Finding Your Strengths: An Effective Framework for Engaging High Risk and Sex Trafficked Youth
Rebekah Dettmann, MSW, APSW & Claudine O'Leary, BA | September 22 | 11:15 am-12:15 pm
Topic: Programming, Direct Service | Knowledge Level: Intermediate
Youth service providers in all settings encounter young people identified as high risk for, believed to be, or known to have been commercially sexually exploited or sex trafficked. Barriers to successful engagement with young people emerge for a variety of reasons. Young people’s reluctance and mistrust of systems, coupled with their transience, present challenges. Service providers miss opportunities to engage youth at each level of readiness and teams become inactive until a crisis. While many service providers receive specific training on the subject, they continue to seek tangible tools and concrete resources to make meaningful connections. “Building a Strong Team Response to High Risk and Trafficked Youth” and “Finding Your Strengths” are companion tools created as part of a Milwaukee based public-private partnership. The tools serve to enhance youth service providers’ response and give both providers and youth ways to articulate strength and resiliency factors they possess to achieve their goals. Both tools were informed by research literature, listening sessions with stakeholders across the state, and input from youth focus groups. The free tools are intentionally inclusive of all geographical experiences, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and all genders. The framework of this presentation and the materials reviewed are also inclusive of all types of lived experiences, such as youth engaging in survival sex, solicitation by individual purchasers of sex, sexual exploitation occurring online, peer recruitment, and those with a trafficker. A summary of findings, the development process, as well as practical applications and recommendations for use will be shared in this session.
Presentation Objectives:
· Describe the development process and findings used to create a set a strengths-based tools specific to commercially sexually exploited youth (CSEY)
· Explain how to use the tools to improve team-based responses to CSEY and identify strengths, resilience, and protective factors with young people
Discuss opportunities to use the tools in various settings and give recommendations for addressing potential challenges in using the tools