Ryan Champagne
Ryan Champagne has been working with at-risk children and families for over ten years.  Mr. Champagne has extensive knowledge of the child welfare and juvenile justice systems and their interaction with indigenous peoples.  Mr. Champagne currently is the Director for the Department of Family Services for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.  Previously Mr. Champagne has worked for various social service agencies and Tribal Nations; he has also served his own people as Appellate Justice for Little River Band of Odawa Indians for the last six years. While at MLBO, Champagne has completely restructured the child welfare system to be more culturally sensitive and appropriate for Indian People.  He has implemented WrapAround as the best practices model and incorporated that model throughout social services.  MLBO currently provides foster care, adoptions, child protection investigations, independent living program, wraparound care coordination, ICWA case management, voluntary wraparound care coordination, and long term care consultation/waivered services for the elderly and disabled.

Terry Cross, MSW, ACSW, LCSW
Seneca Nation of Indians
Terry Cross is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians and is the developer, founder, and Executive Director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association.  He is the author of the Heritage and Helping, an eleven manual curriculum for tribal child welfare staff.  He is also author of the Positive Indian Parenting curricula, as well as Cross-Cultural Skills in Indian Child Welfare.  He co-authored "Toward a Culturally Competent System of Care" and “Reclaiming Customary Adoption.” He has over 35 years of experience in child welfare, including 10 years working directly with children and families.  He served on the faculty of Portland State University School of Social Work.

Michael Dahl
Michael Dahl is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation. He has dedicated his life to learning the traditional ways of the Anishinaabe people and is a highly respected spiritual advisor. He resides in White Earth with his wife Crystal and their family.

Paul Day
Paul Day is the Executive Director of Anishinabe Legal Services, Inc. (ALS).  ALS has been around since 1967 and provides legal services to the low-income residents of the Leech Lake, White Earth and Red Lake Indian reservations. Prior to this he was the District Court Judge for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe for   seven (7) years.  Judge Day presided over 1,200 criminal and civil cases each year, including CHIPS cases and guardianship matters.  Before becoming the Judge at Mille Lacs, Paul served as: Senior Counsel in the Legal Department of Honeywell Inc. at the company headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota; and, Partner in private practice law firm in Bemidji, Minnesota.  Judge Day graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1978 and has been an attorney for thirty (31) years.  In addition to legal work, Judge Day teaches classes such as Federal Indian Law and Sociology.  Judge Day is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.  Together with other family members, Judge Day is the keeper of a ceremonial big drum, sweat lodge and pipe. 

Priscilla A. Day, MSW, Ed.D
Dr. Priscilla Day has been the principal investigator of the Title IV-E child welfare training project at the University of Minnesota-Duluth for the past 6 years, and co-investigator for the 3 years previous to that.  She is Director of the Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies, and Associate Director of American Indian Projects.  Dr. Day is enrolled in the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.  She has over 25 years of experience as a child welfare practitioner, trainer, researcher, and project evaluator and manager.  She collaborates regularly with other scholars and professionals on a national level through her current and past leadership roles in the Council for Social Work Education, NICWA, and the Bush Foundation.  She is the editor of the Bemaadizing journal.

Larry W. Jourdain, HBSW
Four Degree Midewin
Larry W. Jourdain is a tribal member of the Lac La Croix First Nation and he is fluent in the Ojibway language and resides in Thunder Bay, Ontario with his family.  Mr. Jourdain is a member of the Lynx Clan and his Anishinabe Names are: Maminotequenab, Ogimamajiweb and Beshigwenab.  Larry is a former Chief of the Lac La Croix First Nation, a former President of Weechi-it-te-win Family Services; a former Executive Director of Aboriginal Child Welfare Association of Ontario, and the former Executive Director of Nishawbe-Aski Legal Services.  He works as a Consultant who specializes in cultural competent and congruent social work training.  Larry owns and operates a consulting firm called Jourdain Associates in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Larry W. Jourdain researches traditional Aboriginal approaches to healing, customary methods to conflict resolution, tribal family systems and structure, traditional governance structures, traditional and customary law. He has authored several articles on traditional government, cultural predominance in Aboriginal child welfare, customary care and traditional Aboriginal healing theory and practice.  He has been the driving force in the establishment of the Aboriginal Healing Program and the bicultural practice and approach at Weechi-it-te-win Family Services.

Kim Mammedaty
Kim Mammedaty is general counsel to the Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department.  Previously she has been a tribal attorney for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe child welfare department where she represented the Band on child welfare matters and ICWA cases.  She has also been a legal services attorney for Legal Aid where she represented individual members of the Mille Lacs Band on civil matters in both tribal court and state courts.

George McCauley
George McCauley (Omaha Nation) has lived and worked in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN area for over 30 years. He has been at the Minneapolis American Indian Center for 13 years. In 1999 he was part of the team that developed the first version of the Case Management System and been involved with the current system through the whole development process. Currently he is working with tribes who are learning and testing the system and provide customer support and trouble shoot problems for all users of the QUICWA case management system.

Suzanne (Merrill) Wise
Suzanne (Merrill) Wise is currently working with the Mille Lacs Band Family Services as an ICWA Social Worker.  She has lived on Mille Lacs Indian Reservation her whole life and comes from a family of ten children.  She credits her parents and culture for her ability to work in this field.  Suzanne has worked in the field of social work for nearly twenty years in different capacities such as providing case management, licensing of foster homes, monitoring juvenile delinquency cases in tribal court, client and community advocacy on many different levels.  Suzanne also served as an elected official in the capacity of District I Representative for Mille Lacs in the late 90's. 
Suzanne graduated from Onamia High School in 1987 and had her Associates of Arts degree a week later through the Post Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO).  Suzanne has a Bachelor of Arts from St. Cloud State University.  Suzanne has completed her coursework at the University of Minnesota-Duluth for Masters of Social Work and needs to finish her field hours which she hopes to finish this year and graduate from UMD.  Suzanne is also a Child Welfare Scholar and continues to be committed to keeping Native families together and in their home communities of the reservations
Suzanne was recently married to Daniel Wise and they are expecting their first child together later in the year.  Between them they are raising five children, Tyler (18), Riley (14), Kassandra (13), Meghan (10) and Alexandra (7).  They continue to make their home and raise their children on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation.  Suzanne enjoys golfing, visiting with people especially elders, cooking, spending time with her husband and children, traveling, watching the Twins, participating in cultural activities such as Midewin and drum ceremonies  and helping people to feel good about themselves.

Nakina Mills
Nakina Mills is a supervisor for Lakota Oyate Wakanyeja Owicakiyapi (LOWO), a tribally-chartered non-profit child welfare agency on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Nakina has worked with LOWO since 2004 in various capacities and assisted the agency as they transitioned from a state of South Dakota-run child protection agency to a tribal agency. Prior to her work with LOWO, Nakina worked for Casey Family Programs and for the State of South Dakota as a child protection investigator and case manager. Nakina serves on the board of the Red Cloud Indian School on Pine Ridge.

Paul Minehart
Paul Minehart serves as Project Director for the QUICWA Compliance Collaboration. Mr. Minehart, an attorney, helped to develop the QUICWA case management system, an Internet based, case management/ICWA compliance tool for use on reservations and in urban areas. Mr. Minehart provides technical assistance to juvenile court judges, attorneys and social service professionals on Indian Child Welfare Act issues. He is past co-chair of the Minnesota ICWA Compliance Review Team, a committee authorized under the Minnesota Tribal/State Agreement to monitor agencies' compliance with ICWA. Mr. Minehart was formerly the ICWA Court Monitor. As the Court Monitor, he attended court hearings in Child in Need of Protection and Services and Termination of Parental Rights cases to monitor the child welfare system for compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act. Mr. Minehart presents ICWA related topics at numerous seminars.

Mark Pero
Mark Pero has been singing contemporary powwow music for all of his adult life. He is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Tribe. In addition to singing, Mark is also an active participant in a variety of traditional Ojibwe cultural activities throughout the year and has recently begun learning to play the traditional wooden flute.

Sheri Reimers
Sheri Riemers is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Since 2001 Sheri has been the Program Director of the Indian Child Welfare Program at the Minneapolis American Indian Center.  The ICWA Program hosts 5 major components that address various levels of service activities that surround American Indian families involved with Child Protection under the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act, from compliance of the Federal Indian Child Welfare act to direct service and advocating for Tribe and families.  Together, with her staff, have made this program a nationally recognized program, providing technical services to tribes and other urban Indian programs across the country, creating a model to be replicated in other urban areas for both tribal and urban programs. 

Sheri has worked in the American Indian community over 21 years and has built an extensive background in and around social services; chemical dependency, child protection and the criminal justice system.  The work keeps her heavily involved with many volunteer councils & key appointments on issues that impact her community; Victim Offender Mediation, Citizen's Review Panel, Office for Ombudsperson for American Indian Families.  Currently she is serving as a member of the National Urban Indian Families Coalition, MN DHS ICWA Advisory Council and longtime member of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Director's - Family Preservation Subcommittee.  Her strong belief in team spirit and community collaboration have helped her develop programming essential to American Indian communities across the country.  As American Indians, we are uniquely aware of our cultural and spiritual resources that Indian people need and draw on from our heritage as our community seeks to improve their lives and change.

Earl Robinson
Earl Robinson serves as the Title IV-E Systems Manager for the Leech Lake Child Welfare program. This position involves approving medical assistance for children in out of home placement, coordination of the social service information system (SSIS) as well as making Title IV-E foster care eligibility determinations. He is a key player in the communication with the MN Department of Human Services and the surrounding counties that are part of the American Indian Child Welfare Initiative. Mr. Robinson is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.  He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bemidji State University in Indian Studies and is currently in the Masters of Social Work program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Mr. Robinson has worked in the child welfare program at Leech Lake for seven years, serving in many capacities during this time.

Paula Woods, MSW
Paula Woods is the current Executive Director for Family & Children Services at the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. She also held the position of Program Manager at Red Lake Family & Children Services. Paula previously worked at the Child Welfare program at Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe as Intake & Assessment Worker and Program Manager. She received her B.S. in Social Work at Bemidji State University and her M.S. in Social Work at University of Minnesota Duluth.