Nez Perce Tribal Member Wendy Thomas Honored by the WA State Department of Children, Youth & Families

July 15, 2025 – Nez Perce Tribal Member Wendy Thomas received the Living Principles Award from the Washington State Department of Children, Youth & Families.  The Living Principles Award celebrates the successes of DCYF staff who achieve agency outcomes by embodying the DCYF Operating Principles.

Thomas serves as the DCYF’s Tribal Relations Early Learning Tribal Relations Administrator. She is responsible for all aspects of partnership and collaboration with all 29 federally recognized tribes in WA and other tribally affiliated and urban Indian populations in the arena of early intervention, education, and childcare.

She strives to promote and improve cultural learning and responsiveness to assure understanding of tribal issues that impact the effectiveness of early care and education services while promoting government-to-government relations. She also co-chairs the Indian Policy on Early Learning Committee (IPEL).

She was celebrated for her many achievements and contributions to the agency. For the 2023-2025 biennium, her team was successful in co-designing the $7.5 million Tribal Early Learning Fund (TELF) grant alongside tribal partners. 

Through this work, they served over 4,100 tribal children, prenatal to five, in early learning programs across Washington State.

The TELF grant was awarded to 16 Tribal Nations throughout the state, which is the most Tribal Nations served by any single early learning grant to date. These funds provided the opportunity for tribal programs and providers to incorporate educational programming that closely resembles the types of educational models they have chosen to define for themselves, and to include the whole community in traditional and cultural ways of knowing, being, and doing, consistent with their own Tribal cultures.

Thomas states, “Upholding sovereignty is inherent to me as a Nimiipuu ayet. Tribal sovereignty is the recognition that we, as tribal nations, have an inherent right to self-govern. In the face of colonization, upholding sovereignty is a collective generational responsibility to protect our rights, culture, and traditions.”

Additionally, these funds provided the opportunity for programs to incorporate programming that fits their needs and their communities over the entire school year.

In response to what she’d like to share regarding sovereignty, she shared one powerful statement, one that resonates with indigenous people throughout the country:

 workqoˀc kÍne núun wisÍix! We are still here!

See her online award presentation here: