Tag Archives: news

Join our CSE-IT Informational Webinars

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Are you interested in screening for commercial sexual exploitation of youth with an evidence-based screening tool? Are you currently screening but aren’t satisfied with your existing tool? Join our informational webinars to learn more about the CSE-IT, WestCoast’s validated screening tool for commercial sexual exploitation of youth. During this conversation with our trainers and Project Director, you’ll learn more about the CSE-IT, how to implement the tool at your organization, training options, and our web-based app called CSE-IT Online.

Check out our available dates below and register today! If none of these days work for you, or if you want to schedule an in-depth one-on-one conversation about the CSE-IT, please fill out our Inquiry Form or email screening@westcoastcc.org.

To learn more about the CSE-IT, click here.

June 18, 9-9:30AM PST – Register

August 6, 11-11:30AM PST – Register

October 29, 9:30-10AM PST – Register

December 11, 12:30-1PM PST – Register

WestCoast research studies Exploitation and Gender

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WestCoast is releasing a new research study, Exploitation and Gender: Increasing the Visibility of Cismale, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming Youth. There is a common misconception that sex trafficking and exploitation only impacts cisgender girls. However, cismale, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth also experience exploitation, yet remain unseen by providers.

Young child on rope structure in a playground

Through focus groups with survivors and providers, we found that though indicators of trafficking are universal across gender identities, they are often overlooked or discounted for cismale, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth.

Based on our findings, we recommend the following: 

  • Incorporate gender inclusivity in trainings to combat myths about exploitation and gender.
  • Highlight the exploitative nature of survival sex, which may be more common among cismale, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth.
  • Implement universal screening to support identification of all vulnerable youth.

Our research also underscores the need to create welcoming, non judgemental, culturally relevant systems of care. Youth of all gender identities need safe environments where providers take their experiences seriously and can identify the signs of sexual exploitation.

We are grateful to our focus group participants and interviewees for sharing their time, expertise, and insight with us. 

To support WestCoast’s clinical, training, and research work, please consider donating today.

Acknowledgements:

This report was possible through the expertise provided by more than 30 focus group participants and interviewees. We would like to thank them for being generous with their time and for their willingness to share their thoughts, insights, and experiences. We are also grateful to all of the individuals who generously provided input and reviewed this report.

Sincere thanks to our consultants who provided candid feedback and helped steer this report in the right direction:

Thank you to the staff at WestCoast Children’s Clinic who provided significant support to carry out this project: Morgan Bernados, Leilani Diaz, Hannah Haley, Eden Moore, and Nick Nguyen.

New WestCoast Research: The Intersection of Trauma & Mental Health

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WestCoast Children’s Clinic is releasing a research study, Uncovering Trauma At a Community Clinic: Links to Mental Health Needs, the first in a three-part series on youth mental health. In this first paper, also published by the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, we discuss how patterns of trauma exposures among youth result in distinct mental health needs. 

For the youth WestCoast serves, we found that the impact of community violence on mental health is just as profound as child abuse and neglect: Youth who experience community violence exposure have the highest level of mental health needs. Additionally, youth that experience a single traumatic event often need as much intensive support as those that have experienced more than one trauma. As such, counting traumas is not as helpful as understanding the whole of the child’s experience when providing support. 

Taken together, our findings reiterate the importance of policy and community-level interventions that address poverty, racism and other environmental factors that deeply impact children and families’ lives.  

To read more about our findings and their implications, read the full paper here.

Thank you to the Zellerbach Family Foundation and our individual donors for supporting WestCoast’s research.

WestCoast report highlights the importance of universal screening for trafficking

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Today WestCoast Children’s Clinic is releasing a brief about the impact of universal screening on identifying children who are trafficked or vulnerable to sex trafficking. Our experience using the Commercial Sexual Exploitation – Identification Tool (CSE-IT) shows that universal screening is critical to both prevention and early intervention. 

Early identification and intervention prevent prolonged abuse

Most children experiencing exploitation go two or more years before anyone notices the signs. After implementing a universal screening protocol, child welfare staff in one large urban county identified ten times as many trafficked youth.

“Screening universally was a game changer for us. It allowed us to do more than just verify our gut instinct about cases. We started to see how all the complicating factors point to exploitation. We’re better able to recognize the abuse.” 
– Child Welfare Manager, large California County 

Universal screening can be implemented in any setting

Screening universally with a validated tool like the CSE-IT only takes 3-5 minutes to complete. WestCoast has trained providers in 20 states to use the CSE-IT in settings such as child welfare, juvenile justice, schools, foster family agencies, child advocacy centers, healthcare settings, and homeless shelters. These agencies range in size and staff capacity, demonstrating that universal screening is feasible in all systems and settings. 

As of this publication, providers have screened nearly 134,000 youth using the CSE-IT, and identified 15,197 youth, or 11%, as having a clear concern for exploitation. If you are interested in learning more about the CSE-IT, please contact us at screening@westcoastcc.org.

To increase the number of exploited youth that get the help they need, please consider donating to WestCoast Children’s Clinic today.

Rise in children’s psychiatric hospitalizations

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An article in Sunday’s Sacramento Bee reports a nearly 40% increase in youth psychiatric hospitalizations in California between 2007 and 2012. A decline in the availability of crisis response services and therapeutic residential treatment has left parents and social workers with few other options besides emergency rooms.WestCoast’s community-based mental health services, which are mobile and intensive, help to fill the gap between traditional therapy and hospitalization.

Read the article here.

Have you seen these billboards?

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The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and MISSSEY have launched a campaign to put child sex traffickers on notice, reach out to victims, and ask for community support to end trafficking. The 27 billboards and 30 bus shelter ads placed throughout Oakland have three clear messages. District Attorney Nancy O’Malley speaks to the goals of the campaign in no uncertain terms:

  • To the buyers and sellers of children for sex: You will be prosecuted in Alameda County by my office, which leads the nation in human trafficking prosecutions.
  • To victims and survivors: Getting out of the situation is possible, others have survived and “U can 2.”
  • To the community: It is time to come together and end sex trafficking. 

Spread the word–we have zero tolerance for trafficking in our neighborhoods. Share this blog post on Facebook, and report suspicious behavior to the human trafficking hotline by phone 1 (888) 373-7888 or text Be Free (233733).

WestCoast Children’s Clinic works with over 100 sexually exploited youth at any given time. We need your help.