Human trafficking disproportionately affects children and youth, in particular those who lack stable support networks or have been exposed to or are involved with the child welfare system. While these children and youth receive services or are placed in kinship or foster care, their safety and well-being remain vulnerable because of multiple factors, such as an unstable home life and challenges within the child welfare system itself.
Child welfare professionals play a crucial role in preventing, identifying, and responding to trafficking among young people. To support their efforts, the Office on Trafficking in Persons’ (OTIP) National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center (NHTTAC) released today a Toolkit for Responding to Human Trafficking Through the Child Welfare System.
NHTTAC Deputy Director Crystal Bennett has observed firsthand the intersection between child welfare and human trafficking. A 20-year veteran of the child welfare and youth services field as well as a former foster parent, she remembers how many children and teens, upon return after going missing from care, exhibited signs of further exploitation and trauma — harms that occurred after they had entered the child welfare system. The vulnerabilities that led to child welfare involvement in the first place were the same vulnerabilities that traffickers were capitalizing on. “Harm is still happening to these young people,” Bennett says. “Whether they experienced human trafficking or the experiences they had before entering the child welfare system increase their risk, services need to be in place to enhance protective factors for children and youth.”
This new resource provides child welfare professionals practical tools for and guidance on identifying, preventing, and responding to trafficking. It includes an overview of vulnerabilities specific to different populations, such as children experiencing homelessness, boys and young men, Indigenous children, and foreign national children, as well as best practices for screening, reporting, safety planning, and preventing children from going missing.
This toolkit complements the broad range of child welfare and trafficking resources already developed by OTIP’s NHTTAC, to include a SOAR for Organizations for Child Welfare Professionals training, an online module for partnering with child welfare, and microlearnings focused on screening for human trafficking as well as safety planning and collaborating across sectors.
Given the enormous responsibility placed on child welfare professionals, who serve on the front lines of preventing and addressing trafficking, the toolkit is intended to serve as both a guide and support.
“If you are someone who is working directly with young people,” says Bennett, “this tool is a resource to help you understand the root causes of what might increase their risk of experiencing trafficking . . . and how to screen for it, how to report it, and how to meet their needs.”
