Roxy Sprowl

Roxy Sprowl (she/they) – Bezhigonoodinkwe, or First Wind Woman – is a former-foster youth turned consultant and nationally recognized public speaker, passionate about Indian Child Welfare, education reform and transforming lived experience into systemic change through storytelling. She is a proud citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, holds a BSW from Michigan State University, and is pursuing her MSW at the University of Michigan as a Child Welfare Program Scholar. She has led award-winning research on racial representation in U.S. history curricula, chaired Indigenous student organizations and completed several internships. She served on the Michigan Indian Education Council; as a Building Communities of Hope Fellow with the Center for Native American Youth (CNAY); and as a community mentor for Indigenous youth. She is a 2023 National Udall Scholar and 2024-25 NASW Consuelo-Gosnell Scholar.

Currently, Roxy serves as an elected Board Member for the National Indian Child Welfare Association and is employed at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services in the Native American Affairs Division of Children’s Services. Her advocacy focuses on uplifting and centering cultural connections, familial ties, and identities of Indigenous foster youth through program coordination and policy reform. 

At the age of five she entered the foster care system and remained for 13 years with a non-Native kinship foster placement. Through her working experience as a lived experience expert and professional advocate, she has seen the internal complications with compliance to ICWA and the Michigan Indian Family Preservation Act. She continues to relay her knowledge regarding compliance, applicability and accessibility barriers through state and nationwide training regarding Indian Child Welfare with the hope that every Native youth is able to maintain their culture, family and confidence