Patina Park, J.D.

ElevateMeD Board Member (2020)

Patina Park is Mnicoujou Lakota and is the President/CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center (MIWRC), a 35-year culturally grounded nonprofit agency dedicated to providing holistic, multi-service programming grounded in traditional teachings that help to heal, preserve, and strengthen Native American women and their families from the multi-generational trauma impact of settler colonization. Upon graduating from Hamline Law School in 2001, Ms. Park focused her early legal career on advocating for Native American families involved in child protection and private custody cases throughout Minnesota in both state and tribal courts.  Ms. Park previously served as an appellate court judge for the Prairie Island Sioux Community and taught Children and the Law and Federal Indian Law at the former Hamline University School of Law, now Mitchell Hamline School of Law. She is married to a 25-year veteran of the St. Paul Police Department and has two children, who like her, are on the autism spectrum.