Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, February 24, 2016                 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm           City Hall, Room 305

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

Attendees:

Raul Arroyo-Mendoza, National Center for Youth Law; Nicole Bates, Legal Services for Children; Mollie Brown, Huckleberry Youth Services; Patrick Buckalew, Huckleberry Youth Services; Francis Byrne, Freedom House; Lorena DeJesus, SF Juvenile Probation, Carly Devlin, Huckleberry Youth Services; Cristy Dieterich, Dept. of Public Health; Patrick Fosdahl, Dept. of Public Health; Johanna Gendelman, Family and Children’s Services; Carletta Jackson-Lane, Sojourner Truth Family Foster Youth Agency; Minouche Kandel, Dept. on the Status of Women; Mary Kilgariff, St. Mary’s Medical Center; Antonia Lavine, SFCAHT; Nicole Levine, Polaris Project; Emily Murase, Dept. on the Status of Women; Shivaun Nestor, SF Dept. of Public Health; Jackie Ortiz, San Francisco District Attorney; Lisa Peckler, Dignity Health Foundation; Jamel Perkins; Beverly Popek, Office of Labor Standards; Toni Powell, SF Juvenile Probation; Leah Price, APILO; Dyanna Quizon, Board of Supervisors; Alla Rivas, Dept. of Public Health; ; Ed Santos, SFPD Special Victims Unit; Sarai Smith-Mazariegos, SHADE Karly Smock, Huckleberry Youth Services; Mary Steiner, United Nations Association of the USA SF Chapter; Maria Tourtchaninova, Dept. on the Status of Women; Frances Vejar, Huckleberry Youth Services; Linda Walubengo, Larkin Street Youth Services.

I.Agenda approved [Jamel Perkins/Ed Santos].                                                                  

II.Minutes from December 16, 2015 meeting approved [Patrick Buckalew/Johanna Gandelman].      

III.Health Care System Response to Human Trafficking        

A.Department of Public Health - Shivaun M. Nestor/Cristy Dieterich

The Department of Public Health (DPH) focuses on public health and public outreach to create safe and secure places. DPH handles regular inspections of massage establishments for health, safety, and to identify red flags. Two senior inspectors also respond to complaints and work with law enforcement when necessary. In the new fiscal year, a third inspector will be hired.

The Newcomers Health Program under the Community Health Equity and Promotion branch of DPH, has a different approach. DPH is hiring two part-time bilingual staff to do outreach to massage parlors with the goal of establishing trust with employees while assessing their needs. Ideally, this outreach work will lead to more legal reporting and police involvement.

CASARC is based in San Francisco General Hospital and serves children 24-hours a day, who have been sexually or physically abused or have witnessed violence. Some of CASARC’s referrals have been commercially sexually exploited children. Upon receiving a referral, CASARC ensures the patient is medically and psychologically stable before administering an acute medical exam; this year CASARC has had nine referrals. CASARC provides medical services and forensic services, which involves law enforcement. Each case is confidential unless the facts of a case are needed to further case development. Though CASARC focuses on the immediate need of clients, they are also involved in a system wide approach of protocols and procedures.

In the 2014-2015 fiscal year, DPH began working on addressing commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC) within the health care setting at community clinics. Currently, DPH has a draft protocol based on the Asian Health Services protocol.

Two questions screen for sex trafficking as part of the current family medical records procedure: 1. Have you ever traded sex for food or money? 2. Has anyone asked you to have sex with someone else? The vagueness of these questions allow practitioners to catch red flags and open a dialogue with the patient.

Staff within youth and family clinics receive a 30-minute training in CSEC screening and identification. There is a need for a screening training across the board not just at DPH clinics.

Cole Street Clinic is able to provide a psychosocial screening for commercially sexually exploited children and has a partnership with the Department of Public Health and Huckleberry Youth Services.

B.Dignity Health  -  Sister Mary Kilgariff

St. Mary’s Hospital anti-trafficking task force includes representatives from nursing, case management, clinic admissions, security, education, community health benefits, and the emergency room director and medical director.

There is a need for ongoing human trafficking education on emergency room algorithms and protocols, which will be hosted online once developed. The hospital will then be able to track which employees are accessing the human trafficking education coursework.  The hospital tracks all activities that occur once a patient enters the emergency room up until they are released. This lets the hospital look at how they are applying the algorithm and monitors best practices. A two-question assessment is hardwired into the electronic medical records system. Upon suspicion, a further assessment is conducted.

Help cards for sex trafficking victims are available in the bathrooms and are given to patients by nurses. The emergency room displays an eight and a half by eleven inch poster, though it is lost among other mandated poster displays.

IV.Goals for Evaluation of Task Force - Alexandra Lutnick                                                  

Dr. Lutnick and Minh Dang received a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to evaluate our task force over a three year period. This is a collaborative effort which encourages task force members to question what members want to see come out of this evaluation. The first four months will consist of one-on-one conversations with task force members and a transparent process of developing a plan that fits the needs of the task force. The NIJ has not yet released the funds. The evaluation will move forward once funds are released.

V.Data Collection for 2015  - Maria Tourtchaninova                                           

The Department on the Status of Women has created an updated version of their data collection form used to gather information on human trafficking cases in San Francisco. The department will create a report based on data from the 2015 calendar year. This year the Department on the Status of Women is asking for data on confirmed human trafficking cases rather than confirmed and suspected. This is due to an inconsistent definition of what a suspected human trafficking case constitutes. New sections have been added to the data form including: type of sex/labor trafficking (pimp, massage parlor, construction, door-to-door sales, etc.), victim’s relationship to their trafficker (family member, romantic partner, unrelated employer, etc.), the number of human trafficking trainings administered by agencies, and a case profile section which asks agencies to describe a typical human trafficking case at their agency. Finally, this year the data form has been separated into two versions for clarity: one for criminal justice agencies and one for non-criminal justice agencies. The data collection form was sent to agencies of the Mayor’s Anti-Trafficking Task Force and should be emailed back to Maria Tourtchaninova by March 10, 2016.

VI.Feedback on POST Human Trafficking Video - Alexandra Lutnick                

The Peace Officer’s Standards and Training office created a video to train law enforcement on human trafficking to meet the training required by proposition 35. This video is what SFPD uses to comply with the state mandated. The Sex Work and Trafficking Policy Impact Committee review the video and compiled a feedback document which was reviewed with the task force. The group found it difficult to assess the document without having seen the video. Minouche agreed to obtain a copy of the video and arrange a viewing. .

VII.Polaris Data from 2015   - Nicole Levine, Polaris

Polaris Project operates the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, which maintains a confidential 24-hour/7-days a week crisis tip line for victims of trafficking. The NHTRC is funded by the federal government but has no requirement to report to law enforcement. The NHTRC is a referral network with a database of over 3,500 providers working on human trafficking. It is a good resource for hotline data and trends within various cities. However, the data is dependent on how successful the advertising of the hotline is within cities.

NHTRC has observed that San Francisco is missing a 24-hour response system to human trafficking and lacks services for adult male trafficking victims. The Polaris Project is also a good source for advocacy efforts. Their data allows Polaris to point out gaps in services in cities that can then be used to inform advocacy efforts to fund solutions.

Polaris Project is developing a State Assessment Tool Kit to support states in assessing their response to trafficking. The tool kit follows a framework that identifies best practices that can then be implemented in your community and includes:

1. Understanding your state and legal landscape;

2. Victim identification and provision of a victim-centered approach;

3. Coordination and collaboration;

4. Outreach and prevention measures.

Polaris will soon be piloting this tool in various cities.

Polaris Project Data:

2007 - 2015 U.S. Data

101,933 Hotline calls related to human trafficking

24,156 Potential trafficking cases (can contain multiple victims)

23,806 Trafficking victims identified

6,000 Cases reported to law enforcement

2015 U.S. Data

21,947 Hotline calls related to human trafficking

5,544 Potential trafficking cases (can contain multiple victims)

6,711 Trafficking victims identified

3,506 Direct calls from victims and survivors

2007 - 2015 California Data

14,927 Substantive hotline calls

4,094 Trafficking cases reported

3,479 Victims identified (high indicators)

3,875 Victims identified (moderate indicators)

2015 California Data

2,609 Substantive hotline calls

979 Trafficking cases reported

826 Potential Victims Identified

26% of calls directly from survivors (17% last year)

2015 San Francisco Data

196 Calls

59 Calls from potential victims

59 Case references potential trafficking

               -Sex: 44

               -Labor: 9

               -Sex & Labor: 2

               -Other/Not specified: 4

BeFree Textline National Statistics

3,282 Text message conversations (70% increase in text messages from 2014)

388 Trafficking cases reported (77% increase from 2014)

32% of texts directly from survivors (Last year if was 17%)

VIII.2016 Task Force Committees

The 2016 committees include: Child Sex Trafficking, Labor Trafficking (including massage parlors), Training Committee, and Sex Work and Trafficking Policy Impact. Contact Minouche Kandel to be added to a committee.

IX.Next Meeting-4/27/16, 1:30-3:30 pm, City Hall, room 305