Legislature(2017 - 2018)BELTZ 105 (TSBldg)
02/12/2018 01:30 PM Senate JUDICIARY
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| Presentation: Alaska Children's Justice Act Task Force | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
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+ teleconferenced
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ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
February 12, 2018
1:32 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator John Coghill, Chair
Senator Mia Costello
Senator Pete Kelly
Senator Bill Wielechowski
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION: ALASKA CHILDREN'S JUSTICE ACT TASK FORCE
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
JOHANNA SEBOLD, CJATF Member and Assistant Attorney General
Civil Division
Child Protection Section
Department of Law
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
JARED W. PARRISH, PhD, CJATF member and Senior Epidemiologist
Maternal Child Health Epidemiology Unit
Division of Public Health
Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
KIM GUAY, CJATF Member and Social Services Program Administrator
Office of Children's Services
Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS)
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
NICHELLE BEGICH MAULK, CJATF member
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
PAM KARALUNAS, CJATF member and Chapter Coordinator
Child Advocacy Centers
Alaska Children's Trust
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
MIKE HOPPER, PhD, taskforce member and psychologist
Fairbanks, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
DR B. J. COOPS, MD, task force member and Pediatric Intensivist
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Participated in the Alaska Children's
Justice Act Task Force presentation.
ACTION NARRATIVE
1:32:38 PM
CHAIR JOHN COGHILL called the Senate Judiciary Standing
Committee meeting to order at 1:32 p.m. Present at the call to
order were Senators Wielechowski, Costello, and Chair Coghill.
Senator Kelly arrived shortly.
^Presentation: Alaska Children's Justice Act Task Force
PRESENTATION: ALASKA CHILDREN'S JUSTICE ACT TASK FORCE
1:33:06 PM
CHAIR COGHILL announced the business before the committee would
be to hear from the Alaska Children's Justice Act Task Force.
1:33:45 PM
JOHANNA SEBOLD, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division,
Child Protection Section, Department of Law, introduced herself
and stated that she was appearing on behalf of the Alaska
Children's Justice Act Task Force.
1:34:05 PM
JARED W. PARRISH, PhD, Senior Epidemiologist, Maternal Child
Health Epidemiology Unit, Division of Public Health, Department
of Health and Social Services (DHSS), Anchorage, Alaska,
introduced himself and stated that he was appearing on behalf of
the Alaska Children's Justice Act Task Force.
CHAIR COGHILL asked the affiliated audience members to introduce
themselves and the disciplines they represent. [The names are
listed on slide 4 of the PowerPoint.]
MS. SEBOLD stated that the purpose in requesting the meeting
today is to provide information that may help legislators as
they make decisions this session.
CHAIR COGHILL commented on the broad expertise of the task
force, the legislature's focus on child wellbeing, the range of
bills taskforce members will follow this session, and the
importance of context.
MS. SEBOLD stated that the Alaska CJATF mission is to "Identify
areas where improvement is needed in the statewide response to
child maltreatment, particularly child sexual abuse, make
recommendations and take action to improve the system."
1:38:01 PM
SENATOR KELLY joined the committee.
DR. PARRISH advised that he would use some terms interchangeably
when he talked about child abuse and neglect in Alaska. The term
child abuse is often reflective of child maltreatment, which is
an all-encompassing term that includes child physical abuse,
sexual abuse, mental injury, and neglect. He acknowledged that
child abuse has become an all-encompassing term as well.
He agreed with Senator Coghill that context matters. It matters
with data too. He said that as a data producer he is sensitive
to perceptions, how people make observations, and how statistics
are utilized to summarize observations to inform, contradict, or
reframe our perceptions, because they're based on personal
understanding and knowledge. Numbers need to be put in context
and evaluated as to whether they make sense or not. "We
generally value our own understanding and then we try to
reference that data within it." He displayed two cartoons to
illustrate the point. Any way you look at a picture or data may
be correct but reframing it from another perspective may help
you understand the context of the issue a little better. It is
also important to utilize multiple data points when you look at
child abuse, neglect, or maltreatment because the issue is very
difficult to measure.
He presented three estimates of disease burden and what may be
describing the issue. These are the unique children the Office
of Children's Services (OCS) receives that were reported,
screened in, or substantiated from 2008-2015. He noted that the
prevalence of children reported, and children screened in have
significantly trended upward while the number of substantiated
cases remained relatively flat. He said you could start making
hypotheses based on this little bit of data, but clearly someone
noticed something and called the Office of Children's Services.
He noted the html at the bottom of the slide and advised that
the data are publicly accessible and could be queried in a
variety of different ways.
CHAIR COGHILL noted recent discussions on mandatory reporting
and asked if the data shows that a broad law makes people more
cautious and leads to more reporting.
DR. PARRISH said the national research on the utility of having
a broad versus narrow law is mixed. What is known is that
reports underestimate what people self-report.
CHAIR COGHILL asked if OCS has policy for substantiating a
report.
DR. PARRASH deferred the question to Kim Guay.
1:43:50 PM
KIM GUAY, CJATF Member and Social Services Program
Administrator, Office of Children's Services, Department of
Health and Social Services (DHSS), Anchorage, Alaska, confirmed
that the department has policy regarding what is substantiated.
If the report is about risk of harm, it's harm that occurs.
Workers use a tool to get to a decision of whether to
substantiate or not. The department modified how it was
substantiating about three years ago, which could explain why
that measure is stagnant.
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked her interpretation of reports that
are up 30 percent, screen ins that are up almost 50 percent, and
substantiated that are flat to slightly down over the timeframe.
MS. GUAY attributed it to the policy change three years ago that
gave staff more direction and concrete definitions. They defined
both risk of harm and harm and are trying to be more concrete
when looking at making a substantiated finding. W
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if she is seeing that the reporting
process is being abused, that it's too stringent, and/or that
OCS is understaffed.
MS. GUAY said she believes there is a lot more going on than is
being reported. Typically, the Office of Children's Services
screens in 51 percent of the calls that come in and the national
average is 55 percent. When an investigator goes out,
maltreatment and safety are also considerations. Both are
important but if there is a safety issue, the child is generally
removed from the parents' care. That has increased the number of
children in care.
DR. PARRISH turned to the issue of Adverse Childhood Experiences
(ACE) and described a collaborative study in the late 1990s by
Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC). A homogeneous group of educated older-middle-
aged people who belonged to a large HMO were asked a series of
questions about experiences of abuse, neglect and household
disfunction before age 18. A surprising finding was that about
two-thirds of that population reported experiencing at least one
of the stressors that would create a negative environment for
health and development.
The researchers then looked at health outcomes. They found that
the greater the accumulation of adverse childhood experiences,
the more likely an individual was to have a variety of negative
health consequences. That includes things like drug use, cancer,
early death, alcoholism, smoking, stroke, and depression. He
said it's becoming more knowledge based that what happens in
childhood is potentially the etiology for what happens to you in
adulthood.
CHAIR COGHILL asked him to review the chart on slide 9.
DR. PARRISH explained that the X axis represents the number of
adverse experiences the individual reported. Only 33 percent of
the participants reported experiencing no adverse childhood
events.
1:49:56 PM
At ease
1:50:27 PM
CHAIR COGHILL reconvened the meeting.
SENATOR KELLY leaned back and asked an inaudible question.
DR. PARRISH explained that the adults who participated in the
survey interpreted the questions based on their recall childhood
of experiences. The questions have remained constant and have
been asked in Alaska through the behavioral risk factor survey.
This is separate from the OCS data that is measuring the number
of children that are being reported, screened in, or
substantiated.
He directed attention to the URL on slide 11 that provides data
on the incidence and types of adverse childhood experiences that
surveyed adults recall. The bar chart shows that 33.8 percent
reported substance abuse in the home, 31 percent reported
emotional abuse, 31.7 percent reported the loss of a parent,
21.9 percent reported mental illness in the home, 19.1 percent
reported physical abuse, 18.7 witnessed domestic violence, 14.8
percent reported sexual abuse, and 11.5 percent reported an
incarcerated family member. Importantly, individuals who report
four or move ACEs are 49 percent more likely to be unemployed,
274 percent more likely to be unable to work, 92 percent more
likely to earn less than $20,000 annually, and significantly
more likely to report poor physical and mental health.
1:54:28 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked about cause and effect. "Does the
income lead to the adverse childhood experience or does the
adverse childhood experience lead to these things?"
DR. PARRISH said it's difficult to untangle the etiology when
the outcome and exposure are measured at the same time, but it's
probably a mixture.
CHAIR COGHILL commented that increasing the income level isn't
likely to have much effect if the person reported four or more
adverse childhood experiences.
DR. PARRISH agreed and added that there are a lot of things that
are indicators of a relationship. A strong relationship the
literature has validated is that unmarried mothers are more
likely to have kids who are involved in the child welfare
system. It's an indicator of stress and identifies a population
that needs support.
SENATOR COSTELLO asked 1) if any studies show a link between
adverse childhood experiences and performance in school, and 2)
if the epidemiology unit provides recommendations to the
education community about trauma informed care.
DR. PARRISH deferred the question to the education expert,
Nichelle Begich Maulk.
1:58:08 PM
NICHELLE BEGICH MAULK, Children's Justice Act Task Force Member,
stated that she is the principal of three schools and just last
week the Anchorage School District met to discuss trauma
informed care and how to get the information out to the schools,
teachers, and staff. The non-traditional schools were brought to
the table first. Youth mental-health-first-aid training has also
been introduced throughout the district to give teachers and
staff another tool to use.
SENATOR COSTELLO asked if she would share which schools she
works with, and if it possible for more state agencies to have
a presence in the schools.
MS. BEGICH-MACH advised that she is the principal at McLaughlin
Youth Center, New Path High School in the Anchorage Correctional
Facility and a satellite at Highland Mountain, Vale High School
and a satellite at Covenant House, and the night school program
called Aspire. She said she is a proponent of using resources in
combination because teaching is about more than academics.
2:01:32 PM
DR. PARRISH added that ample research indicates that children
who experience multiple adverse childhood experiences have
poorer educational achievement.
He turned the discussion to the concept of life course
perspective, which is a multidisciplinary approach to
understanding that early development and childhood can determine
the overall health trajectory.
He explained that at birth there are things that lift and
support a person in developing a healthy lifestyle. This
includes things like parent education, emotional health
literacy, age appropriate discipline, and involvement in
preschool. At the same time, there are deficits that reduce the
overall health trajectory. This could be things like being born
into poverty, lack of health care services, and exposure to
toxic stress. Because kids are born into different health
trajectories based on the family situation at birth, safety nets
developed early on to bolster families and lift the overall
health trajectory is very important. Research continues to show
that early intervention has a larger potential effect. He drew
an analogy to an airplane that is off one degree on a short
flight versus one degree over a long distance. Having multiple
touches through the child's life course can potentially reduce
the overall mistarget of the trajectory. From a public health
perspective, it's important to measure the lifetime burden of
exposure to adverse events that occur at different stages of
development as opposed to only asking adults how they recall
their childhood. This provides another context.
DR. PARRISH discussed leveraging the power of the federally
funded Alaska Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System
(Alaska PRAMS). This survey samples about one in six live births
asking mothers about their pre-birth, birth, and shortly after
birth experiences related to health care, substance use, and
exposure to different trauma. It is administered bimodally three
to six months after the live birth. Mothers that respond
implicitly consent to have their information integrated with
other information the department has gathered on them. The 2009-
2011 respondents from the Alaska PRAMS survey are linked to a
variety of different data sources within the health department,
including child welfare. The goal is to follow this group to
develop aggregated information and patterns to inform and target
prevention efforts to utilize the limited resources the most
effectively. He explained that the department also has a three-
year follow up study called Alaska Childhood Understanding
Behaviors Survey (Alaska CUBS) that can be integrated with
Alaska PRAMS. Oregon has a two-year follow-up survey which will
allow for comparability.
2:07:37 PM
DR. PARRISH reviewed the Alaska Longitudinal Child Abuse and
Neglect Linkage project (ALCANLink) that followed a 2009-2011
birth cohort over their life. It shows that before age eight, 32
percent will have at least one report to the Office of
Children's Services (OCS), 27 percent will have at least one
report screened in, and 10 percent will experience a
substantiated report to OCS. Considered in context, he said a
lot more kids potentially need services than the annual
prevalence estimate leads us to believe. The graphic on slide 15
indicates a lot of reports to OCS during kids' first year of
life. He acknowledged that the sharp upward trajectory may
reflect exposure to more mandated reporters at that time.
Another bump at about age six may again indicate exposure to
mandated reporters. He reiterated that these numbers provide
another perspective, and they're higher than anticipated.
2:09:24 PM
DR. PARRISH turned to slide 17 titled ALCANLink - crude
proportion by birth cohort. He explained that he looked the
2008-2015 Alaska PRAMS cohort to see what proportion of kids
were reported to child welfare before age two. The data over
time showed that kids born in Alaska have a fairly constant risk
of having contact with the child welfare system. This data could
be used to start developing hypotheses on things we could be
doing to support families a little more, he said.
He explained that he put the three data sources together to
discuss maltreatment burden in context. One is the annual
prevalence estimate reported to child welfare among children
ages 0-17 during the years 2012-2015. In an average year, about
10 percent of the child population is reported to the Office of
Children's Services in Alaska. The second data source is the
cumulative incidence or lifetime burden measure. Over their life
course before age eight, 32 percent of kids will have contact
with child welfare. The adult prevalence data reflects adult
recollections of experiences before age 18. It shows that 34
percent reported having experienced physical or sexual abuse,
physical neglect, or emotional neglect. He noted that the adult
prevalence number should match the cumulative incidence a little
better.
DR. PARRISH explained that he's focusing on reports because
public health is interested in identifying sentinel events it
can intervene on. Research continues to show that children that
experience a report to OCS look much more like kids that have a
substantiated report to OCS than kids that don't experience a
report over their lifetime.
CHAIR COGHILL expressed interest in learning more about the
experiences of abuse and neglect that adults recall during their
childhood.
DR. PARRISH said the next slide breaks out the maltreatment
burden by type - neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse.
SENATOR COSTELLO asked if he had the information broken down by
region or if he could comment on whether the maltreatment is
occurring in certain regions.
DR. PARRISH said there are disparities between northern and
southwest regions when compared to Anchorage.
SENATOR COSTELLO asked if he had any interaction with the
Violent Crimes Compensation Board. Their recent report shows
that children in rural areas experience a higher incidence of
violence than children living in more populated areas.
DR. PARRISH said he's aware of the board and he's trying to look
at regional analyses a little more, but the challenge is a heavy
workload.
2:16:45 PM
DR. PARRISH turned to the data on household dysfunction that
measures things that are similar to those measured on PRAMS.
Mothers are asked if 12 months prior to the birth they
experienced stressors like homelessness, a husband/partner who
went to jail, being in a fight, loss of a job even though they
wanted to keep working, husband/partner lost their job, argued
with husband/partner more than usual, close family member very
sick or hospitalized, separated/divorced, moved to new address,
husband/partner said they didn't want the pregnancy, unpaid
bills, someone close had problems with drinking/drugs, or
someone close died.
He explained that he looked at household dysfunction before a
child is born and the relationship with child welfare. The data
shows that the risk of contact with child welfare increases with
the number of stressors reported. They found that 21 percent of
mothers reported experiencing four or more of these events 12
months prior to the birth, and one of every two kids that are
born to these moms will have a report to child welfare before
age eight. Clearly, prevention is something to think about
before a child is born, he said.
2:19:02 PM
DR. PARRISH said this is a complex issue and there are a lot of
factors that could put a family in need of extra support. There
are protective factors and protective factor killers. Children
born to mothers who reported completing less than 12 years of
education are 3.5 times as likely to be reported to child
welfare before age eight, so education is a protective factor.
Intimate partner violence is a protective factor killer. If
intimate partner violence is reported among the low risk group
of mothers with more than 12 years of education, the risk of a
report to OCS is 3.9 times as high. Education is an extremely
important factor but the Family Educational Rights and Privacy
Act (FERPA) is a data barrier to sharing information. The
ability to combine the data could help inform decisions a little
more.
CHAIR COGHILL said most of us know that education will be part
of the solution, but the question is how.
DR. PARRISH agreed that the devil is in the details. He added
that the Division of Public Health is trying to develop
resources and data sources to inform decisions.
2:23:49 PM
MS. SEBOLD reported that the annual cost to Alaska for
substantiated reports of child abuse is $82 million. She
clarified that the task force didn't have the answer but wanted
to provide information that the legislature could consider when
allocating money. She said this is bleak in the sense that any
child who suffers from maltreatment is one too many, but healing
is possible, and brains can be retrained. There are a lot of
people in the community to help build resilience and protect
children. She noted that the CJATF has put together a mandatory
reporter program that is available on the OCS, Department of
Health and Social Services website. The task force has also
drafted laws to protect children from starvation and serious
physical abuse, protection of child interviews at child advocacy
centers, added coaches to the list of mandatory reporters,
developed multidisciplinary team guidelines for responding to
child abuse cases in Alaska, and held rural trainings on child
sexual abuse. In 2016 CJATF was invited to join the BIA
providers conference and they spent a lot of time listening to
the ways communities are solving child abuse problems. These
were tribal leaders who were able to identify problems and find
solutions. She observed that community members may be an
untapped resource; it doesn't cost anything to call for their
help.
CHAIR COGHILL said it's a community leadership issue to get
people to speak up and provide a safe place to go once someone
does speak up. He added that he was surprised and pleased at the
AFN Convention last year when young people got up and spoke
boldly to their elders.
MS. SEBOLD agreed that it takes boldness and bravery to share
stories like that. She continued to describe CJATF's responsive
approach to child maltreatment. She listed child abuse training,
scholarships for the Child Maltreatment Conference, and
providing information to the legislature.
CHAIR COGHILL invited Ms. Karalunas to talk about Child Advocacy
Centers (CACs).
2:29:57 PM
PAM KARALUNAS, task force member and Chapter Coordinator, Child
Advocacy Centers, Alaska Children's Trust, reported that there
are 12 CACs in the state and 6 are accredited. She explained
that these centers are primarily for victims of sexual abuse;
about one-third of the children seen are age six and under and
about one-third are young boys. She displayed the roster of the
total children seen at each CAC since it opened. She noted that
the CAC in Anchorage is the oldest and it's seen a lot of kids
[14,902]. She clarified that not all had been abused but they
were reported because there was some concern. The CAC is a
neutral environment where everyone involved in the investigation
is trained to do a forensic interview.
CHAIR COGHILL asked if there is evidence that going through this
process is beneficial for the child.
MS. KARALUNAS said she wasn't aware of any Alaska research on
outcomes from child advocacy centers, but nationwide findings
indicate that a child, family, and caregiver that goes through
the CAC is far more likely to follow up with services and engage
the child in mental health and caregivers are more likely to be
supportive. Substantial research continues to show that a
supportive caregiver is the most important factor in the long-
term outcome for a child. She opined that one reason there may
be more violent crime compensation requests from rural areas is
because advocates in rural areas see fewer children and may have
more time to help families complete the complex form.
DR. PARRISH added that the Division of Public Health now has
data sharing agreements with CACs to get identifiable data to
integrate into the system, which will help in answering some of
those questions. He expressed hope that by this time next year
he would be speaking to outcomes.
CHAIR COGHILL said the legislature needs to know if it's
anecdotal that someone who is abused will become an abuser.
2:34:49 PM
MIKE HOPPER, PhD, taskforce member and psychologist, Fairbanks,
Alaska, said the cycle of abuse is real, but it's not fair for
that message to keep going out to the world about all kids who
have been abused. He said an area of his specialty is boys who
are abused, and he always warns parents not to tell teachers
about the abuse because they almost always view the boy as a
danger. There isn't a lot of research but his experience over
the last 30 years is that if an abused child gets help, he is
not more at risk of becoming an abuser as an adult than he was
as a child. The more you can intervene to support these families
and kids the better chance there is of changing that cycle.
"Resiliency is an interesting thing and we have a lot to learn
from kids who survived abuse"
CHAIR COGHILL wondered how to follow up in a healthy way.
DR. HOPPER replied the CACs are a rich resource center and have
made a huge difference to the families that get there. The
unfortunate reality is that many don't get there.
2:37:41 PM
DR B. J. COOPS, MD, task force member and pediatric intensivist,
said she's been a child abuse expert for 30 years and the CACs
offer full service by well-trained experts. The result of having
these centers is that more people are willing to call OCS if
they have a question about a child. She said it's not her
experience there is over reporting, but without the CACs she
believes there would be fewer reports and less services to kids.
2:39:36 PM
MS. SEBOLD listed the CJATF advocacy and partnership efforts.
These include strengthen families, the Citizen's Review Panel,
the Alaska Mental Health Board, the Children's Trust, the
Resiliency Initiative, Covenant House, and prevention
initiatives.
She urged legislators to realize that child abuse affects all
Alaskans and requested they make decisions using a trauma-
informed lens. She agreed with Dr. Hopper that, "It's not what's
wrong with you, it's what happened to you." That lens is a lot
less critical and more problem-solving. Strengthening children
and families should be a system wide approach.
CHAIR COGHILL remarked that we are a stigma-driven society and
children are especially susceptible.
MS. SEBOLD continued to list the things the legislature can do.
This includes supporting local community-based initiatives like
Strengthening Families, ROCK MatSu, MAPP (Mobilizing for Action
through Planning and Partnerships), Pathway's to Hope, and
Family Wellness Warriors Initiative.
CHAIR COGHILL asked where people go to offer their help.
MS. SEBOLD suggested referring them to the CJA.
DR. PARRISH added that the Alaska Children's Trust is trying to
be the centralized place by employing the collective impact
model. That's how the Resiliency Initiative has risen and it's
supporting community efforts like ROCK MatSu that is engaging
public and private partners.
MS. SEBOLD said other things that can be done are to support
services that will reduce future costs for special education,
health care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, child
protection, homeless services and shelters, legal system, and
corrections. These programs will save money in the long run.
She said Alaska data suggests the following:
• Many Alaskan adults bear the burden of a lifetime
accumulation of family violence and dysfunction
• Alaskan children start accumulating these adverse events
early in life
• Multiple factors contribute to maltreatment
• Systems must be in place at multiple points along
developmental trajectories to respond efficiently and
effectively to maltreatment
• Our economy and our society bears the costs
MS. SEBOLD concluded saying that to reduce this burden there is
need for prevention, treatment, and early, effective, and timely
intervention.
2:45:34 PM
CHAIR COGHILL commented that prevention is part of the solution
and that passing a law isn't always the solution.
He asked what sort of recommendations the task force will
propose.
MS. SEBOLD said she didn't have a definitive answer but would
share information as it's available.
DR. COOPS said one of the reasons she's here is to learn what
legislators think the task force can help with. "What do you
think?"
CHAIR COGHILL stated support for an organic process that starts
with a community conversation about prevention and providing a
safe place for people who do speak up. Bringing elders into
schools also supports the hope of a better community. The law
can't fix abuse when it's quiet. He asked the task force to look
at where laws are barriers to community facilitation.
2:50:36 PM
SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if the task force had any significant
changes to recommend that are research driven. He cited
mandatory pre-K as an example if research shows it will cut
child abuse. "Let's think big on this, it's a big problem."
CHAIR COGHILL agreed. When the committee worked on criminal
justice reform they were told that working with the at-risk
population could help with criminal justice needs. The idea that
33 percent of Alaska's youth experience maltreatment is not
acceptable. He reiterated the suggestion that task force members
highlight barriers and bring forward policy ideas that might be
helpful.
DR. PARRISH said an appropriate reaction turns into prevention
for a subsequent generation. All the different advocacy groups
need to act as think tanks that look at the barriers that are
standing in the way of effectively taking care of kids. The
partnerships that have formed over the past year led to the
meeting this morning with the Children's Trust. He noted that an
unintended positive consequence of budget issues is that people
work together.
MS. SEBOLD noted that the task force agreed to support HCR 2
that recognizes adverse childhood experiences and evidence-based
programs and research as well as SB 71 and the ability for
children in foster care to have sibling contact.
CHAIR COGHILL commented on the budget process and that
legislators was looking for success-driven models.
He thanked the presenters and wished them well in their efforts
going forward.
2:56:56 PM
There being no further business to come before the committee,
Chair Coghill adjourned the Senate Judiciary Standing Committee
meeting at 2:56 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| CJATF Presentation 2-12-18.pptx |
SJUD 2/12/2018 1:30:00 PM |