work in the long run, so thank you, Councilwoman for being willing to share that. Liz, do you have some final thoughts?
Liz Barker Alva...: When we talk about partnership with tribes and nations, immediately, we think about a partnership with the tribe and with the nation, but when you want to do this work, you have to reverse it. You have to start from within. You have to build the understanding within your own organization, that working effectively with tribes, tribal affairs, if you will, is everyone's job. You may have a tribal liaison, you may have, as we do, a Senior Director of Tribal Affairs, but working effectively with tribes, understanding the history, understanding culture, understanding how to work effectively with tribes is everybody's job. Two people in an organization cannot achieve a level of partnership that's necessary, so your board, your staff, in our case, is our regional partnership councils, all of those internal folks need to be aware and need to understand not just the importance of working well with tribes, but how to do it effectively.
Liz Barker Alva...: In hindsight, the internal work first is going to be very important because there are literally hundreds of interactions that can happen over the course of a year or a course of the relationship, and your tribal affairs staff isn't going to be there for every interaction, and so it's really important that this level of awareness and commitment to honoring sovereignty and working effectively with a tribal community, it needs to be something that's internalized by everyone who's going to be part of building that relationship.
Karen Ponder: A wonderful reminder for us all and a great way to, I think close our time together. It's been such an honor to have this opportunity to hear from and to learn from our guests, Councilwoman Carletta Tilousi and Liz Barker Alvarez. Congratulations on your excellent leadership and your partnership on behalf of Arizona's young children. Your work is a model for other states to consider and learn from. I'm so grateful for your willingness to join our BUILD Podcast today, and I thank you both for all of your work and for what you've taught us in these moments.
Karen Ponder: Thanks for joining us for this episode. Please leave a review and rate us on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find us. You can follow us there or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Critical Connections is a podcast from The BUILD Initiative.
Karen Ponder: It is produced by LWC. Kojin Tashiro is our Producer and Sound Designer, and Jen Chien is our Editor. BUILD Initiative is a national organization that is a catalyst for change, and it supports state leaders to develop equitable early childhood systems. BUILD assists state leaders from both the private and public sectors as they work to set policies, offer services, and advocate for young children and their families. If you would like to learn more about our guests or our organization, visit BUILD's website at www.buildinitiative.org. I'm Karen Ponder. Thanks for joining us today.