Youth Trafficking Committee - March 13, 2019 - Minutes

Meeting Date: 
March 13, 2019 - 3:30pm
Location: 

SF Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking

Youth Committee Meeting 3/13/19

 

Present:

Ifasina Clear and Julia Arroyo (co-chairs), Young Women’s Freedom Center

Ariel Marie (sp?), Young Women’s Freedom Center

Carly Devlin, Huckleberry,

Jen Daly, Legal Services for Children

Alia-Whitney Johnson and Sheela Ramesh, Freedom Forward

Mary Steiner, UNA USA SF

Jax Harrison, StopChildTrafficking.Org

Hong Le, Bay Area Legal Aid

Miguel Palmer, Love Never Fails

Darian Eastman (sp?), Not for Sale

Paola Martin Del Campo, Safe & Sound

 

Welcome, Introductions/Check-In, Agenda Review [Julia Arroyo and Ifasina Clear]

 

Review of Minutes from December 5, 2018 [Julia Arroyo]

·      Jax Harrison’s name was omitted from the minutes but she was present.

·      Approved: motion to approve by Jax, seconded by Darian.

 

Discussion: Goals of Youth Trafficking Committee [Ifasina Clear]

·      Intro to discussion by Ifasina: we decided on two YTC goals at the most Task Force meeting, after our previous YTC meeting discussion devolved without having any goals.

·      Question: Why are we all at this YTC meeting?

o   Prevent violence against youth

o   Help youth transition out of the street economy

o   Hoping to get SF Task Force can elevate some of the issues facing exploited youth

o   Look at funding/building a bigger pie of funding for all of the organizations around the table

o   Better understand the landscape in SF, and use that knowledge to break the “supply chain” of trafficked children

o   Leverage each other’s knowledge, expertise, and experience in making recommendations to Task Force on gaps and needs

o   Create more spaces where youth who are directly impacted by these issues can directly influence how the city makes policy around these issues

o   Networking/presentation, to learn what others are working on

o   To make sure that when recommendations are made, the population that the member’s organization serves is properly represented by those recommendations

o   Give youth voice at the Task Force while also giving them guidance

o   Educating the community and seeking public awareness

o   Note: The described reasons can be clumped into practice, policy, and networking/resource sharing

o   Takeaway: We are not in this room for the same reasons.

·      We have different desired outcomes, different orientations to those outcomes, and different methodologies.

·      Unclear what the mission of the Mayor’s Task Force at large is, for several people. (There is a Mission Statement, but it doesn’t seem to be moving forward in any meaningful way.) This committee is smaller and could be more focused.

·      Mission Statement of Task Force: Both the old (2013) and the new (2016) mission statements were read aloud.

·      One member suggested considering our “helps” and “hindrances.”

·      If a goal is to develop more robust services, then networking in the room and getting the right others on board would be valuable.

·      One member suggested that we come up with our long-term (e.g. 2 year) goals, and work out intermediate goals for the next months leading up to then

·      On a positive note, the Housing Recommendations were an important start, especially because of the youth voice in forming them. They are concrete and give us next steps.

 

Discussion: Next 1-2 Year Focus of YTC Task Force [Ifasina Clear]

·      At Task Force meeting, the group decided that the two areas of work should be (1) implementing the housing/placement recommendations and (2) creating robust employment options for youth

·      One member stated that a 3rd workgroup might still need to be prevention. Another stated that we might not be cohesive enough as a group to do that, because we may not all agree on what prevention involves

·      We have 9 hours of meeting time over the year (6 1.5-hour meetings). That’s not long. Plus the same people haven’t always showed up in the past, making it very hard to get a ton done. So we should discuss what we’re actually committing to (working outside of meetings, closing the group to people coming and going, etc.)

·      The SF Task Force is valuable because there’s a government entity involved that we can pressure and hold accountable.

·      New plan for YTC meeting agendas going forward:

o   15 minutes: present/resource share

o   3 workgroups break out

§  Implementing housing recommendations that were already made. NOT for creating new ideas.

§  Employment/Jobs for youth.

§  Prevention.

§  Possible 4th workgroup, in a different time/place: police engagement. Ifasina and Julia stated that based on the recommendations and work of the Youth Advisory Board, the police will not be attending YTC meetings.

o   Report back to whole YTC

 

Follow-Ups and Next Steps

·      Confirm ongoing meeting time with Kyoko Peterson

·      Convene smaller group to decide on governance issues: the orientation of new members, closure of group, who chairs workgroups, support for facilitators, ideal platform for creating/sharing materials

o   Paola will create and circulate two rounds of Google forms to help YTC make these decisions.

·      Alia will send Julia and Ifasina latest workgroup materials from 2018, including Housing and Placement Recommendations