We are pleased to announce our award winners for Employees of the Quarter and Team of the Quarter for Quarter 4, October – December 2021!
Employees of the Quarter
Andrea Blanchette – CAC Clinician
Andrea has been doing many tasks in addition to her Clinician role. She manages several grants, recruited, hired, and trained two Advocates and a temporary Advocate. Andrea has been working diligently to research and plan for a Family Justice Center for our region. For the practically the entire month of December, she was running the entire CAC—communicating with partner agencies families to schedule cases, conduct interviews if needed, providing advocacy if needed, making sure clients are safe and comfortable, and following up with team members and clients. -Traci McGarry
*Andrea has accepted another position as Revenue Accountant with Kawerak since the nomination for this award.
Meghan Topkok – Staff Attorney
Meghan demonstrated outstanding leadership and played an essential role in assisting the Native Village of Savoonga establishing their Reindeer Commercial Company LLC under a tight grant deadline!
Although away on a personal trip, Meghan went above and beyond ad took the Tim to ensure that the Savoonga Tribal Leadership was guided through the incorporation process and attained the necessary documents needed to ensure a successful outcome. We cannot express enough the gratitude for the professional legal expertise provided! Meghan went above and beyond without skipping a beat! She did so respectfully and passionately. We are so lucky to have her on the Kawerak, Inc. Team!
-Alice Bioff
Team of the Quarter – Kawerak Legal Team
Ali Wykis, Charlene Isabell, Billi Miller, Meghan Topkok
Meghan deserves recognition as Staff Attorney and direct supervisor for the rest of the legal team because of the excellent job she has done transforming our Legal Department. Over the two years, Meghan has single handedly grown our Legal Dept doubling in size to include the three positions occupied by Ali, Charlene and Billi. Meghan achieved this through an excellent on-going working relationship with the Tribal Justice Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who awarded Kawerak funding primarily because of their trust and confidence in Meghan and the relationship she developed with them.These awards were not given out nationally or even around Alaska as a matter of course—Meghan is the primary reason BIA Tribal Justice focused on Kawerak. This resulted in Kawerak being awarded several hundred thousand dollars now being used to fund these positions. In addition, this funding was used to fund a Tribal Justice Leadership Summit in which Meghan brought in leaders and service providers from all around the region and to work on developing tribal justice systems in the region. Expanding the Legal Department in this way is benefitting Tribes greatly and helps fulfill Board priorities to increase regional and Tribal capacity, and public safety and well being in the region.
What makes this even more of an accomplishment is that while she worked to put all this together, the pandemic hit and required that she work with Tribes on all the new legal issues surrounding this, including CARES funding issues, and how to continue operations in this environment. Noone asked Meghan to do any of this with respect to seeking and obtaining grant funding and building up the Legal Department. She chose to do this on her own initiative. And the result is a legal team that truly functions as a team and exemplifies the kind of teamwork, organization, and passion for the work that this EOQ Team Nomination was created to recognize.
Meghan submitted her own EOQ Team Nomination for the rest of her staff (herself not included), and following is her own words regarding their excellent work together as a team, and some of their accomplishments:
“The tribal legal services staff is above and beyond the most amazing group of folks I have had the pleasure to work with. They have stellar communication to coordinate the right services for our tribes and are always willing to spend the extra time to make sure projects are done right. In the past few months together they have drafted and revised over a dozen tribal codes, ranging from drafting domestic violence and child welfare codes to revising existing election codes and personnel policies. No task is too big or too small and no meeting is too early or too late for them to make time for. They have worked tirelessly pulling long weekends and late nights to make sure our tribes have all the toolsthey need to succeed, whether it’s filing multiple appellate briefs in state court, assisting in doing DV protective orders in tribal court, or troubleshooting with tribal coordinators to ensure elections run smoothly and most importantly safely during the pandemic. More than anything I see how this team is helping tribes and tribal councils bring healing to our tribal citizens and families for the generations to come. I am beyond grateful for their passion and dedication to uplifting our region!”
Nominated by: John Bioff and Meghan Topkok
