CHOCTAW, Miss. (AP) — A Native American child welfare advocate will be the keynote speaker in February at an annual conference hosted by Mississippi’s only federally recognized Native American tribe.
Sandy White Hawk will speak at the 10th-annual Indian Child Welfare Act Conference. The event will be held on Feb. 16 at the Silver Star Convention Center at the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian’s Pearl River Resort in Choctaw.
The annual conference began as an effort to educate state judges and social workers on requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act, according to a press release from Mississippi’s Administrative Office of Courts. The law gives Native American families priority in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native children, and places reporting and other requirements on states.
It was enacted in 1978 after studies revealed that large numbers of Native children were being separated from their parents, extended families, and communities by state child welfare and private adoption agencies, according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
White Hawk, the conference speaker, was removed from her Sicangu Lakota relatives in South Dakota and adopted by white missionaries more than 400 miles from the reservation. She was 18 months old and grew up in Wisconsin with no connections to her tribal heritage.
In 2019, White Hawk’s story was the subject of the documentary “Blood Memory.” The film highlights her efforts to help others separated from the community as children to heal and reconnect with their people, culture, traditions and ceremonies. The title “Blood Memory” comes from the concept that experiences of one generation are passed to the next.
White Hawk is now the founder and director of First Nations Repatriation Institute, an organization that helps people impacted by foster care or adoption to reconnect and reclaim their identity.
A recurring theme of the Child Welfare Act Conference is educating non-Indians about the intergenerational trauma caused by a history of removal of Native American children from tribal families.
The conference is a collaborative effort with the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the Administrative Office of Courts, the Children’s Bureau, the Mississippi Judicial College and the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services.
Who should attend? Tribal leaders, attorneys, judges, social workers and other professionals who work with Native American children in a youth court are invited to attend.
How to attend? Registration is required and can be completed online.
