Experts provided best practices for K-12 leaders on how to build a human trafficking and exploitation prevention program during a Sept. 4 webinar from the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments (NCSSLE).
Human trafficking and child exploitation can happen anywhere, speakers noted, and schools can be the safe spaces students need to learn about trafficking and exploitation prevention, and receive supports when necessary.
Dana Carr, a supervisory management and program analyst at the Office of Safe and Supportive Schools within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, discussed several federal resources outlining what schools can do to prevent, respond to and help students recover from human trafficking, as well as address the growing problem of domestic sex trafficking on minors through Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and more. These and other resources discussed and a recording of the webinar are available here.
NCSSLE training specialist and webinar moderator Cindy Carraway-Wilson teed up the conversation, which largely focused on the process of designing and implementing a prevention program.
“This is primarily a primary or first-tier approach because it provides programs and information universally to all staff and students. Sometimes during prevention programs, we know that a student may come forward with concern or to report that they or someone they know may be in the process of being trafficked or exploited in some way,” Carraway-Wilson said. “In this case, your primary prevention program can lead to a secondary or tertiary tier interventions. Because this does happen, it’s important for you to clarify your protocols and services for your secondary and tertiary interventions even as you’re designing your primary prevention program.”
She further encouraged local educational agencies “to look at your community and at your student population to identify systemic risk factors that might exist that traffickers and others who exploit young people might use to gain control of a student.”
Risk factors exist in all communities in some way, Carraway-Wilson said so it’s important to be aware of them. Federal guidance released in 2022, “Human Trafficking in America’s Schools: How Schools Can Combat Trafficking in Partnership with People with Lived Experience,” can provide LEAs a starting point.
Elements to consider when designing and implementing a human trafficking child exploitation prevention program include identifying those who will lead the charge, engaging students in the process, finding community partners, getting buy-in from parents who may be nervous about the appropriateness of such content, and engaging those with lived experience.
The importance of lived experience
“I am here today because of school staff that cared, when there were no programs, there were no educational seminars to fall back on, but they cared and they wanted to do something about it, and that was life-changing for me,” said Diana Cisneros a California-based educator, advocate and survivor consultant. “We as survivors see this issue from the inside out. We’ve lived it, we’ve breathed it. It’s been something that has consumed our lives for at least a period of time. And the experience that we bring to the table — whether it’s curriculum development or implementation or speaking or training or having us come in and speak to the students — we really are able to speak to it at a different level having lived it. And we’ve also fallen into the cracks in the system, so we can see where things go wrong and we can be a part of the solution to make it right.”
Ensuring that all students have this information is crucial, she said, “because you do not know what’s going on behind closed doors. I was a high achieving student, I was never in trouble, I was not considered a youth that was at risk, yet I was being trafficked by my family. So, it’s really important because you don’t know the vulnerabilities behind the situations. And if we’re not going to have kids fall through the cracks then everyone needs to be on the same page.”
Ensuring that those with lived experience are included early in the curriculum development process rather than at the review stage is vital to ensuring that a curriculum doesn’t need to be reworked once nearly complete to ensure that it’s not only trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate, but that it is empowering to young people, Cisneros explained.
Another California-based consultant and subject matter expert, Ummra Hang, echoed the call to work with people with lived experience in part so that students can see that exploitation can happen to people from very different backgrounds and demographics.
“There are the very minor details … those minor things can be missed if those with lived experiences is not involved on building out the curriculum,” Hang said. “So, it is very important as well for the students, for those receiving that education, to see a diverse group of people.”
Ensuring that messages are delivered from male, LGBTQ and other communities who may be overlooked due to stereotypes related to who experiences human trafficking is “being done with Rising Safe and Sound in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties,” she continued. The program includes people with lived experience teaching the curriculum.
Recommendations
Among the recommendations provided by experts, Hang hammered home the importance of including those with lived experience at every stage of the process. Because young people can feel alone in their situation, “we want the youth to be able to connect with who they are learning from so that they can have that safe space,” she said.
Cisneros noted the importance of also including student voices, and even letting them lead the development of some programming and/or resources. Additionally, starting from the top — educating governance teams, superintendents and others — is vital to having a plan for when students do come forward.
Finally, LEAs should work with what they have, she said. “Don’t reinvent the wheel. There’s a lot of people who have been forging these efforts ahead of us so we don’t have to start from scratch,” Cisneros said. “And if you see someone else that’s doing something that you think would fit well, contact them, reach out, figure out what would work for your specific setting.”
