Service Sunday with Patina Park, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC)

Please join us for a very special Service Sunday presentation by Patina Park!

Patina Park is Mnicoujou Lakota and her family comes from the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes. Ms. Park is currently the Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC), a nonprofit opened in 1985 and dedicated to providing holistic, multi-service programming grounded in cultural strengths to heal, preserve, and strengthen Native American women and their families from the multi-generational and historic trauma experienced from the effects of colonization. In 2008, MIWRC published Shattered Hearts: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of American Indian Women and Girls in Minnesota, one of the first studies to look at trends among Native American women, including age and mode of entry; intergenerational trauma and homelessness; and barriers preventing women from exiting.

Since graduating from Hamline Law School in 2001, Ms. Park has focused her career on advocating to keep Native American families together and connected to their Tribes. She has served as a law clerk to a juvenile court judge and provided direct representation to families involved in child protection cases in both state and tribal courts throughout Minnesota. Ms. Park directed the statewide implementation of the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act, developing curriculum, training aids, providing technical assistance, and facilitating trainings throughout the State of Wisconsin, including with the 12 sovereign Tribal Nations. Ms. Park previously served as an appellate court judge for the Prairie Island Sioux Community and taught Children and the Law and Federal Indian Law at the former Hamline University School of Law, now Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Ms. Park currently serves as faculty for the Falmouth Institute and has facilitated trainings across the country on issues related to tribal sovereignty and government.

Ms. Park was honored to serve as elected Chair of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors where she took a leadership role to partner with Tribal/City/County/State government, nonprofit, and grassroots organizations, and volunteers to work together and address the immediate and intermediate needs of residents at the Hiawatha Franklin Encampment, and to build long-term differentiated solutions to meet the needs of our relatives struggling with homelessness and housing instability. Ms. Park also serves on the Executive Committee of MinneMinds, the Nawayee Center School Board of Directors, the Native American Community Clinic Board of Directors, the American Indian Community Liaison Advisory Committee of Children’s Hospitals, and the University of Minnesota’s National Diversity Advisory Board. Ms. Park is married and has three children.