Mayor's Task Force on Human Trafficking - December 14, 2016 - Minutes

Meeting Date: 
December 14, 2016 - 1:30pm
Location: 
City Hall, Room 201, 1 Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA

Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking

Wednesday, December 14, 2016,

1:30pm – 3:30pm, City Hall, Room 201

1 Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA 94102

Attendees:

Captain Una Bailey, SFPD Special Victims Unit; Doug Bloch, Teamsters Joint Council 7; Robin Brasso, National Council of Jewish Women SF; Mana Barari, Legal Aid Society; Gena Castro-Rodriguez, SF District Attorney; Saerom Choi, API Legal Outreach; Carly Devlin, Huckleberry Youth Programs; Christy Dieterich, Department of Public Health; Natasha Dolby, Freedom Fwd; Johanna Gendelmen, Family and Children’s Services; Becky Gershon, SF-Marin Food Bank; Lenore Goldman, Goldman Associates; Elise Hansell, Department on the Status of Women; Emily Hinsey, Love Never Fails; Minouche Kandel, Department on the Status of Women; Arisa Koba, Department on the Status of Women; Linda Lau, Department of Aging and Adult Services; Rosalia Lopez, SF Unified School District; Alix Lutnik, RTI International; Menaka Mahajan, Office of Small Business; Alex Marqusee, Oakland City Council; Maggie McHale, Department on the Status of Women; Elisabet Medina, Child Abuse Prevention Center; Lisa Peckles, Dignity Health; Emily Sims, RTI International; Dongmei Tan, Department of Public Health; Christine Ticas, SF District Attorney; Hediana Utarti, Asian Women’s Shelter; Eli Zigas, SPUR

 

  1. Welcome, Introductions/Check-In, Agenda Review

 

  1. Review of Minutes from October 26, 2016 Meeting

Minutes were adopted by the group. [Utarti/ Dieterich]

 

  1. Presentation on Good Food Purchasing Program

Doug Bloch and Eli Zigas present on the Good Food Purchasing Program.

 

Summary:

  • This program is about incorporating city values into contract procurement and also to improve conditions of workers, environment, and those who consume food.
  • Oakland school district used to purchase food from Taylor Farms. School district was unaware that Taylor Farms was violating health and safety code.
  • Good Food Purchasing Program – helps agencies grade food purchases on 5 simple value categories:
  1. Locally produced
  2. Sustainably produced
  3. Fair workplace standards
  4. Healthy food
  5. Humane treatment of animals
  • Center for Good Food Purchasing will work with SFUSD to score suppliers and do an analysis of how well these suppliers meet the five standards. The program sets baseline standards and then leaves it up to an agency to set goals and a timeline to accomplish those goals. Agencies should assign staff to accomplish this in a budget neural way.
  • Public Health, Hospitals, and Jails (other two largest food procurers in the jail) would benefit from the Good Food Purchasing Program. Asking Mayor’s Task Force to support the program because there is an overlap with human trafficking and the labor component of this program.  
    • How do audits work? Are they per contract or annually? – The agency submits documentation, and then the center tracks what other agencies are doing around the country.
    • How does this program effect undocumented workers or workers with temporary visas?  - If any of the certifiers identify violations, it is incumbent on the center to bring this to the purchaser.  Seal of approval comes from basic labor laws – whatever California law applies or local ordinance.
    • How does this program apply to sub-contractors? – Applies to subcontractors, but it is incumbent on the organization doing the audit to identify those violations.
    • How might this program adversely affect non-profits that serve food-insecure populations? – The center is not trying to force this on private groups that receive funding from the city.
    • Mana Barari, Minouche Kandel and Linda Lau expressed interest on working on this initiative.
  1. Presentation on Formative Report of Researcher-Survivor-Ally Evaluation
    • Since 2004, 42 federally funded anti-human trafficking task forces have been evaluated. Less than half of these have accumulated high-quality data. Our Mayor’s Task Force launched in 2013, and does not receive federal funding.
    • Alix and Emily report on our evaluation. Methods include: historical document review, key informant interviews, levels of collaboration, and data analysis

Key takeaways:

  • Growth Areas: Inconsistency of membership at meetings, duplicated data, survivors not represented in paid positions,
  • Service needs: housing, safety needs, employment
  • MOU is non-existent
  • Maintenance of client confidentiality – need to redact identifying information from annual report in sample case summaries
  • Strengths: diverse membership, staffed by DOSW and mayor’s endorsement, funding 24 hour CSEC response, SFUSD resolution, sex work and trafficking policy impact subcommittee, Super Bowl subcommittee
  • Identified Gaps: resources and info for Spanish speaking communities, opportunities for cis-gendered men, shared understanding between law enforcement and social service providers, opportunity for civil remedies
  • Goals: 1/3 didn’t know what the goals were, 60% didn’t know how goals were identified, some did not think Task Force was set up to measure outcomes
  • Ideas for improvement
    1. Provide orientation for new attendees
    2. Utilize a consistent style for meeting minutes
    3. Draw upon the expertise of members to offer in-service trainings to share expertise.  Expand membership to youth, immigrants, people of color, non-English speaking individuals
    4. Clarify guidelines of membership and responsibilities
    5. Differing philosophies and orientations create tension
    6. There are benefits and limitations of law enforcement presence
    7. Recognize that it is hard for some to come to meetings when law enforcement is involved – criminalization of lifestyle, trauma etc.
    8. Expand labor sectors
    9. Focus on prevention (what are macro-level issues?)
    10. Improve data collection
    11. Public awareness campaigns & diversity
    12. Needs identified for funding – misrepresentation of agency/ competition
    13. Increase levels of collaboration increase

 

Strategic Planning Recommendations:

  1. Work on unified vision and shared language
  2. Clarify about work of Task Force versus work on individual agencies
  3. Membership     
  4. Roles and guidelines to shape our work
  5. Goal identification
  6. Goal measurement (Task Force should consider DOJ required criminal justice data when seeking federal funding)

 

Comments on Evaluation:

  • The Office of Small Business would like to be more involved with bringing employers from different industries together to discuss labor trafficking
  • Potential harm that comes to survivors:
    • There were no specific examples given. Just something that wants to be examined further
    • Example of survivors feeling exploited by non-profits or being targeted as a survivor or treated rudely
    • “Bring more survivors to the table”
  • There is a concern that we should not compare the Mayor’s Task Force to a federal task force model as we do not have any federal funds.

 

 

 

  1. Planning for Strategic Planning Retreat
  • Lenore Goldman will be facilitating the retreat. She stressed the importance of strategic planning for social change - strategic planning is not a single event.


Recommendations for Retreat: The group voted on their priorities. The number at the end of each section shows how many people voted to prioritize the item for the Strategic Planning Retreat. 

 

  • Mission/Purpose (2)
    • Mini Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis
  • Goals/Priorities (17)
    • Consensus on social service systems, not criminal justice system as the system to respond to sexually trafficked youth
    • Survivor centered approach
    • Sex workers and freedom from violence
    • Clarity on policy agenda and legislative goals
    • Stakeholder list – a resource of different individuals/agencies/ industries to include

 

  • Diversity/Representation (7)
  • Task Force Structure (12)
    • Note: there are benefits to closed and open structures.
    • There should be natural tensions in the work; otherwise the right people are not at the table. Strategic planning is not the place to resolve differences or find total agreement, but the place to find alignment.
  • Finding Common Ground (3)
    • Tools for collaboration for implementing projects on the ground.

 

  1. Presentation on Family & Children’s Services Human Trafficking Outreach Campaign
  • Outreach program – to raise awareness for foster youth about commercial sexual exploitation. Posters and cards are designed for youth.
  • Goal is to have these distributed and get more calls to Huckleberry Youth Programs.
  • Google Link for posters and other resources will be emailed out.

 

General Announcements:

San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking is putting together a calendar of events for human trafficking awareness month. Email Antonia with your events.

 

Legal Aid Society is having a brown bag event on civil remedies - January 26, 2017

 

Next meeting: 2/22/2017, 1:30 – 3:30 pm, City Hall, Room 305