On February 4, 2025, APA Services staff and psychologists Shannon Beach, PhD, and Royleen Ross, PhD, partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for a Hill Day to support the health needs of Native American children. The two psychologists met with eight congressional offices from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Maryland, as well as staff from the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. This Hill Day was held in conjunction with AAP’s Committee on Native American Child Health (CONACH), an initiative focused on issues facing American Indian and Alaska Native children. APA is a liaison member of CONACH and works with the Society of Indian Psychologistsopens in new window in this partnership.
During their meetings, Beach and Ross urged their members of Congress to: Royleen Ross, PhD (left) and Shannon Beach, PhD (right)
- Continue providing strong funding and advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS), which would give the agency flexibility, certainty, and time to better plan how to spend its resources and increases access to quality physical and behavioral health services for children.
- Support bills that improve recruitment and workforce retention for IHS, including tax fairness for IHS loan repayment and scholarships. The IHS loan repayment program has helped the agency ensure an adequate health workforce to serve in remote locations, but unlike comparable programs, is taxed. The agency, which has a 36% vacancy rate for physicians and a 44% vacancy rate for behavioral health professionals, spends over $9 million annually paying taxes on loan repayment benefits when it could be funding more than 200 additional loan repayment awards instead. Amending the tax code to make IHS student loan repayment for health professionals tax exempt will help close these gaps and strengthen the IHS workforce.
- Ensure that Medicaid can continue to support the health needs of Native children. Almost half of all children get their health care coverage through Medicaid. American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) children particularly rely on Medicaid for their health care, with 59.5% of AI/AN children enrolled.
For more information, contact Serena Dávila.