New Staff Member Spotlight: LJ Sato
LJ Sato recently joined NCARC as a Child Advocacy Training and Technical Assistance (CAC TTA) Specialist. She joins our team following five years of experience working with a CAC in Fairbanks, Alaska. We asked LJ to say a few words of introduction about her background and her interest in supporting the development and enhancement of multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) and CACs serving Native children and families.
My name is Linda (LJ) Sato. I am Koyukon Athabascan and am originally from Tanana, Alaska (Nuchalawoyya). I am so excited to begin my new role as a CAC TTA Specialist with the Native Child Advocacy Resource Center (NCARC) and the National Native Children’s Trauma Center (NNCTC). One of the many things that drew me to this job was the fact that NCARC and NNCTC provide services to Tribes and Tribal youth-serving agencies. As someone who grew up within a a small Tribal community and has worked in a child advocacy center (CAC) for the past five years, I love the idea of supporting Tribes in breaking down barriers and developing multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) and CACs.
As a kid growing up in rural Alaska I felt a strong sense of connection and community. Being able to grow up in a town where everyone knows everyone and there’s no lack of gatherings, events and community traditions – it is a special thing. Being so far removed from the city has pros and cons. Looking back at my childhood, I realize how limited the resources in our community were. Like other remote villages in Alaska, my community consists of one post office, one grocery store, and one K-12 grade school. When I was growing up, there wasn’t a road in or out. The only options for travel to the nearest city were a 50-minute plane ride or a two-hour boat ride followed by a four-hour car ride. Sometimes—not very often—a medical or mental health provider would be flown in to see community members and provide services. When there was a crisis, such as an allegation of child abuse or a medical emergency, professionals needed to be flown in or people needed to be flown out.
Trauma-informed care is not a concept that has been in the forefront of peoples’ minds for very long. Thinking back on how crisis situations were handled in the past versus how they are handled today, I see a huge contrast. Handling sensitive situations is difficult for any type of community, let alone one where there are such strong and long-lasting relationships. For example, acknowledging abuse can change the social connections and different people’s social standing in a community. But if we don’t acknowledge abuse, we create a cycle for abuse to keep occurring.
Developing and supporting CACs offer a way of changing this cycle. What I love about CACs is that they are able to bring all of the experts in their field together to help children and their families. My own experiences with CACs have all occurred in Alaska, where I had the opportunity to work in many roles including family advocate, forensic interviewer, behavioral health clinician, and rural outreach coordinator. I have gotten to witness firsthand changes that have happened in order to improve services in rural villages in Alaska, including trainings, outreach events, and the development of telehealth services. I have learned that when working with rural communities, it is vital to support them with humility, to be sure you don’t come into someone else’s community assuming that you are the “expert” (even though you might be an expert on your particular CAC role). When you arrive in a village, especially during a time of crisis, performing your own role effectively requires respect for the local people and a willingness to learn about them. These attitudes can go a long way in making and establishing lasting connections. If you don’t build these connections, you may make it harder for future victims and their families to find the support they need.
In thinking about my career, I have always felt the need to make a contribution and give back to communities like mine. In my role at NCARC, I hope to provide communities and their members with the same level of support and advocacy that I would give my own community. I am eager to learn from each community I have the honor to work with in how best to serve them. I also hope that by providing trainings and information, I might be able to help professionals in the field better respond to the needs of families in our communities. The opportunity to share my voice and my own experiences as they pertain to this work truly excites me. I look forward to working with you in the future.