Course Chairs
Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton
Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack
About the Course Chairs
Romona Baxter is a member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation and has a Bachelor Degree in Social Work from the University of Victoria.
Romona has worked as the Executive Director of the Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre for 20 years, a non-profit Indigenous organization dedicated to providing early years programs and services designed to enhance the health, well-being, and resilience of Nlaka’pamux children and their families.
She has worked on several Federal, Provincial, and Nation based initiatives, including: Aboriginal Head Start/Maternal Child Health, "Reaching Out to Families – An Outreach/Home Visiting Training Manual," Society for BC Children and Youth; "Aboriginal Child Friendly Communities – A toolkit"; and served as Regional Advisor for BC First Nations Aboriginal Head Start. Recently, she also worked as the Program Coordinator of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council ShchEma-mee.tkt Project as well as served on the editorial board and co-facilitated workshops on the "Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook" (published by the ShchEma-mee.tkt Project).
Ardith (Walpetko We'dalks) Walkem, QC is a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation which stretches from the Interior of BC into Washington State. She has a Master of Laws from UBC (with a research focus on Indigenous laws and oral traditions). Ardith has practiced extensively with different Indigenous communities and in assisting Indigenous communities to assert their Aboriginal Title and Rights and Treaty Rights, with a focus on assisting Indigenous communities to articulate their own laws and legal systems. She has worked as Parents Counsel on CFCSA cases, as counsel for Indigenous nations in matters involving their child members, and has helped to design systems based on Indigenous laws for children and families. Most recently, she wrote Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook (2015, published by the ShchEma-meet.tkt project) and has worked with Indigenous communities to recover and implement their own laws, in the areas of resource management and child welfare.
Faculty
Halie Kwanxwa'loga Bruce — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack
Dr. Peter Choate — Professor, Child Studies and Social Work, Faculty of Health, Community and Education, Mount Royal University, Calgary
Dr. Hadley Friedland — Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Dawn Johnson — Children and Families Policy Analyst for the First Nations Leadership Council, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver
Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria
Joanna Recalma — Barrister & Solicitor, Nanaimo
Crystal Reeves — Mandell Pinder LLP, Vancouver