Ah-in-nist has been working in Indian country as a facilitator and consultant for many years helping to promote education and healing of a wellness way of life.
Clifford "Ah-in-nist" Sipes is currently a youth specialist at the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and works with The National Center on the Sexual Behavior of Youth. He specializes in getting youth and young adults involved in training the professionals that serve them and creating youth advisory groups. He regularly trains mental health and non-mental health professionals on how to work with young people including law enforcement, educators, and caregivers. He is an indigenous person with family ties in both Oklahoma and Montana.
C. Ah-in-nist Sipes, is by profession a Youth Engagement Specialist for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Administration. He has extensive experience in establishing, recruiting, preparing, mentoring, sustaining, facilitating, and training youth advisory participants at the local, state, and national level. All the youth that are part of the advisory youth boards he has responsible for are those with lived experiences. As a youth he worked with the DOJ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) tribal youth programs, Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) grantees, IHS Meth-Suicide programs, B&GClubs, cultural camps, and trauma treatment programs. In his current position, he recruits, screens, and works intensely with youth to develop leadership and advocacy skills as well as promotes trauma informed principles, and supports safe and growth enriching environments as youth with lived experiences find their voice and passion. He is not a therapist but is a great youth facilitator and trainer. He is the Youth Advisory Board facilitator for the National Center on Sexual Behavior of Youth. This center is a comprehensive program for children and adolescents who have engaged in problematic or illegal sexual behaviors and those youth who are involved in the courts or probation. He established the first youth advisory board with the center which has created many products and policy changes. As the son of a Cheyenne Chief and Pipe Carrier John L. Sipe Jr, his own lived experience is of traditional teachings and being raised on the stories of his elders. He is a husband to Megan and the father to their two children. He lives in Oklahoma and is active in his faith.