The Tribal Experience: Centering Sovereignty, Culture, and Connection

The Tribal Experience offers a powerful look into how Native communities across Washington State care for their youngest members. Rooted in Tribal sovereignty, cultural identity, and relational ways of being, this lived experience challenges systems to respond with respect, alignment, and action. This page highlights the voices, values, and visions that Indigenous leaders, families, and providers bring to the field of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH). It also provides practical steps to create systems that truly serve Native children. A more detailed report is available here.

Understandings

  • Tribal Sovereignty is Foundational: Indigenous nations are sovereign governments with the legal right to design and govern their own IECMH programs.

  • Culture and Connection Drive Wellness: Relational, land-based, and identity-affirming practices are central to children’s mental health and development.

  • Historical Trauma Still Impacts Access: Systems must acknowledge and address generational harms like boarding schools and family separation.

  • Community Strength is the Solution: Language revitalization, ceremonies, and kinship networks are already healing forces in Tribal communities.

  • Partnerships Must Be Equitable: Tribes must lead policy development, program design, and evaluation.

Tribal Sovereignty and Self-Determination

Tribal sovereignty is both sacred and legal. At its deepest level, it is innate, a gift from the Creator that affirms our right to live freely within our own languages, cultures, and traditional ways of life. It is carried in our ceremonies, our kinship systems, and our responsibilities to one another and to the land.

“Sovereignty isn’t just a word — it’s our backbone.”

Sovereignty is also a political and legal status, recognized through treaties, case law, and federal policy. This legal sovereignty affirms that Tribes have the inherent right to govern themselves, protect their cultures, and design systems and services for their people, including their children.

In early childhood policy, sovereignty must mean more than inclusion. It must mean control over program funding, workforce development, education models, and mental health practices. This control reflects both the sacred nature of our responsibilities and the legal standing of our governments.

To uphold this truth, policies must strengthen government-to-government relationships and ensure Tribes are decision-makers, not stakeholders. Indigenous families thrive when their children are raised within systems that honor their rights, their stories, and their self-determined futures, systems that reflect who we are, not systems that ask us to fit in.

Relationships, Culture, and Identity

Tribal communities raise children in webs of connection—to family, land, elders, and spirit. These relationships are central to mental health and early development. From cradleboards to language nests, wellness is rooted in everyday culture.

Healing and learning happen through weaving circles, storytelling, plant medicines, and ceremony. IECMH systems must integrate these cultural strengths, not treat them as optional.

"Our songs, our medicines, and our language aren’t just side practices—they’re the heart of who we are."

Systemic Barriers and Resilience

Many Native families navigate systems that were not built for them. Challenges include:

  • Mistrust due to historical trauma

  • Long travel distances to services

  • Lack of culturally competent providers

  • Rigid licensing and credentialing rules

"They look for degrees, but our elders carry knowledge you can’t get in a classroom."

Despite these barriers, Tribes are creating solutions: birthing centers, Indigenous fatherhood groups, youth mentorships, and more. These innovations show that cultural resilience is both an asset and a model for effective care.

Opportunities for Action

Creating systems that support Native children requires structural change. Here’s how decision-makers, providers, and allies can act:

1. Uphold Tribal Sovereignty

  • Use government-to-government consultation on all IECMH policies.

  • Recognize and defer to Tribal codes, customs, and protocols.

2. Build a Culturally Responsive Workforce

  • Fund training and credentials for Native providers.

  • Allow traditional knowledge to count toward workforce qualifications.

3. Expand Access to Services

  • Invest in Tribal home-visiting, birthing centers, and language immersion programs.

  • Support mobile, telehealth, and rural solutions.

4. Integrate Native Language and Culture into Care

  • Develop concrete, sustained systems to support the revitalization of Native languages and cultures, recognizing them as foundational to the healthy identity development of Native American children.

  • Recognize traditional healers and herbalists as essential partners.

  • Fund ceremonies, land-based healing, and language programs as core services.

5. Share Power and Accountability

  • Establish Tribal-led advisory councils and cross-sector coalitions.

  • Track outcomes using both quantitative data and cultural metrics.

“We’re stronger together.”

Closing Thought

When we honor sovereignty, embrace cultural wisdom, and lead with relationships, we create the conditions where Native children thrive. The Tribal experience shows us what is possible when healing, belonging, and justice guide our collective efforts.