Brandi Sweet

The support of the Buder Center has been life-changing in so many ways that it’s very difficult to try to write about its impact in just a few words.  Economically, my degree has afforded me the ability to move out of poverty and provide more opportunities for my family. Professionally, the Center has provided me with support, tools, networks, and an
excellent education from one of the finest academic institutions in the nation. I have since used this knowledge to build a lasting national infrastructure, to write policy, build programs, unite partners, and change the lives of thousands across Indian Country. To understand the magnitude of this impact, you have to first understand where I started.

When I started the social work program at Washington University in St. Louis in 2005, I was only 23 years old, but I was already a divorced single mother on welfare, with an extensive resume featuring all of the facets of the state child welfare system–foster
care, group homes, detention, treatment facilities, shelter care, kinship care. I was an unlikely candidate to even graduate from high school, let alone obtain a graduate degree from one of the most esteemed universities in the nation. Just a few short years before beginning my degree at Washington University, I was sitting in a jail cell, and the likelihood of attending college seemed bleak. To move to St. Louis to attend school, I sold almost every single belonging that I owned. My four-year old son and I pulled into
town with nothing but our beat up 1982 Chevy Citation, one suitcase for both of us, an air mattress, and a box of toys. When we arrived, the Buder Center staff and students embraced us, provided us with a second family, and did everything in their power to help me succeed even through the darkest and loneliest of times.

At the end of my first semester in St. Louis, I nearly quit. I was very lonely for my home and family in Montana. Before moving to St. Louis, I had never really ventured very far from my family. In St. Louis, I was exposed to a culture that seemed almost foreign compared to the country life I was used to. That, combined with the rigors of graduate school and the stress of providing for a child on my own, resulted in severe depression. I actually made up my mind to quit; I stopped attending classes.  Dana Klar, at that time the Director of the Center, nearly beat down my door, dragged me out of the house, and convinced me to stick it out. If it wasn’t for her perseverance on that day, my life may have ended up down a less productive path.

Upon graduation from Wash U, I landed a position working in Washington D.C. within the U.S. Department of the Interior-Indian Affairs. There, I helped publish some of the most innovative policy of the modern American Indian policy era, including drafting the Bureau of Indian Education’s first-ever health and wellness policy, suicide prevention policy, and other policies aimed at developing safer and healthier schools for over 58,000 Indian children across 23 different states. I helped lead over 9,000 Indian children through the President’s Active Lifestyle Award Challenge; served as the Indian Affairs
lead in the design and launch of First Lady Michelle Obama’s, Let’s Move! in Indian Country initiative to combat childhood obesity; and helped build many lasting partnerships with entities like “Just Move It,” “Nike N7,” “Coach Across America,” and the “Corporation for National and Community Service.”  These partnerships provided jobs, resources, grants, and tools to assist 566 Indian communities in improving health and wellness programs. In 2009, I was awarded the Bureau of Indian Affairs Director’s
Award for Leadership. One major milestone of my work was meeting the President and the First Lady of the United States at the White House.

More recently, in Utah, I helped launch an American Indian foster care recruitment program aimed at keeping Native children in Native foster homes and preserving the intent of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. In just a few short months, this work led to the establishment of the Utah American Indian Foster Care Task Force, 33 off-reservation licensed American Indian foster homes, and greater awareness of the spirit and intent of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in the State of Utah.

Currently, I am starting my second year of study at the J. Reuben Clark School of Law within Brigham Young University. I am working on a concentration in Indian Law and Business and plan to use my degree to continue my work within Indian Country. I was just awarded the National Native American Bar Association Scholarship and the Utah Minority Bar Association Pipeline Scholarship. I am also the recipient of the BYU Graduate Fellowship to create Utah’s first-ever Tribal Court Handbook.

None of this would have been possible without the support of the Kathryn M. Buder Center.  Thank you! I am honored to be a part of the 25-year legacy.