Online Learning: Utilizing Technology to Reduce the Risk of Exploitation in Congregate Care Settings

In the midst of the current COVID-19 crisis, so many of us are looking for new and innovative ways to serve clients and learn best practices for meeting needs in changing and challenging times. The launch of our new online course has come at a time when people are relying on technology for both learning and connecting—two of the central themes of our six-week Advanced Residential Institute on Serving Trafficked and High-Risk Adolescent Girls.

The young victims of commercial sexual exploitation are hidden in plain sight – in schools, group homes, foster care, and juvenile justice facilities. Often, they are first seen as victims in the child protective services system as a result of familial abuse.1 A 2013 Institute of Medicine report on sex trafficking of minors notes that, “involvement in the child welfare system, including out-of-home placement, such as in group homes and foster care, may be a risk factor for commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors.”2

Though each young person’s story is different, their vulnerabilities are often quite uniform: the majority (85%) of young survivors in My Life My Choice’s Massachusetts-based Survivor Empowerment Program are in the care and custody of the child welfare system, meaning they have experienced prior abuse or neglect, and have lived in foster care or a congregate care facility. As is true throughout the U.S., exploiters systematically target adolescent girls with this history of pain, living in these places.

For these reasons, we can assume that every girl who comes into a residential program or congregate care facility is supremely vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC).

For these reasons, we worked to create the first-ever online course designed specifically for congregate care settings to reduce the risk of commercial sexual exploitation among adolescent girls in their care.

Our online course was born from a one-day training offered by My Life My Choice to help congregate care settings in Massachusetts develop more CSEC-responsive programming. Based on the number of requests for consultation and demand for this training, we recognized a need to make the class accessible to programs outside of Massachusetts and also that if we spread the course over six weeks we could go much deeper and foster rich dialogue among professionals working in the residential field from across the country. Infused with the voices of young people, course participants hear from young people like, Jess*, who shares her experience of living in a residential program:

“I've had a lot of great staff. Staff that actually cared. Some of them they were really understanding and they took the time to care for us, to make sure that we were okay and if not...being there for me if I needed to talk. They were all ears and that's a great thing to have.”

The course is grounded in years of experience working in and with residential programs serving girls, and informed by young women themselves who have lived in these programs and experienced commercial sexual exploitation. It is our belief that gender responsive programming is the most effective and trauma-informed approach. We believe this particular training program will have the greatest impact on residential programs serving adolescent girls, which can include cisgender girls, transgender females, and transgender males whose experience of exploitation happened due to their gender identity or sex assigned at birth.

Here is what some of the participants from our inaugural session say:

This class has added great perspective to my professional life. First and foremost, it's so nice to know we are not alone in the struggles we face when providing services to victims of sexual assault and human trafficking. I have loved interacting with other professionals in my line of work from all over the country. I genuinely look forward to the live sessions with Nicole and Amy every week. Nicole and Amy make the course feel welcoming and accessible to all, regardless of the specific role you play in your own organization. The knowledge I have gained thus far in the course has already influenced how I interact with clients and staff. I have shared materials and approaches with my own staff and love seeing them implement these new tools in their day to day work. I would recommend this class to anyone who wants to grow in their organization. You will see results.
- Emily Gordon, Program Coordinator, Friend to Friend in Carthage North Carolina

I've seen nothing like this before and I've been in this field since 2005. We are talking among "our people" who live it, breathe it, and are immersed in it daily. When I enter a session, I'm instantly feeling positive feelings and seeing Nikki and Amy’s faces are that extra layer of icing that tops it all off. They are always speaking our language, their tone and delivery are inviting, and their choice of activities are engaging and collaborative. From breakout sessions, to us contributing via text on a live google doc, to our "homework"--its the best I've seen yet. Where else do you get excited about homework and discussions/chats??, exactly! I am eager to stay connected with "our people" and think this is a course any leader within the residential setting with CSEC and high risk youth should take."
-Victoria Roland, MS, Hale Kipa, Oahu, Program Coordinator

The online course is comprised of six 75-minute live sessions with My Life My Choice expert trainers as well as up to 60 minutes of asynchronous content/assignments between each live session. The course is designed to encourage sharing current practices and experiences with different providers from across the country. Course curricula focuses on organizations’ CSEC policy, staff training, program implementation and sustainability, and best practices in serving commercially sexually exploited youth. Participants hear first-hand from young survivors of CSEC as well as experts in the fields of congregate care, CSEC, and law enforcement– creating a holistic training experience that fosters lasting programmatic change.

The inaugural session of the Advanced Residential Leadership online course launched on February 25, 2020. A second session is scheduled to begin on April 28th and run through June 2nd. Visit www.mylifemychoice.org to learn more or to apply.

1 Williams LM, Powell A, Frederick ME. Pathways into and out of Commercial Sexual Exploitation – Preliminary Findings and Implications for Responding to Sexually Exploited Teens. November 2008.
2 Institute of Medicine, National Research Council, Confronting Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States. September 2013.