2018 Workshop Descriptions
Opening Plenary Day 1: Enhancing System Response to Sexual Exploitation: Panel and Film Screening
Robin Abadia: Strategist, Brew Advisors
Giselle De La Rosa: Survivor
Roxanne White: Indigenous Outreach Coordinator, Innovations Human Trafficking Collaborative
This panel provides an opportunity to explore some of the misconceptions that exist surrounding commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. We will learn from survivor advocates who have personal experience and professional knowledge on this subject. You will gain tools to assist clients to succeed and overcome barriers. This will include topics regarding service gaps, and the challenges clients experienced during reintegration, as well as the importance of authentically integrating lived experience into programs and services. Following the panel, we’ll preview a new website and film series, The Life Story. It seeks to shine a light on the realities for girls and women in the sex trade, elevate their voices and experiences, and highlights opportunity for change at different moments throughout their life trajectories.
The Life Story: Moments of Change shines a light on the realities for girls and women facing sexual exploitation, elevates their voices and experiences, and highlights moments of opportunity to make a difference.
The life trajectories of these girls and women are often marked by many on-ramps into exploitation — poverty, violence, discrimination, systemic bias — and few exit ramps. The Life Story focuses on closing those on-ramps and building many more exit ramps. This is a space to explore those solutions.
This material is designed to be used by any individual or organization who sees the same potential. It is meant to inform and inspire those who work across the intersections of education, housing, public health, mental health and addiction services, economic and racial justice.
The website takes the form of 13 different sections that follow commonly experienced moments in a life trajectory of a girl or woman in exploitation: Birth into Inequality, Child Sexual Abuse, Foster Care, School, Runaway, Immigration, Entry into the Life, Medical, Motherhood, Housing, Trauma and Addiction, Law Enforcement, The Long Exit. Each section holds one or two short films featuring survivors and practitioners talking about their experiences and the needs they see, supported by additional context, information, and steps toward change.
Tribal Leadership
Examining Our Own Community
Juana Majel Dixon
During this session, participants will examine what they are seeing in their own communities as it pertains to sex trafficking. Tribal Leaders will have an opportunity hear and look at how that fits within our traditional values. The second session will explore how Tribal Leaders can address sex trafficking in their own communities, Tribal Codes, support survivors, and ensure safety within the community through a round table discussion.
Indian Gaming
Jenna Novak: Strategic Engagement Advisor, Polaris National Hotline
Andrew Hofstetter: Tribal Protection Gaming Network (TPGN)
Eddie lIko: Chairman, NICSA/Security Claims Manager Sycuan Casino
Part One: Human Trafficking in Indian Country, Data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline
The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a 24 hour, confidential hotline that provides critical resources to help survivors of human trafficking get out and stay safe. It also accepts tips of potential trafficking situations. Throughout the years, we have been seeing an increased number of calls coming from Indian Country. This session will briefly explain the National Human Trafficking Hotline, information about the type of trafficking situations and abuses we are seeing from Indian Country, and analysis of potential macro-level solutions, particularly from a public health standpoint.
Part Two: Preventing Trafficking in Indian Casinos
Presentation on what human trafficking may look like in Indian casinos, how to handle when someone on staff may identify a potential trafficking situation, and how to create a safety protocol. The presentation is meant for casino risk managers, security managers, and general managers. It will be interactive and participants will walk away with an outline of a human trafficking protocol they may bring back to their locations.
Judges/Prosecution
Leslie A. Hagen: National Indian Country Training Coordinator, US Department of Justice
Sean Tepfer: CRT, U.S. Department of Justice
Part One: Victim Trauma and Its Impact on The Investigation and Prosecution of Sexual Assault
When human beings experience trauma, their brains respond in a way that may impact the ability to remember details or even to physically flee the traumatic event. Many jurors believe that a person being assaulted will physically fight back against their attacker. And, police and prosecutors have been trained to believe that when an individual experiences a traumatic event (like sexual assault) the brain will record the majority of details the criminal justice system wants to know about the event. If a victim reports being “frozen” during the assault or is unable to provide a detailed report of the assault and the defendant’s actions, the criminal justice system, and ultimately jurors, may begin to doubt the victim’s claim of sexual assault. Other factors like adverse childhood experiences, the use of alcohol, and a history of victimization can also effect the ability to encode memories. This information is critically important for criminal justice systems in the American Indian/Alaska Native populations where victimization rates are very high. This session will cover the science of trauma’s impact on the brain and body. The session will also cover tips and techniques for how police and prosecutors can develop and institute a victim-centered, trauma informed approach to sexual assault cases.
Part Two: Policies for Starting an Anti Sex Trafficking Enforcement/Prosecution Program
This session will give an overview of policies and ideas to start a sex trafficking enforcement program. This will include techniques for tribal government, judges, prosecutors and others in the community to develop and lead a multi-disciplinary victim-centered, trauma informed approach to sex trafficking enforcement. The session will include lessons learned from other jurisdictions and give case examples related to this work in different jurisdictions.
Law Enforcement
Minnesota Sex Trafficking in Indian Country Task Force
Kelly Haffield: Investigator, Fond du Lac Tribal Police Department
Appropriate for a multi–jurisdictional and multi-discipline audience. Participants will have a better understanding the challenges that exist when investigating sex trafficking within the Native American Community. They will learn how and why the Native American Community is affected by the issue of sex trafficking. Participants will look at how a multi-jurisdictional task force works and why it is the best approach to combating the issue.
Advocates
Communicating the Trajectory of Exploitation: The Life Story, A New Communications Tool
Robin Abadia: Strategist, Brew Advisors
Janna McDougall: Strategist, Brew Advisors
This workshop will provide an opportunity to further engage with The Life Story website and films which was introduced in the plenary session. We screen additional films, explore website components, and discuss application for use in the field.
Health Care Providers
Sex Trafficking and Health Care, Improving our Response
Susie Baldwin: MD, MPH, Executive Director, HEAL
Savannah Sanders: Survivor, Sexual Health DV/ST Expert
This session will include an overview of the health effects of sex trafficking, including physical, sexual, and mental health issues, and the role of health professionals in responding to trafficking. The second portion of the workshop will focus on tools health care providers can use to improve their response to patients who are trafficked, who have survived trafficking, and/or who are at risk for sex trafficking.
Resource Panel: Federal Partners and Training/Technical Assistance Providers
Sherriann Moore:
Deputy Director of Tribal Affairs, Office on Violence Against Women
Darla Sims:
Tribal Unit Team Lead, Office of Violence Against Women
Stacey Ecoffey:
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Native American Affairs & Commissioner Administration for Native Americans
Presenters will identify and discuss Federal Resources that support tribal efforts to combat sex trafficking in Indian Country. Participants will have an opportunity for questions and further discussion about the available resources and how to access them.
Behavioral Health
Trauma-Informed Support for Survivors of Human Trafficking
Tiombe Wallace: Marriage and Family Therapist, Inc.
Feminist Therapist, Trainer, and Consultant
The presentation is designed to explore the aftermath of trafficking and sexual victimization through the lens of victims’ experiences and responses. The presenter will demonstrate using trauma informed practices through stories of working extensively with survivors of sexual violence in various settings, including private psychotherapy practice, rape crisis centers, shelters, family counseling and family preservation programs, psychiatric programs, hotlines, Sexual Assault Response Teams, and the criminal justice system. The workshop is designed to help participants utilize trauma informed care (TIC) skills to maintain positive connection with and provide support for healing. The tenets of TIC give providers insight into the experiences of trafficking survivors, the neurobiology of trauma, and the intersections with historical and generational trauma. The workshop will cover abuse with the perpetrator before, during, and after sexual abuse/trafficking, as well as the impact these details have on the survivor’s trauma responses/behaviors. The presentation will help participants effectively and respectfully address the impact of trauma in culturally relevant ways and in collaboration with the survivors they serve.
Opening Plenary, Day 2: Working with Specific Populations
Amanda Watson: Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition
Eric Stiles: Senior Program Director, Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence (MCEDSV)
Eileen Wright: Trafficking Case Manager, Covenant House Alaska
This plenary will showcase individuals who represent and work with specific populations of trafficking survivors. Populations discussed in this session will include LGBTQ2S survivors, survivors with disabilities, male survivors, and youth survivors. Each panelist will discuss the gaps in services for the community they represent, strengths in the community that can be tapped into, and unique considerations for trafficking survivors in each respective population
Don’t Buy It: It Takes a Whole Community
Eric Heisler: Co-Executive Director, Men As Peacemakers
Sarah Curtis: Co-Executive Director, Men As Peacemakers
In order to eliminate Commercial Sexual Exploitation in our community, all genders, including men, need to be engaged in activism. In this workshop participants will learn how men can holistically contribute to anti-exploitation efforts, and learn about methods and tools to engage men in their local community. Participants will be given access to a host of tools and practical strategies to engage all genders, but specifically men in ending the demand for Commercial Sexual Exploitation that can be used by community members, systems personnel, and social justice agencies.
Introducing a Newly Developed Curriculum: Sex Trafficking In Indian Country: Advocacy Issues
Bonnie Clairmont: Advocate Specialist, Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI)
This workshop will introduce participants to a newly developed curriculum, a train the trainer’s curriculum, Sex Trafficking in Indian Country: Advocacy Issues. The purpose of the Advocacy Curriculum is to provide tools to the Tribal Coalitions and tribal advocates to train their advocates on social and legal issues regarding sex trafficking in Indian country starting with basic foundational elements of sex trafficking, to early identification and screening for sex trafficking and addressing the needs of victim/survivors of sex trafficking. Once trained, the advocates can then teach others in tribal communities to identify and respond to the social and legal issues of sex trafficking with a victim-centered approach. The Advocacy Curriculum, consisting of three components: Instructor Guide, Participant Workbook, and PowerPoints, was designed specifically for Tribal Coalitions to utilize in training tribal victim advocates; however, it may be useful for victim advocates and victim service providers to train others from any number of disciplines and professional backgrounds such as social work, nursing, tribal court, probation, tribal government, psychology, and victim services. This Advocacy Curriculum was designed to be a full-day training. However, with minor modifications, instructors may select a particular unit(s) to use at conferences, meetings, community gatherings, or staff trainings.
Prosecutors Lessons Learned
R. Trent Shores: U.S. Attorney Northern District of Oklahoma, U.S. Department of Justice
Law Enforcement Working with Advocates
Valaura Imus: Supervisory Victim Specialist, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Through the eyes of the Victim
Beth Jacobs: Survivor
Using her story as the springboard from which to derive training tips for law enforcement and the general public, this presentation helps open the eyes of audience members to the realities of domestic sex trafficking, the psyche of the victim, pimp’s breaking tactics and also how to use a victim-centered approach when interacting with potential victims of trafficking.
Participants will gain insight of victims, identify common misconceptions of sex trafficking and how it affects the victim. Recognize the unique and diverse needs of victims and survivors, and identify specific steps that law enforcement and victim assistance programs can take to improve the quality of, capacity for, and access to services for victims and survivors in their area.
Advocate Response: How Providers Can Strengthen their Response to Sex Trafficking Victims in Indian Country
Lisa Heth: Executive Director, Wiconi Wawokiya, Inc.
During this session, the presenter will share lessons learned from many years of working with victims. Being victimized is life changing. How we are responding will either help or hinder their healing process. Presenter will share her experiences of identifying alters and working with victims of sex trafficking that may have alters or other survival mechanisms. Participants will learn how to make appropriate referrals and engage in a round table discussion.
Developing a Collaborative Response to Violence Against Women in Indian Country: Federal Prosecution Options
Leslie Hagen: National Indian Country Training Coordinator, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Education
Victimization rates in Indian country are high in many parts of the country, particularly for crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence. In non-PL 280 jurisdictions, the federal government has concurrent jurisdiction with the tribe for many of these offenses. And, even in PL 280 states, the federal government may have jurisdiction to prosecute some intimate partner violence crimes occurring on the reservation. In each of these situations, it is likely that tribal personnel will be the first responders to the crime scene or to meet with the victim. This session will address how the federal government and tribal governments can work collaboratively to investigate and prosecute crimes like strangulation, habitual domestic assault, and alcohol facilitated sexual assault. The session will also address the elements needed to prove the most commonly charged assault crimes in Indian country, special federal evidentiary rules that apply in sexual assault cases, and laws in the federal system that protect victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Technology, a Valuable Resource in Gathering Data
Christine Crossland: Senior Social Science Analyst, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Office of Research & Evaluation, U.S. Department of Justice
B.J. Spamer: Director, Forensic and Analytical Services, National Missing & Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
University of North Texas Health Science Center
Steven Hafner: Research Assistant (contractor | Harvard University), National Institute of Justice, Office of Research & Evaluation U.S. Department of Justice
This presentation will highlight how technology can be a valuable resource to tribal nations working to build their capacity to respond to murdered, missing, and trafficked (MMT) American Indian and Alaska Native people. Participants will learn about the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and how NamUs has been used to identify missing American Indian and Alaska Native persons. Participants will examine NamUs research findings conducted to help inform and assist law enforcement and communities addressing MMT victims.
Closing Plenary Day 2: Sex Trafficking Investigations
Grant Snyder: Investigator, Minneapolis Police Department