Prevent Together Blog!

BGCA is excited about our first national symposium to explore those issues that will help drive greater collaboration across all organizations and agencies for the protection of youth.

2015 Safer Childhoods Symposium: Your Contributions Will Be Critical Registration is open for the Safer Childhoods Symposium for youth-serving organizations. The registration fee is $150. (A limited number of scholarships are available.) Join safety experts from leading youth-serving organizations to gain practical takeaways that can be put to immediate use to improve the emotional and physical safety of out-of-school time programs. November 4-5, 2015 at Cox Communications Inc., Headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. Featured Speakers Keith Kaufman, Ph. D., Author and Researcher, Portland State University (Oregon) Antigone Davis, Head of Global Safety, Facebook Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, M.D., Adolescent Medicine Specialist, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Georgia Hall, Ph. D., Senior Research Scientist, National Institute on Out-of-School Time Highlights Review models to prevent and manage out-of-school time risks and improve safety Explore practical aspects of disseminating and implementing effective safety approaches in youth service environments Take away practical tools and emerging strategies applicable across several risk areas For additional information, contact Mitru Ciarlante of the Safer Childhoods Network at saferchildhoods@bgca.org or 610-657-1542.

From the National Crittenton Foundation: Gender Injustice: System-Level Juvenile Justice Reforms for Girls

Despite decades of attention, the proportion of girls in the juvenile justice system has increased and their challenges have remained remarkably consistent, resulting in deeply rooted systemic gender injustice. The literature is clear that girls in the justice system have experienced abuse, violence, adversity, and deprivation across many of the domains of their lives—family, peers, intimate partners, and community. There is also increasing understanding of the sorts of programs helpful to these girls. What is missing is a focus on how systems—and particularly juvenile justice systems—can be redesigned to protect public safety and support the healing and healthy development of girls and young women.

Juvenile justice systems reform is occurring across the country as a result of a growing understanding of developmental and neurological differences between youth and adults, the high cost of incarceration, and the consistent failure of a punitive juvenile justice model. However, even as systems are initiating reforms and changing their approach, they are routinely failing to modify those reforms for girls or even to collect data on how girls, specifically, are affected by the problems they are seeking to remedy. As a result, the particular impact on girls of failures in the juvenile justice system is not understood and few juvenile reforms are tailored to girls’ needs and pathways into the system— meaning girls and young women are unlikely to fully benefit from system reforms.

Many of the problems discussed in this report are not unique to girls—and many of the suggested paths forward can benefit both boys and girls. However, because girls are frequently left out of reform discussions, an intentional focus on girls is needed to ensure that they fully benefit from system reforms. Indeed, in writing this report we were struck by the number of promising national and large-scale juvenile justice reform efforts that have not fully considered the role of gender in the problems they address or in the solutions they propose. If this intentional gender focus does not coexist with current large-scale system reforms, an important opportunity for gender justice and equity and developmental system reforms will be missed.

- See more at: http://www.nationalcrittenton.org/gender-injustice/#sthash.1hGPsTrD.dpuf

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) is excited to convene the second Human Trafficking Survivor Forum in Washington, D.C., in January 2016. As part of OVC’s ongoing commitment to meaningful engagement with survivors of human trafficking, this Survivor Forum is an opportunity for survivors to share their perspectives on effective, victim-centered strategies in federal anti-trafficking initiatives. OVC invites human trafficking survivors from across the United States to submit a Statement of Interest (SOI) to participate in the Forum. Because space is limited, 15 to 20 survivors of human trafficking will be selected to participate in the 1-day Forum. If you are not selected to attend this Forum, OVC encourages you to remain involved in this effort through future opportunities.

Survivors may complete the SOI individually or with the assistance of organizations, caregivers, friends, or family members. Please note that submitting an SOI does not confirm attendance.
 
If invited to participate, time and travel costs for attendance, including airfare, ground transportation, lodging, meals, and incidentals, will be paid up to the maximum allowable amount set by the Department of Justice.
 
Please share this information with anyone who may be interested in participating. If you are a survivor and interested in participating in the Survivor Forum, please complete the online form, or complete the Word document and e-mail it to humantrafficking@ovcttac.org or fax it to 703–225–2338.
  
Submissions are due by October 6, 2015, in order to be considered.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please e-mail humantrafficking@ovcttac.org or call 1–866–682–8880.
 
Thank you in advance for your interest and assistance in helping make this Forum a great event.

Boys and Trafficking: Identifying and Serving Silent Survivors

October 6 at 3:00pm ET
Register here!

From the Coalition for Juvenile Justice -- Boys, much like girls, are at risk of falling prey to human trafficking. It can be difficult, however, to identify them as survivors and to secure the specialized services they need to address their experiences.  

Please join CJJ for a webinar on "Boys and Trafficking: Identifying and Serving Silent Survivors" on October 6 at 3:00pm ET.

This webinar, which is part of a series of webinars on the topic of human trafficking, will discuss the prevalence of boys among survivors of trafficking, and some of the unique challenges that exist for them. Presenters will share new data about the prevalence of human trafficking among boys and how one local jurisdiction is responding to the needs of male trafficking victims in their community.

The webinar will feature: 

• Tina Frundt, Founder and Executive Director, Courtney's House, a DC-based organization that works with survivors of human trafficking
• Meredith Dank, Senior Research Associate, The Urban Institute

The MECP and AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program invite you to participate in this month's webinar entitled, "Human Exploitation and Trafficking Watch Model - Case Study" with Maia Sciupac, Program Manager with Thorn and Casey Bates, Deputy District Attorney and Head of the H.E.A.T. Unit with Alameda County District Attorney's Office (ACDAO). Maia Sciupac is the former Human Exploitation and Trafficking (H.E.A.T.) Watch Coordinator with the ACDAO. As Program Coordinator, Ms. Sciupac worked with Mr. Bates to facilitate a coordinated Bay Area response among law enforcement, service providers, youth-serving systems, community members, and elected officials to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). Currently, Maia works with Thorn to develop innovative technology solutions to combat the sexual exploitation of children. Presenters will: Discuss a case study that illustrates the impact of the Alameda County H.E.A.T. Watch Model Outline the H.E.A.T. Watch 5-point strategy to combat human trafficking Address challenges and successes of the program since its inception in 2009    Register Here

The National Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation reminds you of their 2nd annual summit this September 10-12 in Orlando, Florida! 

If your goal is to stop pornography and sexual exploitation from harming individuals and children, join us! Let’s work together to strengthen the movement and help the public understand that we are experiencing a public health crisis, the result of the highly sexualized culture around us.
Topics to be addressed include:

• Sexualization of women and children;
• Reducing demand for sex trafficking;
• Factors driving sexual violence and sexual assault;
• Solutions for reducing sexual exploitation;
• Sex industry as an organized business model;
• Recovery & healing;
• Prevention solutions and practices

Not Just Pictures is a documentary film about a very dark subject: the production and distribution of child sexual abuse images on the internet. Most people would rather not even know this kind of evil exists, much less talk about it. However, the silence and secrecy surrounding this crime has allowed it to grow to unimaginable proportions. And that’s dangerous for every community around the globe, since sex trafficking and child sexual abuse happens everywhere.

We've spent more than a year filming across North America to capture interviews with experts in the field, as well as survivors and parents of survivors and victims of internet child sexual exploitation.

Your financial support will make it possible for us to finish Not Just Pictures to raise awareness of internet child sexual abuse. The film covers the topics of sex trafficking, sextortion, sexting and sex tourism, among others. 

We are so sure we will get the support we need that we have scheduled the film’s premiere for Friday, Aug. 28, 2015, at 7 p.m. at Seabrook Auditorium, on the campus of Fayetteville State University

MECP invites you to participate in our case study webinar event, "Human Trafficking in America's Schools." This interactive webinar will connect participants directly with the experts to explore and respond to a real-life scenario on human trafficking in schools. This case study expands upon March's webinar entitled, The Role of School Resource Officers in Combating Commercial Sexual Exploitation. Participants are encouraged to review March's webinar recording prior to participating in next week's event. Participants will: Examine a real-life vignette on human trafficking in schools Identify best practices in resolving issues presented in the scenario Identify tools and techniques that participants can apply to their own jurisdictions Participants are encouraged to read the case example prior to participating in the upcoming event, think about their agency's potential response to the issue, identify available tools and local resources and be prepared to discuss with presenters.   To register for this webinar, select the title below: Human Trafficking in America's Schools  July 22, 2015 2:00-3:00 pm Eastern

Prevent Child Abuse America is sponsoring the mini-track on Preventing Child Sexual Abuse at the 2015 National Sexual Assault Conference in Los Angeles, CA September 2-4, 2015. James Hmurovich, President & CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America describes the importance  of this track consisting of three workshops.

In this podcast, Joan Tabachnick describes the workshop she will present with Cordelia Andersonon The Pillars of Prevention, a call to action for public policy. Jetta Bernier,  Executive Director of Prevent Child Abuse Massachusetts and the Enough Abuse Campaign describes what she will present in a workshop with Sarah Vidrine fromPrevent Child Abuse North Carolinaon state level advocacy and leadership for child sexual abuse prevention. 

The final workshop has Dr. Janet Rosenzweig, Vice President for Programs and Research at Prevent Child Abuse America and author of The Sex-Wise Parent describing the role of human sexuality education in child sexual violence prevention.

Click here to register to attend the 2015 National Sexual Assault Conference.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center is excited to announce our xCHANGE Forum summer series! Join us and guest moderators Dr. Carolyn West and Kalimah Johnson for a live online discussion June 10th (1-3 p.m. ET, noon-2 p.m. CT, 11a.m.-1p.m. MT, 10a.m.-noon PT) as we discuss sexual violence in the lives of African American women.

The xCHANGE forum is an opportunity to explore new research, best practices, and exchange information with researchers, advocates, and educators, to create broader social change.

Take a look at our flyer for each month’s topic and ways to participate. We hope you’ll join us!