220 – National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance: What Is It and Why Do We Need It?

This episode is brought to you by Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice, who offer an incredible anti-human trafficking certificate. Whether you're a frontline responder, a social worker, in the ministry, a healthcare provider, or simply a community member who wants to help, this program is built for you. Head over to gcwj.org/ahtc to take the next step and apply today. ---Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak address residential care for human trafficking victims with Melissa Yao, the Executive Director of the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance. Together they present some of the difficulties in the new field of aftercare, and how Melissa has taken strides to improve the industry for victims that you too can join. Key Points The field of aftercare is so new that it generally lacks certain standards set in other, more established, industries. Therefore, making the minimum standards that NTSA set so significant in developing this industry to better suit survivor needs. The biggest gaps in aftercare include providing services for victims with mental health issues, physical disabilities, and women over the age of 35 or with children. To overcome these gaps, it is crucial to equip and train agencies for specific needs for the community. Collaboration can accomplish this by learning from other’s successful models and implementing it in our own communities. Resources National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance NTSA Minimum Standards REST Survivor Ventures Are you enjoying the show? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe. Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today. Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions at [email protected]. Transcript Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode number 220 – National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance: What Is It and Why Do We Need It? Production Credits [00:00:09] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. Dave [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak. Sandie [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan. Dave [00:00:37] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, I always look forward to these conversations because I am always learning something new about trafficking. And as much as we have had conversations over the years, I feel like there’s so much new to uncover. And I know that’s true for you as well, too. And today, a guest with us that’s going to help us to really understand the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance and the need for it. And we’re glad to welcome Melissa Yao to the show today. She is the executive director of the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, a network of service providers committed to enhancing services and increasing access to care for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Melissa has been in direct services with survivors for over eight years and is dedicated to ensure quality care for survivors. Melissa, we’re so glad to welcome you to the show. Melissa [00:01:36] I am thrilled to be here. Sandie [00:01:38] It was an honor to meet you when I was in Washington, D.C. in January, and I’ve been looking forward to this conversation because I’ve been active in the aftercare world, how we provide emergency services, residential care, survivor care over the long term. And there are so many challenges. So, I’m very hopeful about our conversation today. Melissa [00:02:06] Me, too. Sandie [00:02:07] Okay. So, let’s kind of start with. Can you give us a 30,000-foot level perspective on the landscape of services for victims, just here nationally? Melissa [00:02:19] Yeah. So, specifically the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, NTSA, we are a network of officially fifty-one long term residential programs from across the country. Although we work with about 160 direct service providers throughout the country. And there’s three key things that we do as a network based on needs that we have realized in coming together. One being that we’ve developed a referral system. And so, through our alliance referral system, we’ve been able to place in just this last year about 284 victims and helping to secure the best possible placement for the survivors. The second thing that we do is we’ve established minimum standards set with a collaboration between our members from social workers and some experts in other fields. We’ve developed what we call minimum standards that basically says if you’re going to do this care, this is kind of baseline to offer a program for survivors. And then the third thing that we’ve done is we are enhancing the quality of care by providing capacity-building or training opportunities through our annual conference, through our resource guides that we provide for our members each month, and other avenues of getting them resources. Sandie [00:03:39] So, tell me a little bit more about the minimum standards. What is that? Melissa [00:03:44] You know, Sandra, the thing about our minimum standards is that in other fields they’re very, very basic. But as I’m sure you probably know, the field of aftercare or care for survivors, once they’ve gotten out of the life, is so new. The average residential program has only been open for less than eight years. It’s a brand-new field. And so, because of that, certain standards that are standard in, let’s say, the domestic violence industry or rehab facilities are not standard in programs for survivors of trafficking. So, take, for instance, the fact that the average survivor has a self-harm propensity of about 50 percent. That’s pretty common knowledge for anybody that’s done direct service, and yet very few residential programs have their staff CPR certified. So, we’ve implemented as one of our minimum standards that if you’re going to do direct care, you need to be CPR certified. But there are other risk management standards that we’ve established, such as agencies need to have a nondiscrimination policy. Again, that’s very basic in more established industries, but still super new for ours. We have standards on the way that we have adequate staffing for these programs. We have things that one of the standards that we’re really excited about is the non-faith coercion clause. 90 percent of residential programs that we’re connected with are faith-based agencies. And so, what our hope is, is that we can maintain the integrity of the faith component, but also not implementing any kind of coercive practices in the program. Sandie [00:05:21] Wow. 90 percent are faith-based. Wow. That’s a lot of resources. Okay, so you have 51 members now. I can hear some of my listeners calling me or sending me emails, so I better ask the question- how do you become a member? Melissa [00:05:42] Call me! ...