Every 56 hours, another Native woman goes missing or dies from violence. Through my research with Lake Traverse Reservation's tribal council, I have identified a critical failure in our emergency response systems: the Amber Alert network does not effectively serve tribal communities. Working alongside my cousin Woody, a violent crimes detective, I am actively drafting specifications for a new alert system that addresses the crucial timing gaps in information dissemination when Native women disappear. This research emerged from summers spent under Woody's supervision, learning tribal policy flows and community investigation protocols. As the first person in my family to attend college, these experiences bridged academic theory with ground-level reality. I witnessed how jurisdictional gaps created by legal precedents like the 1978 Oliphant v. Suquamish decision leave families without recourse when non-Native perpetrators commit crimes on tribal land. However, my time spent with Woody revealed that even when jurisdiction exists, our emergency response systems fail to protect Native women effectively. My approach to this sacred work is grounded in traditional protocols learned through ceremony and community guidance. Following my mother's passing, I participated in the "Wiping of the Tears" ceremony, a celebration of life that formally ended my mourning period. Through sweat lodge ceremonies with my medicine man uncle Bryan, I processed grief while connecting to ancestral wisdom about healing and community responsibility. These experiences taught me that effective MMIW advocacy requires cultural accountability alongside policy expertise. This understanding shaped my decision to make social work my primary academic focus, with legal studies providing supporting knowledge. Social work education offers the community-centered approach that my cultural training emphasizes, while legal knowledge enables me to address the systemic barriers I have documented through my research. Rather than waiting for court cases to provide justice, I can intervene at prevention points within the community at a ground level while simultaneously working toward policy reform. Focusing on my social work education allows me to address the community's concern about crimes affecting Native women. Natives, especially women and children experience 80x higher murder rates than national averages. Let that sink in. My current policy development work demonstrates how these disciplines complement each other. The alert system specifications I am drafting with tribal council incorporate trauma-informed communication best practices that honor family privacy while ensuring rapid information sharing across reservation boundaries. This project applies cultural sensitivities and involvement to technical response systems, creating culturally appropriate solutions that existing reservations lack. This work demonstrates that social work provides the methodological framework for sustainable community change. My detective training showed me what happens after violence occurs, but social work education will teach me how to strengthen protective factors before families face crisis. The combination of traditional healing knowledge, law enforcement experience, and academic preparation positions me to serve as a bridge between systems that must coordinate to protect Native women effectively. Growing up as the first in my family to attend college, raised by a single mother in a low-income Native household, I understand barriers preventing underrepresented students from accessing education and advocacy tools. With both parents now passed, I navigate higher education without family guidance or financial support, yet these challenges have strengthened my commitment to ensuring other Native families never face the isolation and systemic failures I experienced. My education is not just personal advancement. It is active contribution to community healing. The policy work underway with tribal leadership demonstrates my commitment to translating academic knowledge into measurable protection for Native women, ensuring that no family suffers in silence while preventable system failures persist.

My Journey Beyond Homelessness "We've seen you two times this month," the emergency room doctor said, after my second overdose. "You won't survive another winter on the streets." Seven years into homelessness and opiate addiction, his words barely registered—death seemed an abstract concept compared to the immediate agony of withdrawal and the constant struggle for survival. That night, huddled beneath an overpass as temperature dropped below freezing, I confronted a devastating realization: I had reached rock bottom, only to discover rock bottom had a basement. My struggle began in childhood. Born to a low-income Native American single mother, I experienced intermittent homelessness throughout my youth. My education was fractured as we moved between a car, and temporary accommodations. Despite staying with friends' families whenever possible to maintain educational continuity, my academic performance suffered from inconsistent attendance and the invisible burden of instability. Home brought additional trauma—abuse and molestation that created wounds I carried silently for years. Without addressing this pain or developing healthy coping mechanisms, I turned to substances after high school, seeking relief from psychological suffering I lacked tools to process. What began as occasional use quickly became dependency, then all-consuming addiction. Before I could recognize what was happening, I joined America's chronically homeless, my humanity increasingly invisible to the world around me. The statistics for someone in my position were grim. Research indicates fewer than one in five chronically homeless individuals with substance use disorders achieve sustainable recovery without substantial support systems. Yet something shifted after that doctor's warning—not immediate transformation, but the first painful acknowledgment that continuing this path meant certain death. Three days later, I took the hardest step of my life: walking into a church-based detox program with nothing but the clothes I wore and no family support. Rehabilitation required confronting not just physical dependency but the childhood traumas I'd spent years numbing. Recovery demanded complete rebuilding of identity, discovering strengths buried beneath survival mode. Each day sober represented victory against overwhelming odds; each week stable built momentum toward transformation. Rising above homelessness and addiction happened through small, sustained choices rather than dramatic moments. When I secured housing after seven years without a permanent address, I stood alone in my tiny studio apartment, overcome by the profound miracle of walls that belonged to me and a key that represented transformation. That key now hangs framed on my wall—reminder of how far I've traveled from the person once convinced death was preferable to continuing. Throughout recovery, I discovered that helping others accelerated my healing. Even during homelessness, I volunteered at food banks when possible. Through AmeriCorps NCCC and programs for homeless youth, I channeled painful experiences into meaningful service. Guiding others through systems I once navigated from underneath gave purpose to my suffering. Today, I stand at a new threshold—pursuing legal education to advocate for vulnerable populations facing circumstances similar to my past. The challenges remain significant, particularly financial barriers as a low-income student without family support. Yet having risen above seven years of homelessness and addiction, I face these obstacles with hard-earned resilience and determination to transform lived experience into professional purpose serving those society often renders invisible.