Child Welfare Leadership Award

About the Award

The Child Welfare Leadership Award recognizes Minnesota leaders for their outstanding statewide contributions to child welfare practice.

2024 Leadership Award Recipient

Stacy Hennen

Stacy Hennen is the Director of Western Prairie Human Services, a joint powers entity formed January 1, 2022, covering Grant and Pope County and Traverse County Social Services through a contract. Stacy has been a human services director for 15 years, starting in Grant County and adding Pope County in 2019 and Traverse County in 2021. Prior to being a human services director, Stacy worked in child protection and supervision of a children’s residential facility for 14 years. Stacy has served in numerous leadership roles in the past 15 years. She was appointed by the Governor to the Governor’s Child Protection task force and served on it for its entirety. She was also appointed by the Governor to the Human Services Performance Management Council and served on it since its inception. Stacy was President of the Minnesota Association of County Social Services Administrators (MACSSA) in 2015 and served in many other leadership roles within MACSSA including Chair of their Children’s Committee and the first Vice President of MACSSA. She currently is the Legislative Lead for MACSSA. Stacy received MACSSA’s Human Services Award in 2016. Stacy worked on many endeavors in her time as a director, including targeted case management redesign, vulnerable children and adults formula changes, and many child welfare projects. Stacy worked with her counties and teams to create Western Prairie Human Services and worked with her colleagues within her region to bring things like Collaborative Safety and Community Intensive Bridging Services (CIBS) to her counties and communities. Stacy testified in front of the Minnesota Legislature on a variety of children’s and general human services issues. She is married with two adult daughters.

Past Leadership Award Recipients

Laurie York 2023 Recipient

Laurie York works as Executive Director for White Earth Nation. Previously, she worked as Director of White Earth Indian Child Welfare for 5 years and 10 years as a Child Protection Social Worker, working directly with clients involved in child protection cases. To start her career in child welfare, she worked as an Intern for White Earth Child Welfare. She continues to learn her Ojibwe language and has experience teaching Ojibwe Culture classes.

She has a Bachelor of Science in Social Work and Bachelor of Arts in Indian Studies from Bemidji State University. She also has her Associate of Arts from Rainy River Community College. During her time at Rainy River, she had mentors that taught her more about her own Anishinaabe history and traditional teachings. Laurie assists with Cedar healing ceremonies, feasts, and other ceremonies in the White Earth Community. She has worked diligently advocating for Native families as the Co-Chair of the Indian Child Welfare Advisory Council for the past 6 years. Laurie has testified before the Minnesota legislature in Indian Child Welfare issues that affect tribal families. In March 2020, Laurie presented at the World United Nations in Vienna, Austria on an Indigenous panel to inform treaty and policy makers from around the world on the importance of our way of life and how it is key to our healing. Laurie is also a member of the Criminal Justice Institute, ICWA Subcommittee.

Joanna Woolman2022 Recipient

Joanna Woolman is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Institute to Transform Child Protection at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. She researches, writes, and presents about women’s experiences in the child protection and criminal justice systems. She also directs the Institute’s policy clinic where law students collaborate with stakeholders to directly advocate at the Minnesota legislature for child welfare system reform on behalf of families. She is a practicing attorney in Minnesota and represents parents whose children have been removed due to allegations of abuse and neglect.
She is a member of the ABA’s Center on Children and the Law’s Steering Committee for Parent Representation. She also regularly presents locally and nationally at trainings focused on parent advocacy, system reform, and trauma informed practice. She teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Feminist Jurisprudence.
Prior to joining the faculty at Mitchell Hamline, she worked as a public defender in the Tenth Judicial District in Minnesota. She is a graduate of the University of WI-Madison, with a BS in Wildlife Ecology and Botany, and received her JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law. She lives in South Minneapolis with her 9-year son Jack and two cats.

Justice Anne K. McKeig2020 Recipient

Justice Anne K. McKeig, a descendant of the White Earth Nation, is an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Justice McKeig made history as the first American Indian named to a state supreme court. In addition to this incredible accomplishment, she has committed over 25 years to serving Minnesota’s most vulnerable children and families in a number of capacities. Justice McKeig began her career in child welfare as an Assistant Hennepin County Attorney in 1992 in the Child Protection Division, where she specialized in Indian Child Welfare cases. She served as an ACA until 2008, when she was appointed by Governor Pawlenty to the 4th Judicial District bench. As an ACA and Hennepin County District Judge, she played a pivotal role in developing both state and national protocols and programs for child protection and Indian Child Welfare. She has also collaborated on practices to address child custody, domestic violence, sexual abuse, and equal access to justice.

Sandy White Hawk2019 Recipient

CASCW’s 2019 Child Welfare Leadership Award recognizes the statewide impact that Sandy White Hawk has had on the landscape of Minnesota’s child welfare field over the past eighteen years. Sandy is Sicangu Lakota, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Sandy has been a tireless advocate for Native families who have been impacted by separation by adoption or foster care. Sandy founded the First Nations Repatriation Institute (FNRI) in 2011. FNRI provides advocacy to all adoptees and fostered individuals and their families nationally and internationally. FNRI uses the lived experience of adoptees/formerly fostered individuals and birth relatives to inform training and education to social services providers in the cultural traditions and values of Native American families and their communities. Sixteen years ago, Sandy joined Tina Knafla, Jackie Wilson and others in naming and organizing the Gathering for Our Children and Returning Adoptees Annual Pow Wow in Minneapolis, MN. This pow wow will be in it’s 17th year with the support of Hennepin County, Minnesota Department of Human Services, Boise Forte Tribe, and other agencies. The pow wow serves to honor adoptees, fostered individuals and birth relatives in the Native American community. Adoptees and fostered individuals and birth relatives are invited to stand in the Wablenica Ceremony (Orphan Ceremony) to heal the grief and loss from separation from family and community and welcome them back to the circle of the Native Community. Young Relatives (youth who have aged out of foster care) are also specially honored by the gift of a star quilt and an honor song at this event and are reminded that they have an entire community behind them. Sandy has helped coordinate this gathering and ceremony in other communities in Minnesota and across the country. Sandy is an Honorary Witness for the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation on Residential Schools in Canada, is a Commissioner for the Maine Wabenaki Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and is also leading efforts to establish a TRC in Minnesota.

Mary Regan2018 Recipient

CASCW’s 2018 Child Welfare Leadership Award recognizes the statewide impact that Mary Regan, MSW, LICSW, has had on the landscape of Minnesota’s child welfare field over the past twenty years. Recently retired from ASPIRE (previously known as the Minnesota Council on Child Caring Agencies — MCCCA), Mary dedicated her professional career to the service of children and youth. During her time in the field, Mary advocated for children and youth who experienced significant trauma and difficulty in the face of complex needs, gaps in services, and unmet permanency. She has made it her mission to utilize research to inform policy and practice, while also leveraging practice and policy to inform emerging research. Mary’s nimbleness in engaging people and collaborating across communities, service settings, and interdisciplinary fields, significantly contributed to the changing landscape in child welfare and improved services. Her tenacity and fierceness as an advocate for children served through Minnesota’s private child welfare provider network has forever changed the lives of children, youth and families across the state.

Esther Wattenberg2017 Recipient

Professor Wattenberg is one of Minnesota’s most respected, well known, and longest serving child welfare professionals. Esther has educated and trained hundreds of the State’s current and past professionals. As a new professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota in 1951, she championed issues of professionalism for the child welfare workforce while applying pressure to human service systems to continually improve services for children and their families. She has worked tirelessly to advance policy and legislation while also being a fierce advocate for young children living in poverty and those in unsafe circumstances. In 1992, Esther founded and became the first Director of CASCW. For more than a decade Esther has held a dual position within the School of Social Work and at the Center for Urban and Rural Affairs (CURA). Esther holds a master of arts degree in social service administration from the University of Chicago. She has published in the field of integrated services, paternity issues, kinship care, school-linked services, protective supervision, immigrant families and children, and children in neglecting families. She was the editor of Practice Notes. Professor Wattenberg served on the Hennepin County Children’s Justice Initiative Task Force, the Mortality Review Committee of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, and was a member of the advisory committee for the Employment Action Center. Esther was a contributor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and her opinions have been published in the New York Times.

Dan Koziolek2016 Recipient

Dan has a seemingly endless dedication to ensuring the safety and well-being of children while also supporting families to take the steps needed so that they can provide for the safety, care, and well-being of their children. Dan is also relentlessly dedicated to supporting the professional development and well-being of his colleagues and staff. Dan served as the Child and Family Services Director of Carver County. Following a brief retirement from county service in January 2016, Dan organized a new consulting company called, Safety Planning Inc. Safety Planning Inc’s mission is to work with child welfare jurisdictions across the country that struggle with high costs and deeply entrenched challenges related to the provision of safety planning in child protection. The consulting work of Safety Planning Inc. is designed to free up funds in these jurisdictions for staff training and increase social worker time for learning and practicing new skills.

Priscilla Day2015 Recipient

Priscilla A. Day is a Professor in the Department of Social where she has worked since 1993. Fall 2012, she started her second term as department chair; previously she was department chair in 2000-2003. She also serves a Director for the Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare (2006-present). She wrote and trains for the Minnesota Department of Human Service, “Bridging our understanding: American Indian family preservation.” Her areas of research are American Indian family preservation and culturally competent practice. Priscilla is an Anishinabe tribal member enrolled at the Leech Lake reservation. She is the mother of three adult children and relishes her new role as grandmother.

David Thompson2014 Recipient

David Thompson, Interim Deputy Director of the Olmstead Implementation Office at Minnesota DHS, is best known for leading the Minnesota Alternative Response Demonstration Project, which realized the impressive outcomes of improved child safety and greater family stability while being cost-effective for the State. Mr. Thompson also worked for nearly 30 years on the front lines of Ramsey County child protection as a child protection social worker, supervisor, and manager. Mr. Thompson has been a community faculty member for the departments of Social Work at the College of St. Catherine and the University of St. Thomas. In 2007 David was awarded the Children’s Bureau Commissioner’s Award for his work on the implementation of Alternative Response in Minnesota.

Susan Ault2013 Recipient

Susan Ault is Senior Director in Strategic Consulting for Systems Improvement for Casey Family Programs. She has over 35 years of experience in child and family services, 20 of which are in public child welfare. As the former Director of Children and Family Services for Ramsey County Community Human Services she led numerous change efforts, including strategies to end racial disparities, that resulted in improvements in the delivery of services and outcomes for children and families. She also spearheaded efforts to end racial disparities and is also one of the pioneers of the Family Service Collaborative movement. She has also worked extensively on Indian child welfare issues, first with Leech Lake Family Services in Minnesota and then through participation in the development of the Minnesota Tribal State Agreement.

Anita Fineday2012 Recipient

Anita Fineday became the Managing Director of the Indian Child Welfare Program for the Casey Family Programs in 2011. She previously served as the Chief Judge for the White Earth Tribal Nation for 14 years and as an associate judge for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa. She has also taught federal Indian law and policy at the tribal college, university, and law school levels. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Colorado School of Law. She is an enrolled member of the White Earth Tribal Nation.

Joan Riebel2011 Recipient

Joan Riebel is a licensed clinical social worker with forty years of experience as a trainer, consultant, writer, and educator in a variety of child welfare settings. She is a graduate of the College of St. Benedict and the University of Minnesota where she earned her Master of Social Work degree. Joan has been recognized as a leader in the field of child welfare having held many national and local leadership positions. She received the Benedictine Service Award from the College of St. Benedict, the Morris Hirsch Award from the Minnesota Social Service Association, 100 Points of Light Award from the University of Minnesota, and Social Worker of the Year Award from the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Joan believes we have no greater responsibility than to our most vulnerable children.

Rob Sawyer2010 Recipient

Rob Sawyer has been a leader in developing and implementing innovative child protection practices in Minnesota for more than 40 years. He led the implementation of a number of child welfare and child mental health reforms including differential response in child protection, family group decision making, and domestic violence services and risk/needs classification. His leadership made Olmsted County a model for child protection practice, and his efforts have made a clear difference in the lives of abused and neglected children in Minnesota. He has served on numerous Minnesota state task forces interested in child welfare services. In February 2010 he was appointed a Senior Fellow by the American Humane Association Children’s Division.