WFGSL Seeking Solutions Symposium Summary Final
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Transcript of WFGSL Seeking Solutions Symposium Summary Final
Seeking Solutions Symposium
For Issues Facing St. Louis Women and Girls
Presented by the Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
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Symposium Summary
Acknowledgements
The Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis would like to thank all those who helped make
the Seeking Solutions Symposium possible, including:
Gourmet to Go
Nine Network of Public Media
Joseph H. and Florence A. Roblee Foundation
Regional Arts Commission
Cynthia Crim, Program Chair for the Seeking Solutions Symposium
Presenters: Janelle Gibson, Patricia Rich, Jennifer Swain, Dawn Thompson
Facilitators: Margaret Howard, Judie Johnson, Jane Klieve, Kathy Lambert, Jennifer Swain,
Dawn Thompson
Recorders: Karina Garcia, Antoinette Grier, Serena Muhammad, Sandhya Vollala
Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis Board of Directors, committee members and
volunteers
Cindy Follman, Independent Consultant, Symposium Summary Writer
Background
The Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis’s mission is to “raise awareness and provide
funding for organizations that address the needs of girls and women.” One of the ways in which
the foundation helps to raise awareness is through efforts to convene, educate and collaborate
with other community organizations to address issues that girls and women face in the St. Louis
region. The purpose of the Seeking Solutions Symposium, convened by the Women’s
Foundation of Greater St. Louis and supported by grant funds from the Joseph H. and Florence
A. Roblee Foundation, was to provide an overview of the challenges facing women and girls in
the St. Louis region today, and to identify local strengths, gaps in services and collaborative
opportunities to provide effective prevention, intervention and treatment for girls and women in
the region who are most at risk. The Symposium also addressed the increasing incidence of
human trafficking in the St. Louis region to increase awareness about the issue and to determine
strategies for developing a continuum of care for girls and women most affected by this issue.
Clips from the documentary, The Makers: Women Who Make America, were shown as
Symposium attendees arrived and were seated as an introduction to women’s issues in America.
The complete video can be viewed at http://video.pbs.org/program/makers-women-who-make-
america/.
Pat Rich, Founder and Past President of the Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis welcomed
attendees to the Seeking Solutions Symposium, and provided a brief overview of the Women’s
Foundation, including its fundraising strategies and grant making objectives. For more
information about the Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis, please visit its website at
www.wfstl.org.
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State of the Union: Women and Girls To gain a better understanding of the critical issues facing women and girls in the St. Louis
region and the state of Missouri, Janelle Gibson, Board Member and Chair of the Research
Committee of the Women’s Foundation, presented key data, service areas, trends and issues that
women and girls face in the St. Louis region today.
Ms. Gibson’s presentation included overwhelming data pointing to the ongoing challenges that
women and girls face in the St. Louis region and the state of Missouri. Access and opportunity
disparities are at the core of these challenges, particularly as they relate to health care, personal
safety, family support and social service assistance, employment and educational attainment at
the secondary school level. Women are much more likely to live in poverty in Missouri than
men, and this gap increases as women age. Human trafficking has also emerged as an increasing
safety risk for women and girls in the state of Missouri. In 2012, the Polaris Project National
Human Trafficking Resource Center identified 255 hotline calls for Missouri from which 35
potential victims were identified in 2012. Of those high-risk calls, half were suspected sex
trafficking, and most originated from the St. Louis, Kansas City and Branson areas.
Ms. Gibson identified key gaps in addressing the access and opportunity challenges to health,
safety, education and economic opportunity that women and girls in our community face, which
include:
Access to affordable and accessible health care outside the urban core, including preventative
services, chronic disease management and outreach to women over 65
Access and education to information and services regarding reproductive health decision
making
Bilingual services and outreach
Shared referral sources for co-morbid health issues such as mental health or substance abuse
Identification of and services for trafficking victims
Continued advocacy for pay equity
Funding for “safety net” services to keep women working, such as affordable housing, child
care subsidies and health care
Supportive services to keep girls and young women working toward diploma/degree
completion
Support for STEM programs for girls
Financial literacy training for women and girls
Ultimately, the key is developing an all-inclusive safety net for women and girls that surrounds
them with the access and supports they need to be successful in their lives, as demonstrated by
the visual below:
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Safety Net for Women and Girls
For more data and information, Ms. Gibson’s complete PowerPoint presentation is available in
its entirety on the Women’s Foundation website at www.wfstl.org.
Small Group Discussion Highlights
The State of the Union: Women and Girls presentation provided an overview of the many
challenges facing women and girls in Missouri and the local St. Louis region, and provided the
context for Symposium attendees to engage in discussion groups to dig deeper into many of the
critical issues identified. Attendees were divided into three discussion groups. Each group
rotated between three different topical discussions and engaged in a brainstorming and dialogue
session to identify key resources and strengths in the community for the specific topics being
addressed, current gaps in services and collaborative opportunities. Topics addressed in each
discussion group room were chosen through a voting/prioritization process by the members of
the first discussion group that started the rotation in that location. Each of the following groups
that rotated to a new location continued the discussion based on those topics selected by the first
group. Each group discussion included a facilitator and a recorder.
The notes provided by the recorders of each discussion session were compiled. Highlights
follow with a more thorough summary of all discussion group sessions included in Appendix A.
Overarching Topics Addressed in Discussion Groups
Financial/Economic stability/Entrepreneurship (i.e., credit counseling)
Economic imperatives (i.e., education, child care, housing, employment, transportation)
Building self-confidence/Inner strength and power (i.e., beauty, personal growth, self-
confidence)
Intersection between domestic violence and human trafficking
Formal support systems (i.e., mentoring, qualitative support)
Healthy relationships/Psychological (i.e., education and training)
Current Services/Strengths Available in the St. Louis Region
The St. Louis Region has many excellent organizations, programs and collaborative efforts
currently available that provide services to girls and women in the areas of:
Success for
Women
Basic Needs Supports
Personal Safety
Educational Opportunities
Economic Opportunities
Strong Community
Organizations
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Domestic violence
Education—access to college, after school programming, anti-bullying, early childhood
education, innovative education models
Employment preparation programs for youth and women
Financial education and economic empowerment of youth and women—financial education
and savings programs, entrepreneurship and loan programs
Housing
Human trafficking
Immigrant and refugee women’s support
Mental health
Support services
Youth development—self-esteem, confidence, leadership-building
Key Service Gaps/Needs
While there are many strong resources in the region, there remain many gaps in services and
needs that continue to be unmet for girls and women in the St. Louis region. These include:
Basic needs—affordable housing, child care, reliable transportation, employment that pays a
living wage, access to mental and physical health care services
Education and outreach— mentoring for girls and women, efforts that target boys/young men
and multiple age-ranges, role models, parental engagement, personal safety and sex
education, employment-related education and skill-building, and more
Community resources and collaboration—increased knowledge-sharing, coordination and
collaboration between service providers, enhanced connections to develop a stronger
continuum of care and shared funding
Advocacy and media—media training regarding the portrayal of girls and women in the
media and gender stereotypes, anti-bullying legislation, public policy advocacy for increased
support of girls’/women’s issues
Human trafficking services—shelters, mental health services, training, increased public
awareness
Collaborative Opportunities
Discussion group participants then brainstormed a variety of strategies, action steps and ideas to
address girls’ and women’s issues collaboratively. One of the significant realizations of many
attendees during the course of the Symposium was that they were not familiar with the breadth of
organizations represented and what each organization does. Thus, many of the suggestions
regarding collaborative opportunities related to convening and networking of girls’ and women’s
service organizations in the region, while others focused on collaborations and partnerships to
address many of the key issues noted above. Highlights of these strategies follow:
Convening/Networking
Convene quarterly meetings for community organizations to share knowledge, experience
and develop partnership opportunities
Move out of service “silos,” develop organizational knowledge and relationships across the
region
Peer to peer networking
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Bring organizations together that are dealing with similar issues to discuss services, lessons
learned, evaluation strategies and increasing service capacity
Develop a map of service providers throughout the region/state to increase knowledge and
connections and catalyze a more comprehensive safety net for girls and women in need
Opportunity for Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis to provide a database of
information on girls’ and women’s organizations/services
Service Collaboration Opportunities
Enhance collaborations between health/mental health service providers, domestic violence
and runaway youth service providers
Enhance collaboration between mental health and physical health providers
Develop educational services for both boys and girls about healthy relationships and respect
for one another through public of awareness campaigns, resource fairs, media outlets,
counseling & mental health services, etc.
Build on successful current or emerging collaborations
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Human Trafficking Presentation
A key area of focus for the Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis for the Seeking Solutions
Symposium was to address the growing incidence of human trafficking in the state of Missouri
and the St. Louis region. According to “Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or
other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other
forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery,
servitude or the removal of organs” (www.unodc.org). This summary refers to human
trafficking throughout, but sex trafficking falls under the umbrella of human trafficking, and was
the primary focus of the presentations and discussions at the Symposium. To address this
troubling and complex issue, the Women’s Foundation brought two women to St. Louis to speak
to Symposium attendees about human trafficking and how they have addressed it in their
communities.
The presenters were Jennifer Swain, End Child Sex Trafficking Program Manager of youthSpark
in Atlanta, Georgia, and Dawn Thompson, Assistant Executive Director of Kristi House Child
Advocacy Center in Miami, Florida. Their presentations were moderated by Margaret Howard, a
Therapist and Consultant at Mother Ocean Transformation Services and a frequent reporter and
writer on the topic of human trafficking.
Crucial to this presentation was the introduction by Ms. Howard of the Missouri and federal
statutes related to human trafficking. These important to understand statutes follow, and set the
stage for the presentations by the guest speakers and the ensuing discussion.
Human trafficking is any commercial sex act in which the commercial sex act is
induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform
such an act has not attained 18 years (Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act
of 2000, Public Law 106-386 (22 USC § 7102; 8 CFR § 214.11(a) and 18 U.S.C.
§ 1591. Section 1591) and Missouri Laws 566.200—566.213 RSMo).
Additionally, the buying (exchange of any good, service, or money) of sex from a
person under 18 years of age is subject to penalty under federal and Missouri
human trafficking statutes, whether or not a third party is involved. It is not an
affirmative defense that the buyer did not know the age of the victim. US
Department of Justice, http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/statutes.php.
Ms. Swain of youthSpark then presented a very powerful sex trafficking prevention Public
Service Announcement developed by her agency that is targeted to boys as young as 12 years of
age. The group viewed the video, and then debriefed it with Ms. Swain. One of the goals
youthSpark had in producing this video was to create a PSA that would not provoke laughter
from the boys who watched it, and Ms. Swain felt they were successful in accomplishing this.
youthSpark uses this Public Service Announcement to help youth understand human trafficking,
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and to encourage them to stay away from situations that “look” like the scenarios presented in
the video. youthSpark is now working to bring youth into conversation about the prevention of
human trafficking with a focus on younger boys. Please note: You can view the PSA at
http://www.youth-spark.org/learn/prevention-psa/.
Ms. Thompson than addressed her experience with Kristi House and the work that her
organization does to support victims of human trafficking. She noted that most youth
who are victims of human trafficking tend to be minority, low-income youth, while the
consumers of sex trafficking tend to be middle-class, white males. Many of the girls who
are engaged in sex trafficking are also in the foster system and have a history of abuse.
As a result, these young girls are “poly-victims,” who have suffered severe and repeated
trauma. Because of the trauma they have endured, they often run away and return to
abusive situations. However, many ultimately return to the safety of Kristi House or
another safe location. It is critically important in working with these young girls to
ensure that they feel that they are not being judged, and that they are in a safe space with
safe people who are nonjudgmental and willing to listen to their stories. Kristi House
uses motivational interviewing, and starts by meeting the girls’ most basic needs and
providing them with a nurturing environment. The girls also work with case managers
who “look like them.”
Both youthSpark and Kristi House have conducted extensive training programs for key
stakeholder groups that are instrumental in the prevention and intervention of human trafficking.
youthSpark led an initiative to provide a training protocol for first-line responders, with a focus
on law enforcement in the Atlanta area. Kristi House conducted training for Miami International
Airport staff, as well as law enforcement. Once a group of stakeholders are trained, they can
then help train others within their own stakeholder group, so it becomes more peer to peer
training. An important emphasis of the training initiatives is for these stakeholders to develop
policies for their own organizations that lead to changes in how they identify and respond to
human trafficking situations.
Symposium attendees then engaged in discussion with the presenters. Highlights of this
discussion follow:
There is a significant need to build a local infrastructure in the St. Louis region and across the
state to address human trafficking.
o The St. Louis Rescue and Restore Coalition is a critical group in the area working to
address the development of a safety net to address human trafficking in Missouri.
Collaboration statewide is imperative, and many partners are needed to be a part of this
effort. A significant barrier to accessing services for victims is transportation, and this
needs to be addressed.
o The Dignity Network is another local collaborative addressing human trafficking locally.
Ms. Swain advised that when forming coalitions and addressing human trafficking, it is vital
for all organizations and individuals to “REMOVE THEIR EGOS.”
Other lessons learned and shared by the guest speakers included: be flexible, and be careful
about who you collaborate with. Ensure that collaborative partners are part of the solution.
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Lobby days are useful for educating the public sector and local representatives about human
trafficking issues and legislation/laws. youthSpark has led significant efforts to advocate for
legislative changes to address human trafficking.
Trauma-informed assessment/intakes are critical. Agencies and case workers want to ensure
that they look at the whole history of the youth’s trauma. However, this cannot happen the
first time she/he comes in for care. The first step is to make sure the youth is safe both
mentally and physically by doing a simple assessment prior to engaging that individual in a
longer assessment.
Education and awareness are key.
When working with human trafficking victims, do not try to use the language that the youth
use. Do learn their street names. Often this can be found through social media. You must be
media savvy in doing this work.
youthSpark has produced a tool kit and action guide for other communities and agencies to
use to address human trafficking. The publication is entitled A Future. Not a Past. Stop the
Prostitution of Our Nation’s Children, Toolkit and Action Guide. This resource is available
at www.afnap.org.
Human Trafficking Small Group Lunch Discussion Highlights
Immediately after the panel presentation and discussion, attendees gathered into three small
group discussions over lunch to further address human trafficking prevention, intervention and
recovery in the St. Louis region and across Missouri. Each lunch discussion was facilitated by
the presenters of the Human Trafficking Panel Presentation. Critical points of information that
came out of the small group lunch discussions follow below. Please note: the key information
points presented below include lessons learned and other contributions from the human
trafficking panel presenters based on their experiences working with sex trafficking victims in
their own communities. In addition, a list of local organizations and coalitions addressing human
trafficking issues in Missouri and the St. Louis Region was also generated from the lunch
discussions and can be found in Appendix B.
Human Trafficking Lunch Discussion Highlights
Utilize a motivational interview technique. Start with what person believes are positives and
allow them to identify negatives on their own without being labeled.
Start small. Ask specific intake questions to identify girls who may be involved with
trafficking. For example, ask “how did you take care of yourself when you were on the
street?”
Once girls find safety, it is typical for them to run away and return to the abusive situation
they were previously in. However, agencies are required to report these incidents when girls
return and disclose what they did while they were away. This has led to a lock-in facility for
girls because government-sponsored shelters cannot tolerate the cycle of the girls repeatedly
running away and returning to sex trafficking. It is helpful for law-enforcement to move
cases from active to inactive instead of closing them so they can work with girls long-term,
as they run away often.
Girls can be found through back pages of weekly newspapers where many run ads to attract
men, strip clubs and through social media.
Forensic medical exam doctor can make direct referrals for the girls in terms of health needs
and services.
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Girls who are willing to talk to law enforcement or legal proceedings need to get full
protection offered to witnesses.
A community environment that includes nearby access to and vibrancy of strip clubs and
other adult entertainment venues can set the stage for and be a contributor to sex trafficking
within and around that community.
Mixed group therapy sessions are difficult for teens.
Recruiters pretend to seek out services, but they are really there to talk girls out of receiving
support services and back into the sex trade.
It is recommended not to cluster girls in residential homes together who have been victims of
sex trafficking. State staffing ratio for treatment was 6:1, and was inadequate for providing
enough supervision of girls.
Conclusion
The Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis Seeking Solutions Symposium was well-attended,
and, according to the pre- and post-surveys completed by attendees, increased the attendees’
knowledge and understanding of the critical issues facing girls and women in the St. Louis
Region and beyond. The Symposium tackled the challenging and difficult topic of human
trafficking and how it can be addressed more effectively locally. In addition, attendees learned
about one another’s organizations and had ample opportunities to engage in meaningful
networking and dialogue.
At the conclusion of the lunch discussion groups, a member of the Women’s Foundation
Program Committee informed attendees that the Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis was
committed to providing the following action steps:
Providing a directory of all who attended the Symposium,
Making PowerPoint presentation slides available to attendees and the public via the
Women’s Foundation website,
Developing a discussion as a follow-up to the topics presented at the Symposium on the
Women’s Foundation’s Facebook page,
Developing a summary of the Symposium, and making it publicly available on the Women’s
Foundation website.
Opportunities for Additional Action Steps
As a result of the information presented at the Symposium and the resulting dialogue in the
discussion groups, several ideas for next steps developed. The following suggestions could be
developed collaboratively and seem to be important steps to for the community to take in order
to develop a more comprehensive and connected safety net for women and girls in the St. Louis
Region and surrounding areas.
Develop a resource guide in collaboration with St. Louis Rescue and Restore to identify all
social service, legal, advocacy and other key coalitions and efforts involved in addressing
youth, women, family and trafficking issues in the region and across the state.
o St. Louis Rescue and Restore has an extensive database of organizations, but it is
currently not user-friendly and needs to be updated and made more accessible. This
could be the foundation for the above resource guide.
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Convene women’s and girls’ social service organizations to get to know one another, share
missions, programs, outcomes and strategies for working together. Make this a regular
gathering (2x/year).
Map women’s and human trafficking service organizations across the state.
Use all of the above to drive the development of a regional and state-wide safety net for those
women and girls whose personal safety is at risk.
Explore collaborative funding for education and awareness, training, advocacy and
prevention and recovery services related to human trafficking in the region and the state.
Develop and support social enterprise programs that empower girls and women.
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Appendix A
Prioritized Topics Addressed in Discussion Groups
Financial/Economic stability/Entrepreneurship (i.e., credit counseling)
Economic Imperatives (i.e., education, child care, housing, employment, transportation)
Building self-confidence/Inner strength and power (i.e., beauty, personal growth, self-
confidence)
Intersection between domestic violence and human trafficking
Formal support systems (i.e., mentoring, qualitative support)
Healthy relationships/Psychological (i.e., education and training)
Current Services/Strengths Available in the St. Louis Region
Domestic Violence
RAVEN
Safe Connections
SLEVAWN (collaboration)
YWCA Sexual Assault Center
Education
Access to College
College Bound
College Summit
Redevelopment Opportunities for Women—GED/continued education support (ROW works
with many organizations in the community as well)
Center for Women in Transition—GED assistance
Safe Connections working with colleges (collaboration)
After School Programming
After School for All Partnership (collaboration)
Anti-Bullying/Inclusion/Respect
ADL—No Place for Hate program
Wyman Center
Megan Meier Foundation
SLPS provide social services and programs to students in their district through collaboration
and partnerships with community agencies
Early Childhood Education
Head Start
United 4 Children (assistance with finding quality child care for families)
Innovative Education Models
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St. Louis Language Immersion School
Employment-Related Programs for Youth and Women
Employment Connection
Job Corps
Sweet Potato Project St. Louis for youth
Family consumer science education in the public schools
Financial Education/Economic Empowerment
Financial Education and Savings Programs
Bank On Save Up Initiative
Catholic Charities –Financial Literacy course in collaboration with ROW (collaboration)
Federal Reserve free financial literacy program
FDIC program (low cost, provides materials to teach financial literacy courses)
IDA Programs
Kingdom House & St. Louis Community Credit Union (collaboration)
REAP Program (ROW—REAP works with domestic violence programs as well)
Smart Money Week
Start Smart Program (University of Missouri extension)
YWCA 2-year program (Trio Foundation)
YWCA Young Entrepreneur’s Program
Entrepreneurship and Loan Programs
Grace Hill Women’s Business Center
Healing Hearts Bank--NCJW
KIVA loans
Micro lending programs
Housing
Gateway 180
YWCA Transitional Housing Program
Human Trafficking
Committee on Human Trafficking-St. Louis and UAW Network
Symposium at UMSL in November 2013 on Human Trafficking
Increased awareness of how to recognize human trafficking through increased training efforts
Working in schools with girls to understand personal safety and teen dating violence
SLEVAWN (collaboration)
Dignity Network
St. Louis Rescue and Restore Coalition
The Covering House
International Institute—Eastern Missouri-Southern Illinois Rescue and Restore Coalition
Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Support
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Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Program
International Institute
Kingdom House-ESOL program
Mental Health
Webster University—partnership with the Webster Groves school district to provide
counseling and mental health services to youth (collaboration)
Youth Development--Self-Esteem/Confidence/Leadership
Boys and Girls Club (Smart Girls Club)
Faith-based programs
Father’s Support Network (focuses on men)
Girls in the Know (also presented Finding Kind film and expo in St. Louis)
Girls on the Run
Girl Scouts
Junior League—lobbying for anti-bullying legislation
Kingdom House (youth programming, addresses kids age 14-high school graduation)
Sex education
Wyman Center (TOP program)
YWCA—YW Teens, Youth Women’s Leadership Academy
Other Youth, Women and Family Support Services
Father’s Support Network
Federation of Settlement Houses (collaboration)
Sister Circles
Key Service Gaps/Needs
Basic Needs
Affordable housing located near transportation
Affordable child care (quality, access and availability)
Reliable transportation
Employment (including options for past-offenders/felons) that pays a sustainable living wage
or higher
Mental and physical health care services to children, youth and parents
Resources to help families sustain housing income
Resources to help families obtain and maintain ownership of vehicles
Lack of providers in St. Louis County
Education and Outreach
Increased outreach and education opportunities for boys and men
Increased outreach to more age ranges-start early and provide role models and mentoring
programs for girls
Parental engagement in children’s services and programming
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Increased outreach and education to girls in educational settings to address personal safety as
it relates to dating and sex
Education/outreach to boys and young men regarding healthy relationships, dating, sex, etc.
Increased education and training of teachers in local schools
Recruitment of professional women to increase mentoring between older and younger
women preparing to enter or in the workforce
More women-owned businesses
Increased job-related skill building and education for youth and women preparing to enter the
workforce, including time management skills, etc.
Access and exposure to appropriate role models for children and youth to counter much of
what they get from popular culture and peer pressure
Diversity education
Financial literacy for teens
Education of donor community about these issues
Community Resources and Collaboration
Increased knowledge-sharing and coordination between service providers to enhance
connections and develop a stronger continuum of care
Increased partnerships/collaborations between service providers with shared funding
Increased funding for more women’s programming and to expand its reach, and build
program capacity
Explore partnerships with Washington University’s Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurship
Collaboration with law enforcement (though need to consider legal issues involved)
Collaboration with professional women’s organizations, especially those of women of color
Engaging men in the process of becoming partners and allies for women’s issues and services
Connected safety net across the region and across services and ages to provide better
consistent long-term assistance
Advocacy & Media
Media training regarding how girls and women are portrayed in the media and the messages
being sent to the public about gender roles and stereotypes
Consistent anti-bullying legislation
Voter education programming
Advocating for local, state and federal government policies/programs/legislation to better
support nonprofit women’s services
Human Trafficking Services
Shelters for survivors of human trafficking
Mental health services for human trafficking survivors
Training for law enforcement, hotel staff, airport staff, religious organizations
Training to effectively identify and treat issues of human trafficking victims/survivors, such
as substance abuse and mental health challenges
Increased public awareness about human trafficking, as there is a lack of education and
understanding about human trafficking, and many have the misperception that it only applies
to immigrant populations
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Challenges in addressing this issue include: Human trafficking victims often have difficulty
finding shelter because they do not meet the definition of domestic violence and are not
eligible for shelter at many domestic violence shelters; sex workers often to not “identify”
themselves as sex workers or that they have a drug/alcohol problem; hotels are
uncomfortable addressing the issue and reporting suspicious behavior; lack of resources to
increase current program capacity
Collaborative Opportunities
Convening/Networking
Convene quarterly meetings for community organizations to share knowledge, experience
and develop partnership opportunities
Link with educational institutions/organizations, particularly exposing youth to college
campuses and courses while still in high school
Move out of service “silos,” develop organizational knowledge and relationships across the
region
Peer to peer networking
Bring organizations together that are dealing with similar issues to discuss services, lessons
learned, evaluation strategies and increasing service capacity
Women organizations meet to share knowledge and promote diversity
Increase business engagement in women’s services organizations to develop mentorship and
greater access to and knowledge about employment opportunities
Further develop partnership with United Way’s 211 program and volunteer bank
Service Collaboration Opportunities
Enhance collaborations between health/mental health service providers, domestic violence
and runaway youth service providers, such as that developed by Safe Connections and Youth
in Need
Enhance collaboration between mental health and physical health providers, such as People’s
Health Center, Hopewell Center, People’s Community Action
Develop educational services for both boys and girls about healthy relationships and respect
for one another through public of awareness campaigns, resource fairs, media outlets,
counseling and mental health services, etc.
Explore revenue streams through social entrepreneurship
Build on successful current or emerging collaborations, such as SLEVAWN and the Ready
by 21 program
Develop a map of service providers throughout the region/state to increase knowledge and
connections and catalyze a more comprehensive safety net for girls and women in need
Opportunity for Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis to develop a repository of
information on women’s services and community organizations to encourage collaboration
and knowledge about local resources.
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Appendix B
Human Trafficking-Related Community Resources
There are several human-trafficking community organizations, coalitions and services operating
in the St. Louis region and across the state of Missouri. Many are listed below.
The Covering House
o Seeks to provide refuge and restoration for girls who have experienced sexual
exploitation or sexual trafficking.
o Provides life skills, clinical program, tutoring, individual and group therapy, supportive
adults programming, and more.
o Just acquired a residential home to provide a safe shelter for human trafficking victims.
o Will provide out-client services as a step-down program from transitional housing.
Kingdom House
o Serves underserved families
o Able to identify a child in distress or need
o Encourage awareness of and ability to identify victims of human trafficking
St. Louis Rescue and Restore Coalition
o Provides trauma-informed screenings, education and legal assistance to victims of human
trafficking.
Dignity Network
o The Dignity Network’s mission is to promote a restorative approach to addressing
commercial sex, including both human trafficking and prostitution, through prevention,
support, education, and advocacy.
Eastern Missouri, Southern Illinois Rescue and Restore Consortium
o Through a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, the
International Institute manages and supports this Consortium.
o It is comprised of 4 coalitions that conduct outreach and education with the ultimate goal
of identifying victims.
o Social Workers are able to provide comprehensive case management for foreign born
victims and referral services for all victims.
o www.stoptraffickingmo-il.org
Mental Health America and Hopewell Center
o Provide mental health care services
o More frequently mental health care providers see PTSD as an indicator of trafficking
Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center
o Provides a 24-hour care crisis shelter that serves youth in the city
o Will provide transportation for the youth in need to the shelter
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Safe Places
o National program that designates safe spaces for youth in need or distress to go
o Been through training and agree to help children in distress/need
o Allow children to use phone to access services
o Need to make sure that all staff recognize the location as a “Safe Place,” and have
information and resources to respond appropriately when a youth in need accesses it as
such
Places for People
o Research and practice evidence based interventions for women & girls involved in
trafficking
o Use evidence based trauma interventions
U.S. Attorney‘s Office Human Trafficking Task Force, Eastern District of Missouri
o Replicating Western District’s programs
o Has a list of case managers that can be contacted for trafficking victims
o Provide training for agencies that want to participate
National Traumatic Stress Network
o Offers resources and webinars to teach best practices for working with these individuals.