For Rep. Gallego, combating child abuse is personal

“A lot of what we know about child abuse is very much from the perspective of Anglo families, and that doesn’t necessarily work in Indian Country. I know as a Latino family we’re a little different too. We have to adapt to them to make sure that we have best practices and they’re culturally competent.”

Rep. Ruben Gallego

For Rep. Ruben Gallego, the issue of child abuse is personal.

“My father was very abusive to me. He’s learned it from his father and on and on. So, someone has to break the cycle. But that takes actual therapists, family therapists and time,” Gallego, DAriz., said Friday at an event with tribal leaders at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community’s Family Advocacy Center in Scottsdale.

Gallego was spotlighting the Native American Child Protection Act, legislation he introduced earlier this month to help Native American communities address child abuse and neglect.

The law would re-approve programs and provide more funding for initiatives from the original 1990 Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act that was spearheaded by the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

While the costs are still being worked out and the bill has yet to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, Gallego said it is around $90 million.

Among other things, the law would allow Native American organizations in cities to get funding to address child abuse and neglect and would create a National Indian Child Resource and Family Service Center that will study the issue and develop best practices for tribes.

“A lot of what we know about child abuse is very much from the perspective of Anglo families, and that doesn’t necessarily work in Indian Country. I know as a Latino family we’re a little different too,” Gallego said. “We have to adapt to them to make sure that we have best practices and they’re culturally competent. And the way to do that is to actually have some real research on how to do that and work with tribal governments to develop those programs.”

If the programs are not fully funded, Gallego said, the tribes will be forced to focus on prosecuting the crime, without initiatives that prevent child abuse and neglect from happening in the first place. He said that states usually fund these sorts of programs, but it often does not trickle down to the tribal level. Tribes are therefore on their own, he said, when it comes to financing such enterprises.

Because not all Native American communities have the same level of resources, more affluent communities are able to afford centers that work with the community to head off abuse, such as the site where Gallego and other tribal leaders spoke Friday.

“When the federal government doesn’t step in and do it ... they may have to focus on the punitive side, which is arresting people,” Gallego said. “What they don’t have time to do, which is actually more expensive, is the prevention side. The family training where you bring in the parents and teach them how to break the cycle of violence.”

In 2008, Gallego changed his last name, Marinelarena, his father’s surname, to its current form. He did this as a tribute to his mother, Elise Gallego, who took care of him and his three sisters after their dad left.

Last month, Gallego announced he is running for the Senate seat now held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., Senate.

Sinema has not yet announced if she will seek reelection.