Tag Archives: wcc press

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.

WestCoast at the White House

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On June 10th, WestCoast’s Executive Director, Stacey Katz, presented at the White House to state and national leaders who were brought together for the National Convening on Trafficking and Child Welfare. The U.S. Administration for Children and Families sponsored the event to prepare state child welfare agencies, law enforcement and the courts to implement new legislation, the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act of 2014.

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There is No Such Thing as a Child Prostitute

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An article in this week’s East Bay Express denounces the treatment of sexually exploited youth as criminals. There are over 100 girls sold for sex in Oakland every night. They are often arrested instead of given the services they need as victims.

Reporter Lynsey Clark interviewed WestCoast staff including Adela Rodarte, TAYS Service Coordinator; Jodie Langs, Policy & Communications Director; and Stacey Katz, Executive Director.

It seems to me that no matter what we believe, our current practice of incarcerating youth says: ‘You’ve done something wrong and that’s why we’re locking you up and charging you with a crime.’ This conveys the same thing that their traffickers do — that no one cares what happens to you.

The recently passed 2014-15 State Budget is helping to change that. The final State Budget includes unprecedented funding for child welfare agencies to provide services through the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Program. These resources are a critical first step toward helping communities like Oakland meet the needs of sexually exploited youth.

You can help raise awareness about child sex trafficking in Oakland and the recent changes to California’s response by forwarding this email or sharing the East Bay Express article on facebook and twitter.

*Please note that the article states Assembly Bill 2035 failed to move forward in the Legislature, however the bill continues to work through the legislative process.