Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families

Alaska

“Ch’eghutsen’” A System of Care 

The goal of the Ch'eghutsen' project is to reform and expand current child services in interior Alaska to create a culturally competent system of care for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances. The Ch'eghutsen' project will provide a comprehensive array of mental health and other relevant services while centrally involving parents, families, and communities in the Athabascan conviction, "ch'eghutsen’'’—children are precious. Ch'eghutsen' is guided by Alaskan Native principles that view the child as inseparable from family and community. Implicit in these principles is the conviction that a serious emotional disturbance affects the individual child and his or her extended family and community. Ch'eghutsen' will implement an Alaska Native model of wraparound service, formed with extensive community involvement that is reviewed for feasibility and based on a successful community example. Ch'eghutsen' embraces a team intervention model and will begin service with community development efforts and progress to include prevention, assessment, and treatment intervention using a Native family systems approach, home-based treatment, and intermediate residential and long-term out-of-state residential treatment, when necessary. Ch'eghutsen' includes a strong training component in which predominantly Native, community-based staff are enrolled in a tailored Rural Human Services Certificate program and then begin providing services incrementally as their capacity grows. Ch'eghutsen' will offer provider training, clinical support, links to specialized services, and evaluation services in a stable, effective, and culturally appropriate manner for the healing of our children.

Andy Hunt, MSW, LICSW
Commander, US Public Health Service
Public Health Advisor
Child Adolescent and Family Branch
Center for Mental Health Services
1 Choke Cherry Road, Room 6-1054
Rockville, MD 20857
Phone: 240-276-1926
Fax: 240-276-1990
  
     
  
 
 
 

Shirley Lee
Principal Investigator
Executive Director
Fairbanks Native Association
201 First Avenue, Suite 200
Fairbanks, AK 99701
Phone: 907-452-1648
Fax: 907-456-4148
E-mail: slee@fairbanksnative.org 

Perry Ahsogeak
Program Director
Fairbanks Native Association
650 Hughes Street 
Fairbanks, AK 99701
Phone: 907-479-0673
Fax: 907-479-0683
E-mail: pahsogeak@childrenareprecious.org