Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking

Youth Trafficking Committee Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

 

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

II. January 11, 2017 minutes were approved. [Elisabet Medina]       

III. Stories from HART            Carly Devlin

Carly presented to the group on HART. HART, the Huckleberry Advocacy and Response Team, works in collaboration with Children’s Protective Services, the San Francisco Police Department, the District Attorney, and the Probation Department, to provide immediate crisis intervention and case management services for trafficked youth.  An issue HART has identified is the difficulty of finding places for young people to stay and eliminating barriers to these spaces. HART is brainstorming creative solutions for the creation of survivor defined safe spaces.

 

IV. Align on Committee Goals for the Year:

A.Review of goals from Strategic Planning retreat and survey to Committee

The group discussed the goals identified at the Strategic Planning Retreat and from the survey sent out to the Committee. Some gaps were identified in these goals, including a lack of focus on mental health, policy, and training.  The group discussed the importance of policy discussion and updates, but agreed an allotted time at each meeting for policy updates could take the place of a full policy workgroup. The importance of focusing on mental health was unanimously agreed upon by the committee. There was a discussion on whether this focus should be incorporated within every goal or if a separate workgroup would be created to tackle its complexities. Training was also identified as very important in keeping committee members up to date. The committee discussed creating an allotted fifteen minutes each meeting to be trained by the other committee members/ stakeholders in anti- youth trafficking would be very helpful.

 

A suggestion to the Committee was to have a larger focus on prevention. The Committee is also heavily focused on those trafficked, but it is equally important to look at the vulnerabilities of those who may become traffickers.

 

B.Below are the workgroups with the names of committee members who signed up and the amount of votes each goal received.

 

1. Housing/placements (emergency and long-term)- Develop and align on a comprehensive housing roadmap for all San Francisco commercially sexually exploited children and TAY, from emergency to long-term support, both within and outside of the foster care system. Align on goals, roles of individual service providers, and ideal timeline to be able to apply for funding as a group of organizations to bring our plan to life. (23.5)
   • Elisabet Medina (Lead)
   • Sabrina Forte
   • Becky Marcus
   • LYRIC Fellows
   • Alan Guttirez
   • Yaasmeen W.
   • Department of Homelessness

                                                 

2. Mental Health- mapping, trauma informed, streamlined. (20)
   • Include DPH
   • Chandni Jain, LYRIC
   • Yaasmeen W

 

3. Develop a real-time emergency “exit pathway” that ensures support to youth who are ready to leave a situation of exploitation (ie. If someone did outreach to ads to let young people know there is another option, how would we know that there are services and beds immediately available for support? There aren’t always housing options) (14)
   • Anotonia Lavine (Lead)

 

4. Expand employment and vocational training services for survivors** (12.5)
   • Antonia Lavine
   • Human Services Agency representative
   • Not for Sale
   • Jessica Bishop

 

5. Policy Workgroup (i.e no discrimination for labor trafficking) (12)
   • Saerom Choi, APILO
   • Incorporate in the meetings

 

6. Prevention services roadmap --- what do we offer when at risk (10)
   • Angelina Romano
   • Johanna Gendelmen
   • Elisabet Medina
   • Mollie Brown
   • Probation Department Representative
   • Department of Public Health Representative
   • Love Never Fails- Emily Hinsey or Vannessa Russell
   • Chandni Jain
   • Jackie Ortiz

 

7. Launch Youth Advisory Board for Mayor’s Task Force (9)

 

8. Map landscape of service providers. Identify gaps in services, areas for potential collaboration, and areas where agencies need further funding or support** (6)

 

9. Create a pamphlet with resources and information on victims’ rights and measure how many are distributed and what agencies distribute.** (5)

 

10.  Improve the Foster Care System- Reduce the number of referrals to foster care especially in racial groups highly impacted by trafficking (African American/ Latino), measure referral and utilization of services as alternative to foster care.  (5)

 

11. Task force training on relevant expertise for all of us/ trauma informed, labor) (4)
    • Alia
    • Angelina
    • Carly

 

12. Help people understand CSEC is required to be reported by law.  (3)

 

13. Record expungements for persons trafficked in the annual report, and work collaboratively to get more expungements **   (3)

 

14. Develop referral system that helps match clients to services based on organization’s capacity and need of client. System should be able to track types of referrals being made between organizations with ability to quantify needs/referrals that were not met (ie. Tried to find bed for this young person and no one was able to fill) – provide quantified insights on biggest gaps/needs for services   (2)

 

15. Increase the task force’s understanding of the role of law enforcement   (2)

 

16. Increase collaboration with survivor networks and other collaborative efforts   (2)

 

17. Establish relatable and healthy mentors for at risk youth  (1)

 

18. Create best practices list* (1)

 

19. Develop strategy to increase collaboration amongst task force organizations, including understanding current roadblocks for collaboration, ways to make coordination and collaboration easier, and methods for coordinated application for grants  (1)

 

20. Create documentation on the process that it took to get the CPS Protocol w/ Huckleberry in place (for other counties/cities), as well as see a good bit of analysis on how it is working (successes and new or unforeseen frustrations)  (0)

 

21. Train transportation providers to recognize signs of human trafficking    (0)

 

22. Develop city-wide strategy for prevention education for children, youth, teachers, administration, and parents on healthy relationships, human trafficking 101, and trafficking recruiting tactics  (0)

 

V. Agenda Items for Next Meeting (May 10, 2017)

• Develop expectations on what being in a workgroup means. This will be defined on the workgroup level.
• Committee members will brainstorm on which departments and other organizations to invite to the workgroups. Stakeholders in each focus area will be identified and the committee will make sure these influencers are represented in the workgroups.