April 2021Monthly Update
Updates
Save the Date: 2021 HT-RADAR Annual Research Conference
October 15, 2021
- Learn about local and national human trafficking research that applies to the specific needs, practices, and approaches of a variety of stakeholders (law enforcement, prosecution, victim services, survivors, etc.).
- Become informed of some of the most current local and national human trafficking research.
- Network with local and national experts from different areas of human trafficking research.
- Discuss how to implement research into specific stakeholder areas with consultation from local and national experts.
- Directly share research with stakeholders to potentially influence stakeholder practices, approaches, and policies.
Additional conference details to follow.
Interested in presenting your research on human trafficking? Please complete the following information form here.
Quarterly Meeting
Next Quarterly Meeting:
The next HT-RADAR meeting is scheduled for June 24th 2021 from 11:30am to 1:30pm (PST) and will be held virtually over Zoom. Meeting details to follow.
HT-RADAR March Meeting:
Exploring Human Trafficking Research Gaps in San Diego Recap
The March 2021 HT-RADAR Quarterly meeting brought together people from across the region, state and nation to a group discussion about how data and research can positively impact direct services to survivors of human trafficking. Melissa Haupt, Program Director of Project LIFE at North County Lifeline, moderated the meeting, which featured two breakout sessions to get group input on two questions:1) Gathering data on clients is an important way agencies identify the demographics of who they are serving, the issues facing clients and how clients are referred to agencies. It is also important for funding, with most funders requiring reporting on specific data sets. Data also helps researchers answer research questions. Discuss with your group what data points are important to gather. What types of data do agencies need to justify funding?
2) What are we missing in San Diego county in terms of what services victims and survivors need?
Community Highlights
STAR Court Study: Initial Results
The Judicial Council’s Center for Families, Children & the Courts has partnered with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to conduct a comprehensive study of the Succeeding Through Achievement and Resilience (STAR) Court, a juvenile collaborative court program focused on providing services to commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC) or youth at risk of exploitation.
This research update provides descriptive data about STAR Court participants. This study used a mixed-methods approach to explore characteristics of STAR Court participants and to examine the STAR Court’s impact. Researchers conducted interviews and focus groups with the court’s multidisciplinary team—including the judge, prosecutor, defense attorneys, probation officers, treatment providers, and education advocates—and with a sample of transitional age youth who successfully completed the STAR Court program. The researchers also conducted an exhaustive review of case files for the 364 youth who began the court program between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2016. The case files included histories of arrests, detentions, child welfare involvement, health, mental health, and substance use. The study procedures were approved by the UCLA Institutional Review Board and the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, juvenile division
Free to Thrive is Launching a Statewide Network for Attorney’s Representing Trafficking Survivors in Criminal Vacatur Matters
California’s criminal vacatur law (codified under Cal. P.C. Section 236.14) became law on January 1, 2017. Free to Thrive’s founder, President and Managing Attorney, Jamie Beck, worked with the Lawyers Club of San Diego to advocate for the bill prior to its passage. When the vacatur law went into effect in 2017, Beck started Free to Thrive to help trafficking survivors use this new law to get a fresh start. This law allows human trafficking survivors to clear non-violent criminal records related to their exploitation through a process called “criminal Vacatur”. Trafficking survivors are often forced by their traffickers to commit a battery of crimes including prostitution, drug and theft crimes, fraud, and even trafficking other victims. Too often, law enforcement fails to identify them as victims at the time of arrest, or they outright deny their victimization when they are identified. Many victims are so controlled by and/or fearful of their traffickers, they would rather serve time in jail or prison than cross them by telling law enforcement about their exploitation. As a result, trafficking survivors often incur criminal records that then prevent them from obtaining employment, housing and an education. That is why Beck and others worked so hard to pass this law to help break down these barriers for survivors.
Now, after four years of representing survivors in Vacatur matters. Free to Thrive is launching a new initiative to bring together survivor attorneys throughout the state of California to work together in their advocacy for survivors.
More information about the program and volunteering can be found here
The FTT Vacatur Attorney Network will kick off with a virtual interactive dialogue on Monday, April 26th at 5:00 PM PST. For more information and to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/
National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children and Youth in the
United States: Best Practices and Recommendations for States
Effective Strategies to Investigate and
Prosecute Labor Trafficking in the U.S.
- Target Audience: Law enforcement, prosecutors, victim service providers, and allied professionals
- Overall Objective: To identify labor trafficking and the modes, means, and methods with which offenders recruit and control victims; investigate labor trafficking through targeted, data-driven operations, as well as in response to identified red flags, victim disclosures, and tips from allied partners; implement trauma-informed practices to support victims, encourage participation, and conduct effective interviews; and hold offenders accountable by employing offender-focused prosecution strategies and leveraging multiple avenues to justice.
More information about this online training series can be found - Includes: A training series featuring subject matter experts discussing strategies to help police and prosecutors to proactively identify victims of labor trafficking and effectively investigate and prosecute traffickers using a victim-centered and trauma-informed approach
Opportunities and Resources
Webinars
HT-RADAR offers information about webinars focused on anti-trafficking work and anti-trafficking research. As many of us are working remotely, here are some resources for additional educational opportunities:
Core Competencies for Human Trafficking Response in Healthcare and Behavioral Health Systems
Webinar offered by: Freedom Network USA
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) has released a new report on core competencies, or skill sets that healthcare and behavioral health practitioners should have in order to more effectively identify and serve individuals who have either experienced trafficking or are at risk of trafficking. The goal of these competencies is to improve the response to human trafficking through a more trauma-informed and culturally responsive lens.
Investing in Freedom: How we place ‘leave no one behind’, economic regeneration and modern slavery at the heart of a post-covid response
Webinar offered by: The Freedom Fund
This webinar brings a variety of global voices together from the government, the human rights, anti-slavery and development sectors to discuss the broader economic impacts of slavery.
Mandatory Reporting of Human Trafficking
Webinar offered by: HEAL Trafficking
This webinar explored a topic of increasing concern to healthcare professionals, lawyers, and other advocates. In recent years, increasing numbers of states have been amending their laws to require reporting of human trafficking, especially of children. These laws usually cover sex trafficking and sometimes include labor trafficking. Mandatory reporting requirements raise many clinical, legal, ethical, and implementation issues.
The 21st Century Cures Act – Open Notes and Privacy for Human Trafficking Survivors
Webinar offered by: HEAL Trafficking
Panelists discuss the 21st Century Cures Act and its requirement that patients have immediate access to their medical record. It discusses some of the potential safety challenges that this might present to trafficked individuals as well as possible IT solutions for addressing these challenges. Lastly, panelists discuss how to have conversations with your patients about the limits of privacy in electronic medical records.
Conferences
(Listed here)
This resource is regularly updated. Questions? Or know of conferences that you’d like to share with the HT-RADAR network? Contact us!
During this uncertain time conference dates are changing frequently. Please note these dates may be changed and changes will be updated on the HT-RADAR website.
UT Health, San Antonio School of Nursing
Virtual Conference: April 21-22, 2021
Victims’ Rights Week Conference
South Carolina Victim Assistance Network (SCVAN)
Virtual Conference: May 11-19, 2021
Light 2021: A Virtual Conference on Human Trafficking
Center for Prevention of Abuse
Virtual Conference: May 12-13, 2021
Build Beyond Conference: A Clinically-Focused Annual Training
Ascent 121
Virtual Conference: May 20-21, 2021
Academy Health
Virtual Conference: June 12-15, 2021
Exploitation 2021: Tackling the Culture and Challenges of Trafficking, Slavery and County Lines
University of Kent
Virtual Conference: June 24-25, 2021
Funding Opportunities
(Listed here)
This resource page is regularly updated.
OVC FY 2021 Services for Victims of Human Trafficking
Office of Victims of Crime Funding
The purpose of this program is to develop, expand, or strengthen victim service programs for victims of human trafficking. Applicants are invited to apply under three purpose areas.
Purpose Area 1: Developing Capacity to Serve Human Trafficking Victims
Purpose Area 2: Enhancing Scope of Services for Human Trafficking Victims
Purpose Area 3: Specialized Services for Human Trafficking Victims
Close Date: April 30, 2021
Ray Solem Foundation
Ray Solem Foundation Funding
The Foundation provides grants to organizations throughout the United States that support creative ways for helping immigrants in the United States become productive and valued members of society.
Close Date:
Research on the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting recession in the U.S.
Russell Sage Foundation Funding
Research on the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting recession in the U.S. Specifically, research that assesses the social, political, economic, and psychological causes and consequences of the pandemic, especially its effects on marginalized individuals and groups and on trust in government and other institutions. Our priorities do not include analyses of health outcomes or health behaviors. RSF seldom supports studies focused on outcomes such as educational processes or curricular issues, but does prioritize analyses of inequities in educational attainment or student performance
Close Date: May 4, 2021
Research focused on systemic racial inequality and/or the recent mass protests in the U.S.
Russell Sage Foundation Funding
Research focused on systemic racial inequality and/or the recent mass protests in the U.S. Specifically, research that investigates the prevalence of racial disparities in policing and criminal justice and their social, political, economic, and psychological causes and consequences; the effects of the current social protest movement and mass mobilization against systemic discrimination; the nature of public attitudes and public policies regarding policing, criminal justice, and social welfare; and the effects of those attitudes in the current political environment.
Close Date: May 4, 2021
Hillman Innovations in Care Program: 2021 Focus on Racism and Health
Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation Funding
The Hillman Innovations in Care (HIC) Program was established in 2014 to advance innovative, nursing-driven models of care that target the health and healthcare needs of groups and communities who have historically struggled against oppression, discrimination and indifference. These populations include Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), the economically disadvantaged, LGBTQ+ people, people experiencing homelessness, low-income rural populations, and others. This year the HIC program is issuing a special call for submissions that address racism and its impact on health.
Close Date: June 1, 2021