Renee Adams was adopted at the age of 2, to a middle class family. They worked hard, but their expectations of their child were “harder”. By the age of 13, Renee was placed back into the orphanage, The Miami Children's Home. By the age of 14, Renee began to runway, as she felt she didn’t belong; she was broken. Her days of walking the streets became tiring, until a couple of her so-called friends offered her a place to stay. Little did she know, that’s where it would all begin. Since her “friends” had done Renee a favor of finding her a place to stay, they now wanted payment for letting her stay there. She was only 14. Her predator began kicking her, as blood splattered from her head. The next thing she knew, she was taken to a truck stop to perform sexual activities for payment with knives to her throat and guns to her head. Renee decided that she could not live this way. Since the age of 17, she has lived a life as a survivor, until she became vulnerable with herself, by ripping off the band-aid and coming to grips on who she is and how worthy her life means to her. She now identifies as a Thriver! Renee will share her story in hopes that she can bring more awareness to others to end human trafficking.

Presentation Objectives:

· Discuss the survivor's lived experiences and how she entered back into the system

· Explain how and why she endured sex trafficking

· Express how the vulnerability within herself became my blessing in disguise

· Describe her plan to move forward to bring more awareness and help end human trafficking

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While health care providers are in a unique position to be able to respond to the needs of trafficking victims, they often do not have the training necessary for appropriate identification and response (Pardee, Munro-Kramer, Bigelow, & Dahlem, 2016). Studies surrounding the knowledge of health care providers in rural areas are scant (Cole & Sprang, 2015). The main goal of this research was to provide empirically-grounded data about knowledge and needs of key health care professionals in terms of identification and response to human trafficking victims/survivors in a frontier/rural state. A convenience sample of 404 health care professionals (including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapist, dentists, social workers, health sciences faculty, and other medical professionals) were recruited to complete an anonymous survey. Descriptive analyses were conducted using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS-24). Key findings include an increased knowledge of: providers’ professional preparation around human trafficking; their overall awareness of trafficking and specific knowledge of trafficking policies and confidence to respond; providers’ sense of responsibility to engage in identification of human trafficking as a routine element of practice; providers’ use of formalized protocols in the practice setting and knowledge of community resources, and; needs for the improvement of a coordinated statewide trafficking response. Such findings and other results will be presented and translated into both overall recommendations for improving the knowledge of and response of health care professionals to human trafficking in the state, as well as the role of social workers in ensuring collaborative research, practice, and advocacy.

Presentation Objectives:

· Discuss health care provider perceptions of the issue of human trafficking in the frontier context

· Identify cultural, social, professional, and other barriers to health care providers’ ability to respond to human trafficking

· Provide recommendations for improving the knowledge of and response of health care professionals to human trafficking and improving research, policy, training, and service capacity for human trafficking victims and survivors in the frontier state

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