Mayor's Task Force on Human Trafficking - October 9, 2013 - Child Sex Trafficking Subcommittee Meeting Minutes
Mayor’s Task Force on Human Trafficking
Child Sex Trafficking Subcommittee
MINUTES
1:30 pm – 3:30 pm, Wednesday, October 9, 2013
San Francisco Police Department, 850 Bryant Street, Room 500
Attendees: Sherilyn Adams (Larkin Street Youth Services); Tara Anderson (SF District Attorney's Office); Paniz Bagheri (SAGE Project); Marianne Barrett (SF District Attorney's Office); AnaMaria Corral (Center for Young Women's Development); Catherine Cousart (Child Protection Center/Human Services Agency); Jason Fox (SF Police Department); Annabelle Gardner (Young Minds Advocacy Project); Johanna Gendelman (Family and Children's Services Division/Human Services Agency); Kelly Gilliam (Nalls Foundation/FD Homes); Nancy Goldberg (Jewish Family & Children's Services); Minouche Kandel (Department on the Status of Women); Antonia Lavine (Jewish Coalition to End Human Trafficking/National Council of Jewish Women); Alison Lustbader (Department of Public Health CBHS); Carol Mo (Board of Supervisors); Delia Montiel (SFDA Victim Services); Lailah Morris (SF District Attorney's Office); John Tsutakawa (SF Human Services Agency/Family and Children's Services Division); Ana Villagran (SF Juvenile Probation Department); Lt. Trenia Wearing (SFPD Special Victims Unit); Maya Webb (San Francisco Unified School District)
- Introductions & Agenda Review
Attendees briefly introduced themselves and approved the agenda without objection.
- Reviewing Recommendations
from “Ending the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children”
Ms. Kandel distributed copies of recommendations taken from the California Child Welfare Council’s report on addressing child sex trafficking in California. Several subcommittee members stated that they read through the report previously and found the recommendations useful. The subcommittee may draw from these recommendations moving forward.
- Strategic Planning: Setting Subcommittee Goals
Developing Screening and Assessment Tools
The Department on the Status of Women will be collecting assessment tools used by agencies and departments that have contact with sexually exploited youth. After collection of these tools, this subcommittee may then come up with a model assessment tool to distribute to agencies and organizations that work with at-risk youth.
The San Francisco Police Department utilizes a screening card to help identify survivors of trafficking. ADA Barrett distributed copies of this tool at the meeting and suggested disseminating this tool or an expanded version of it to community providers.
SAGE has been collaborating with the Human Services Agency to develop a screening tool that is tailored at at-risk youth involved in the child welfare system. Mr. Tsutakawa reported that this tool is ready for testing.
Identifying Service Gaps and Scope of Trafficking
Many subcommittee members proposed conducting a human trafficking needs assessment in San Francisco in order to identify gaps in service. Several gaps identified thus far are a need for a solid referral mechanism among providers and City agencies (including law enforcement) and shelter space dedicated to trafficked youth.
Ms. Villagran stated that the first point of contact for exploited youth who are being arrested is the Huckleberry Community Assessment & Resource Center (CARC). An officer from the Juvenile Probation Department (JPD) and Huckleberry House are on-site at this time. The preference at this point is to explore diversions, but options are limited to care providers that they have an established relationship with who are known to be capable of serving and caring for vulnerable youth.
Another major gap identified was dedicated shelter space for trafficked youth. There currently are very few agencies in the City that reserve bed space for sexually exploited youth. Larkin Street Youth Services is one agency that provides at least 10 beds each night for trafficked youth. Members of the subcommittee remarked that there is unoccupied bed space in shelters for homeless youth that may possibly be reconstituted. If these spaces were to be set aside for trafficked youth, great care would need to be taken to separate and provide individualized services to these youth.
There was support also for doing research into the personal and environmental factors that put particular youth at risk for being trafficked.
Coordinated City-Wide Response with Model Protocols and Procedures
This subcommittee identified a need for a city-wide coordinated response among law enforcement officers, City agencies, and community partners. In Alameda County, this response is coordinated through establishing protocols and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that delineates which agencies are responsible for specific tasks when a trafficked youth is located. This subcommittee reviewed several areas for coordination: (1) establishing model protocols and procedures; (2) improving communication and notification; and (3) creating a database to facilitate communication, notification, and resource referral/delivery.
The Department on the Status of Women is currently working to collect protocols and procedures used at City agencies and community partners in order to create and disseminate a model protocol for all agencies that work with at-risk and/or trafficked youth. This subcommittee expressed interest also in exploring possible coordinated protocols through an MOU.
Several members expressed support of creating protocols to improve communication and notification specifically among City agencies and community providers and across county boundaries to facilitate service delivery and ensure youth do not fall through the cracks. Captain Fox stated that he hopes youth do not need to become involved with the criminal justice system and could circumvent that if officers at SFPD knew the youth were in the good hands of another agency providing targeted services. Right now, without that crucial communication, officers are forced to bring youth in.
Suggestions were made to create a coordinated database that could provide a directory of all relevant services in the City, track service delivery and follow-up, and send out notifications to agencies youth are being referred. Having such a system would enable data to be tracked much more easily and simplify communication, referral, and follow-up. The Department of Public Health currently has a coordinated database somewhat like the one proposed that has been effective within the agency. Issues regarding confidentiality and cost were identified as major potential barriers to creating this database.
Prevention: Staff and Student Training at Schools to Raise Public Awareness
Several subcommittee members proposed focusing on public awareness campaigns and targeted training sessions, particularly at schools. This brought up questions of when and how to intervene with young children.
Policy and Legislation
There was heated discussion regarding involuntary containment. Although many agencies are shifting away from system involvement and criminalization of youth, as of now, when exploited youth are not contained and are instead referred to a community partner, these youth are capable of walking out. Several suggestions were proposed, such as providing a seasoned advocate who is always present and accessible and to involuntarily contain exploited youth for a short period of time to enable partners to provide intervention services without involving law enforcement. This type of containment was compared to mental health interventions when a person exhibits suicidality (51-50).
Another proposed policy intervention was creating a special girls court like the one in Alameda County. Ms. Anderson stated that San Francisco’s population and infrastructure is very different than Alameda County’s, and while the girls court model works in Alameda, San Francisco would need to devise an intervention model specific to the needs of San Francisco.
Ms. Anderson stressed the need to look beyond prostitution to other related offense categories and identified this as an area of possible policy intervention. She suggested conducting an assessment of current referral offenses of youth. Ms. Villagran added that the Juvenile Probation Department gathers data based on statistics of specific charges, and often most serious offenses are used to classify the charge. This may hide smaller offenses like prostitution, making it difficult to extract accurate data.
SAGE is a member of the CSEC State Action Team. Ms. Bagheri provided an overview of the subcommittees and invited feedback and participation from the Mayor’s Task Force. The CSEC State Action Team has 4 Committees: (1) Prevention and Education; (2) Specialized Services/Continuum of Care; (3) Data Collection; and (4) Prevalence and Assessment.
- Next Steps
- Next Meetings (Date, Time, Location)
The subcommittee members decided to meet once a month, the 2nd Wednesday afternoons, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm, at 850 Bryant Street.
The next meeting of the CSEC Subcommittee will be held on November 13, 2013, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm, at 850 Bryant Street.
- Agenda for Next Meeting
Ms. Kandel will begin collecting model protocols and screening assessments from subcommittee members and the rest of the Mayor's Task Force. She requested any readily available be emailed to her prior to the next meeting.
