Group training community members to spot human trafficking
Oct. 12—People received the tools to spot and help those who may be the victims of human trafficking at an event Wednesday at Missouri Western State University.
The goal of the Human Trafficking Training Center is to ensure every attendee who leaves the class can identify and help victims and end the cycle of traffickers.
"Today we are putting on our citizen's academy, which teaches people who are in the general community about human trafficking," said Alison Phillips, co-founder of the Human Trafficking Training Center. "We want our attendees here to get an idea of what human trafficking is, not what sensationalized (movies) tells us or social media. We want to show them what to look for, how to identify it and then for them to understand how they can get involved to support efforts to fight this within their own community."
Phillips said organizers touch on many hard topics throughout the training.
"We start by defining what human trafficking is, understanding how pervasive it is and understanding what our law enforcement is doing across the country in it and how we can support that," Phillips said. "We will teach indicators, what to look for, how to report that. Then we'll go into understanding what to look for on your kids' phone and how to watch out for your own kids. Then we'll highlight some local organizations that are making a difference."
With the training open to the public, Phillips said she hopes people leave with an urge to take action.
"I want them to walk away feeling inspired with the knowledge that they acquired and with understanding how they fit into the bigger picture," Phillips said. "This is not a problem that law enforcement alone is going to be able to solve. We need to have a whole complete engaged community that sees this and that is doing their part to fight it."
Paradigm Shift Training and Consulting also was part of the event.
"I'm partnering with the Human Trafficking Training Center and the angle that I have as a health care worker is being able to talk with other health care workers about how to identify trafficking," said Heidi Olsen, a forensic nurse and founder of Paradigm Shift Training and Consulting. "We often see trafficking victims in the health care setting but they're often not recognized. I want to give health care workers the education and the skills to be able to do a better job of identifying, treating and knowing how to refer victims for services."
Olsen's interest in bringing awareness to human trafficking was sparked after her experience taking care of victims.
"I had no idea what to do. I had never been given the skills or protocols or really anything to know exactly what to do in that situation, and I think a lot of health care workers feel that way," Olsen said. "Seeing this patient and really just kind of seeing that disaster that occurred and our inability to intervene in an appropriate way just it broke my heart."
Olsen said that experience lit a fire underneath her to do a much better job and to give other health care workers to do the same sort of skills she learned.
"Trafficking is its own unique type of trauma and it's different than sexual abuse," Olsen said. "It's different than domestic violence and a lot of health care workers just don't have that training or that skill set."
The training sessions leave many people fired up to help, Olsen said.
"Suddenly now they feel like they understand the issue and they want to do something about it, which is exactly what we want," Olsen said. "I just did a really short training with some nurses in Canada last week and the next day they identified a 12-year-old that was being trafficked. That's the other really incredible thing. Not only are people fired up, but they start to make a real difference."
The Human Trafficking Training Center is located in the Kansas City area however travels to bring training to your area. For more information, visit its website at www.humantraffickingtrainingcenter.com.
