‘She’s still here!’ Saving trafficking victims in Florida
Posted September 1, 2021, by Mindi Wisman
John Robertson
Our latest feature: Voices from the Field, is authored by John Robertson, Director of Membership Services at The Florida Network of Youth and Family Services. John brings us a first-hand, behind-the-scenes account of the complicated, compelling, and courageous work involved in helping young people who have been trafficked. Youth Catalytics has done its own work in the human trafficking field; Evaluation Specialist Melanie Wilson recently collaborated with the U.S. Department of Education on the report Human Trafficking in America’s Schools.
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I could barely hear the counselor on the other end of the call. He was pulled over in the emergency lane on I-4, our client’s towering case file on his lap. We were taking the rare step of requesting placement in a physically secure mental health facility for a young woman on the brink of several disastrous outcomes. Her counselor, a patient and tenacious man, was sifting through hundreds of pages as traffic blew past him outside. “Bear with me, I know I have it,” he said, as I sat 300 miles away, far more comfortably. “Take your time,” I replied, more concerned for his safety than our clients’ given the circumstances. He read numbers off a court order and I jotted them down; the latest requirements to hopefully unlock the next intervention for our client.
Our 16-year-old client was revealing the gaps in our care for trafficked minors with notable efficiency. She was beyond the control of her mom, and her father lived in a different country so he wasn’t able to help, despite his concerns. She came to our services due to chronic truancy, and through several counseling sessions slowly revealed information that made it clear she was being sexually exploited for profit by an adult trafficker. She would not put it in those terms, however, describing the man as her boyfriend and the person who cared for her most. When she started repeatedly fleeing emergency shelter, the situation became dire. The suspected trafficker was seen outside the shelter property, so our concern for her safety, and the safety of other youth demanded we escalate our intervention.
“She came to our services due to chronic truancy, and through several counseling sessions slowly revealed information that made it clear she was being sexually exploited for profit by an adult trafficker.”
Multiple systems were involved — the courts, child welfare, victim advocates, and law enforcement — and everyone was concerned. Our collective worry pointed to one difficult question, where could she go to be safe? Through a remarkable combination of interagency cooperation and therapeutic interventions with our client, we were able to transport her across the country to an organization specializing in treatment for youth exploited by traffickers. Their track record and expertise matched her needs better than any resource in Florida. Escorted by a county deputy and an agent from Homeland Security, she arrived and completed intake without incident. And then? She ran immediately. Not only was she back on the streets, but she was in a major city on the other side of the country. This disaster was compounding, and we had expended all options and resources available. Eventually, her story with us ended when she was found by law enforcement, and she expressed her desire to leave the United States and live with her father; so that is where her enormous case file was closed for good.
Welcome to working with minor victims of human trafficking. While this case stands out as the most comprehensive and immersive intervention effort I have experienced, several years later the characteristics of the case are emblematic:
Minor victims of trafficking rarely identify themselves as victims, or their traffickers as enemies. They identify the adults attempting to break the hold of the trafficker — the judges, counselors, youth care workers, Child Protective Investigators, parents, and victim advocates — as the enemies, not the trafficker.
Traditional voluntary residential placement is ill-equipped to meet the needs of youth who are hyper-reactive to stimuli, adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle, and subject to the pressures and threats of an external force like a trafficker.
Concerns about recruitment behavior and losing other clients to the same trafficker casts a negative light on the victim/survivor. The threat they represent often supersedes their own therapeutic needs, or their own humanity.
I don’t know if any of our efforts really helped our client, but she undeniably helped us learn how to better respond to a victim of trafficking. This case and others like it compelled us to redesign our services to acknowledge the realities of working with youth impacted by exploitation and trafficking. Our regimented systems of care with routine schedules and constant supervision increased anxiety for these youth, and made them feel alienated and unsafe. The typical length of stay for a youth identified as a possible victim of trafficking was measured in hours, rather than days; so that is where we started. We set one goal — increase the length of stay. I remember a call from a shelter manager along Florida's Central Gulf Coast, whom I’d consulted with on a Friday about a new intake. We established a protocol designed to keep her safe, and not create scenarios that would force her into a fight or flight response. My phone rang on Monday morning, and I heard the best words, “She’s still here!” I knew we were finally doing some things right.
“I don’t know if any of our efforts really helped our client, but she undeniably helped us learn how to better respond to a victim of trafficking. This case and others like it compelled us to redesign our services to acknowledge the realities of working with youth impacted by exploitation and trafficking. Our regimented systems of care with routine schedules and constant supervision increased anxiety for these youth, and made them feel alienated and unsafe.”
The current policies and procedures of the Florida Network agencies reflect all of the painful lessons we learned from each of our former clients who shed light on the negative outcomes of our positive intentions. Although clients will always run from shelter in their justifiable attempts to have control of their own lives, we now proudly measure their lengths of stay in days or weeks, and see many successful resolutions and reunifications. It wasn’t easy to get there, and there is always more we can do, but here is what we’ve learned.
Screening: Working with the Florida Departments of Children and Families, and Juvenile Justice, we designed and implemented a screening tool that captures the earliest indicators of potential for trafficking in a youth’s history or experience. By design, this tool does not have to be implemented by a licensed counselor, but rather the person with the best rapport, often the first youth care worker to welcome a youth to a shelter.
Enhanced Supervision: Enhanced supervision is much more than being an authoritarian set of eyes and ears; it allows for flexibility within an otherwise tightly regimented environment — it may mean breaking the rules for bedtime, meals, or the established behavior management system. If a youth is anxious and wanting to run, this extra staffing allows for a walk outside, or a trip to McDonalds for a caramel sundae and conversation.
Our Approach: We have embraced case management services that acknowledge a youth’s trauma, rather than focusing on their negative behaviors. Assessments that record their “ACEs” (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and incorporate understanding of how to serve severely traumatized youth are mandatory training topics for our direct care and clinical staff. The close coordination between these two teams is one of our most successful therapeutic tools.
The difficult realization at the core of our services for minor victims of trafficking is the acknowledgement that however nefarious and immoral the actions of traffickers may be, they are successful at meeting the needs of youth through their own manipulative and exploitive means. The only way we can compete with them is to demonstrate to victims, from the very first encounter, that we can help them in a compassionate and therapeutic manner. To do that, we have to be comfortable meeting their needs, in spite of our structured rules and policies. Increasing our tolerance of negative behaviors like disrespectful language, or some broken furniture, and taking a late night trip to McDonalds for care and conversation instead of enforcing consequences is a tradeoff we’re happy to make in order to save someone’s life.
For more information on this piece contact John at john@floridanetwork.org
If you would like to respond or share your experiences on this topic, please comment below.
For more information on human trafficking in runaway and homeless youth settings visit https://www.rhyttac.net/human-trafficking-