Jodi
Assiniboine and Gros Ventre
Washington University

Jodi Abbott (Assiniboine and Gros Ventre) was raised by a single mother on the Fort Belknap Indian reservation. Her mother left the reservation during the Indian Relocation program at 16. Her mother lost her husband at a young age in a work-related accident, and in her grief she was left to raise two children. She later met and married Jodi's father, but that marriage ended in a divorce, forcing the family to move back to Fort Belknap reservation. She says her mother always wanted to become a nurse who eventually became a nurse.

Today, Abbott is graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis- George Warren Brown School of Social Work at St Louis, Missouri, concentrating in Social and Economic Development.

Before attending graduate school, she spent many years working in the social services field as a Disabilities Coordinator, TANF caseworker, Upward Bound Summer Component Coordinator, Activities Director, and still found time to coach youth baseball and basketball and raising her nephew

Talking about the importance of education, Abbott states, “I believe it is through education that I will be able to enrich my life as well as Coby's and the loved ones that surround us.” She adds with a master's degree in hand she “will have the capacity and education to be an agent for change and work for American Indian Tribes across the United States.”

Abbott is also a graduate of Salish Kootenai College in Pablo, Montana, with a bachelor's degree in human services. She was recently named a Vine Deloria, Jr, Memorial scholar by the American Indian College Fund.