Guides & Handbooks

The Native Child Advocacy Resource Center believes that when Native nations build the capacity to oversee the child abuse response through the development of Tribal multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) that meet National Children’s Alliance (NCA) Accreditation Standards, outcomes for Native children and families improve. In this guide, we outline the phases required to develop a Tribal MDT that meets NCA Standards, broken into individual components. In addition to explaining what each component entails in practical terms, we offer relevant reflection questions and links to more in-depth resources on the topic to guide planning and implementation.

This handbook is designed to provide Tribes and Tribal organizations with guidance when drafting or negotiating terms of a Tribal criminal child maltreatment Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) document. This guidance is applicable for standalone Tribal MDTs as well as for MDTs that will function as the core of a Tribal Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC). This handbook also provides guidance that may be useful for non-Tribal MDTs and CACs seeking to improve their partnerships with Tribes and Tribal organizations for the purpose of better serving Native children and families.