Is My Child At Risk for Human Trafficking?

What is human trafficking? Is your child at increased risk of being trafficked? Listen to this conversation with guests Dr. Yolanda Montgomery, a nurse, advocate, and the founder of Zoë Ministries, a nonprofit established in 2012 to combat human trafficking in Delaware and beyond, and Sara Poore, the Executive Director of the Delaware Anti-Trafficking Action Council (DATAC), leading statewide efforts to prevent human trafficking, support survivors, and strengthen community partnerships.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What is human trafficking, and how does it show up in the lives of children and teens in the U.S.?
• Why might children who have experienced foster care, adoption, or relative caregiving be at higher risk for trafficking?
• What role do things like running away, online activity, or mental health play in increasing risk?
• Are there particular ages or developmental stages when children are most at risk?
• What systemic factors—such as placement instability or a lack of adult oversight—contribute to vulnerability?
• What signs or red flags should caregivers be watching for in their children or teens?
• How does trafficking often begin for vulnerable youth?
• What should a caregiver do if they suspect trafficking or exploitation?
• If a child discloses trafficking or exploitation, what should a caregiver’s first response be?
• What kinds of services or professionals should a caregiver seek out to help a child recover from trafficking or exploitation?
• What are some preventative actions parents and caregivers can build into their homes and relationships with their kids?
• What can caregivers be sensitive to at home, things that may contribute to increasing risk factors for our kids who are more vulnerable to these risks? (
• What conversations should caregivers be having regularly with their tweens or teens about trafficking risks?
• What resources, hotlines, or support networks should every caregiver have saved in their phones, or know about?
• In addition to being the one safe, stable, nurturing adult in a child’s life, what other practical protective factors can parents and caregivers incorporate into their home’s daily rhythms?

Chapters

• 2:01 What is human trafficking, and how does it show up in the lives of children and teens in the U.S.?
• 9:07 Why might children who have experienced foster care, adoption, or relative caregiving be at higher risk for trafficking?
• 13:07 What role do things like running away, online activity, or mental health play in increasing risk?
• 16:32 Are there particular ages or developmental stages when children are most at risk?
• 20:28 What systemic factors—such as placement instability or a lack of adult oversight—contribute to vulnerability?
• 27:20 What signs or red flags should caregivers be watching for in their children or teens?
• 34:44 How does trafficking often begin for vulnerable youth?
• 36:29 What should a caregiver do if they suspect trafficking or exploitation?
• 41:31 If a child discloses trafficking or exploitation, what should a caregiver’s first response be?
• 42:56 What kinds of services or professionals should a caregiver seek out to help a child recover from trafficking or exploitation?
• 53:17 What are some preventative actions parents and caregivers can build into their homes and relationships with their kids?
• 56:34 What can caregivers be sensitive to at home, things that may contribute to increasing risk factors for our kids who are more vulnerable to these risks?
• 59:37 What conversations should caregivers be having regularly with their tweens or teens about trafficking risks?
• 1:03:09 What resources, hotlines, or support networks should every caregiver have saved in their phones, or know about?
• 1:04:01 In addition to being the one safe, stable, nurturing adult in a child’s life, what other practical protective factors can parents and caregivers incorporate into their home’s daily rhythms?

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Hello and welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about adoption, foster care and kinship
care. I'm Tracy Whitney, the content director of CreatingaFamily .org and your host
for today's conversation about human trafficking. Before we get started into the meat
of the conversation, I'd like to give our listeners a little bit of a heads up.
Some of today's content may be too complicated or too raw for little ears and So
if you're listening with a child in the room or in the car, you might want to
find some other way to occupy your little one or come back to the conversation
later so that you can protect your children's ears and then decide later how to
talk to your children about this crucial topic. Our guests for understanding more
about human trafficking and whether or not our kids are at risk for human
trafficking are Dr. Yolanda Montgomery and Sarah Poore. And Dr.
Montgomery has given permission for us to call her Yolanda so that we can flow
through the conversation. We always want to give props where props are due and she's
earned the title, but she has given us permission to call her by her first name.
Dr. Montgomery is a nurse advocate and the founder of Zoe Ministries, a nonprofit
that was established in 2012 to combat human trafficking in Delaware and beyond.
Under God's direction, she has helped shift the state from inaction to proactive
engagement, influencing how parents, lawmakers, and communities understand and combat
human trafficking. Sarah Poore is the Executive Director of the Delaware Anti
-Trafficking Action Council, leading statewide efforts to prevent human trafficking,
support survivors, and strengthen community partnerships. With a background in human
services, she brings both expertise and dedication to the fight for justice and
healing. So welcome, ladies. We are thrilled to have you here today. Thank you so
much. Thank you for having us. This is an honor. Yes, thank you. So let's get
started with some definitions so that we're all working kind of from the same page.
Sarah, can you define human trafficking and how it shows up in the lives of
children and teens in the United States? - Absolutely, so that's a great starting
point. So I do want to offer some clarification between the federal definition and
Delaware definition because I think it's crucial that listeners understand that there
is a difference currently between the two. So federal definition of human trafficking
is the exploitation of a person for labor services, commercial sex through forced
fraud or coercion. For anyone under the age of 18, any commercial sex act is
trafficking even without the proof of forced fraud and coercion. But when you relate
that to Delaware, so under Delaware code 11, trafficking requires the involvement of
a third person. So caregiver sexual abuse alone is charged under sexual abuse
statutes. It becomes human trafficking, when the caregiver or another person transfers
or facilitates the exploitation of a child with a third party in exchange for money,
goods, drugs, housing or other value. So I just want to be clear because a lot of
people think that there's a straight federal definition of what trafficking is and
states vary according to their definitions. So I'm going to get in some national
data because I think is really important to kind of solidify these numbers. So the
National Human Trafficking Hotline in 2024 had 11 ,999 cases,
21 ,865 victims, and 2 ,666 minors.
The sex trafficking numbers there were 6 ,647. The labor trafficking numbers
122. So Nick Mick, it was just the national, Yolanda,
help me. National Center for Necessary and Exploited Children. Thank you. It just
went blank. 2024, they reported 27 ,800 possible child trafficking reports.
One in seven children were likely victims of child sexual exploitation. Average age
is 15. The online exploitation,
546 enticement reports. There's been a 192 % increase since 2023.
- Wow. - There's 26 ,823 child sex reports,
which is a 55 % increase. And at least 30 teen boys have committed suicide from
2021 that were linked to sex torsion. So some Delaware specific data, 2021 and 2022,
DOE had reported there were around 3 ,434 homeless students that were identified in
public schools. Applying national estimates, one in seven runaways, so roughly 29 ,800
Delaware youth may run away at some point. 22 ,300 of those are likely girls.
There's a 46 % risk of physical abuse for runaways, a 38 % of emotional abuse,
17 % of unwanted sexual activity, and it has been noted that within 48 hours,
runaways are approached by traffickers. The Office of Child Advocate in 2024 in
Delaware had 25 juvenile cases reported, 25 were intraframilial caregiver household
member and transferring the child to a third party. I think part of the
conversation, and I'm sure Yolanda agrees, we really need to talk about family -based
trafficking 'cause that's where a lot of our numbers come from. Studies show that 40
to 60 % of U .S. children involved in sex trafficking cases were family members.
Interfamiliar cases include parents, guardians, exchanging kids for money, rent, food,
rides to the store, anything and everything that you can think of, children or a
commodity, they're not their child, right? So a big thing about trafficking is
manipulation. It's a lot about mind control. So the sex torsion piece is a rapidly
increased form of exploitation, predators, coerced minors, into sending explicit and
threatening pictures, predominantly boys. So statistically, we know that it takes an
average, about 23 minutes for a a boy to send a picture to one of the ads,
one of the bates online. So we know that the boys are more susceptible to the ads
than the girls are. It takes longer, typically, for the girls to send pictures.
Types of sex trafficking, there are types of trafficking in Delaware. Sex trafficking
occurs in homes, hotels, illicit massage businesses, online, social media. Delaware
traffickers, we see them go from state to state 'cause I five, it's very easy for
them to transport victims across state line. So the thing is human trafficking is
going to thrive wherever children are already vulnerable. So that's the biggest piece.
So when you have children that are already vulnerable, that's where traffickers are
really going to target, right? And they know exactly what they're doing, right? So
we all dedicate our professions to being the best that we can be when it comes to
traffickers, they do the same thing. They're always evolving and they're always
learning new tactics.
Wow. Is it safe to assume that given the Delaware numbers that you cited, those are
similar numbers across the nation? Is that a pretty safe assumption? Yes.
The issue you want to piggyback please, the issue is that we don't have a national
tracking system for trafficking, right? So like murders, rapes, things like that, like
it's very easy to kind of pull the data from different states, but not all states,
number one, even track trafficking data. The definitions are different, right? Between
state to state. So it's actually really hard to get concrete trafficking data.
A lot of it is estimates. And we know that only 2 % of trafficking victims are
ever recovered. So the data that we have is based on a very minimal number. - And
I would add to that too that the stats that we do have to piggyback on what Sarah
said is that those are the known cases, right? So for every child that we discover
has been trafficked, there's probably at least 100 more that are not discovered and
are never reported. So the UN put out a report, I believe it was before 2020,
before COVID even, And they said approximately 300 ,000 kids in the U .S.
every year being trafficked. So we're talking about domestic minor sex trafficking
with those numbers, 300 ,000 kids in the U .S. being bought and sold from American
citizens to other American citizens that are American children. So this doesn't even,
like we're not even talking about immigration, crossing the border, transnational,
we're talking about our kids. And that's sort of our niche here at Zoey Ministries
is the domestic minor sex trafficking piece. We don't offer services or housing to
adults. So we are not as familiar with those numbers as Sarah would be or labor
trafficking. We deal basically with DMST. - Okay. So that introduces a great next
question. Why are certain children, For example, the children in our demographic that
our listeners are raising, adoptive, foster or kinship children, why are they maybe
at a higher risk for being trafficked in any of these ways? Dr. Montgomery. That's
a great question. So just by the nature of just being in foster care, it means
they've already experienced some kind of disruption in the home. There's always been
already been some kind of trauma or some kind of abuse. Many of these children,
most of them have, you know, attachment issues due to that disruption. And they're
used to, in foster care, kind of being moved without warning, without any say,
they're used to their caretakers receiving a check for caring for them. And so some
of those dynamics then are paralleled by the trafficker. So when the trafficker
expects them to move without warning, without any say, and says, you're going to
make money for me. They've already been trained through the foster care system to
understand that that's the dynamic. And so what traffickers will do is create a
relationship and a bond with them and get them to learn to trust them. And they
fit their experts at manipulation and coercion. And so they figure out where is the
void in this kid's life, and how can I fill that void? So if they need a father
figure, if they need a boyfriend, whatever it is they need, housing,
attention, they figure out what that void is, and then they meet them at the place
of their void and build relationship, and they give them the one thing that they
feel like they're missing. And then over, and they're very patient, you know, over a
couple of weeks or a couple of months, they start building relationship and start to
eventually alienate them from caregivers or adults that can sort of throw up a red
flag and say, Hey, wait a minute, this, this may not be safe for you. And so
they, they communicate with them in a way that they say, you know, I know that I'm
legally an adult and you're not. And the people that are taking care of you would
not be okay with this. But I know that you're mature enough to handle this kind of
relationship. So we're going to keep it between the two of us. And then we're going
to stack up for a couple of years, and we're going to get married or whatever it
is their dream is, that's what they feed. And so the foster care system has
wonderful, wonderful people. And I have an adoptive daughter that needed foster care
for a few months of her life. So I have a great appreciation for those that are
doing foster care and adoption. I also know that just by virtue of adoption,
there are sometimes our attachment issues already. And so the traffickers will they
know that there are books and videos that traffickers can can read and learn how to
perpetrate against children. And how do you find their void and how do you fill
that void and how do you get them to trust you? It's their full -time job to find
these kids, find the voids, fill those voids, build a relationship, and then bring
sort of the bait and switch, or after they've brought them into a relationship,
then there's an expectation. Well, I've been saving money and you haven't really
earned any money yet and we're in this together, So this is an expectation I have
of you and that's sort of where the trafficking begins So that goes back to what
Sarah was saying earlier about them just like we in the child welfare community do
our very best to stay current and participate in ongoing education and build up our
parenting toolboxes or our social welfare toolboxes Social worker toolboxes these
traffickers are doing the same thing. They're becoming the best they can be at what
they do to further their mission and their agenda. That's a great reminder that I
think many of us probably don't even think about on the regular. Sarah, what role
do things like running away or online activity or the child's state of mental health
play in increasing those risks that they are already struggling with.
- Yeah, that is a great, great question. So running away is a huge red flag,
huge red flag. So youth experiencing homelessness are 7 .5 times more likely to be
trafficked than house peers. One in five homeless youth report trafficking
victimization. 14 % reported sex trafficking victimization. 8 % was labor trafficking,
runaway youth, they often, they often engage in something called survival sex,
right, which the same thing that Yolanda was just saying, they find the need, they
find whatever it is. And then if they need housing, it's, well, I'm giving you a
place to stay, you can't stay here for free, right? So it's manipulated very quickly
in what the expectation of the child is. Now online sex, online activity and sex
torsion. In 2023, there was a 55 % of child sex trafficking recruitment online,
and that was published by Polaris. The ICAT Task Force reported 35 % year -over
increase in cyber tip lines in 2022 and 2023. Mental health and trauma play a huge
role. So imagine a youth that has never experienced stability or love or knows even
what that looks like normalcy, anything. So when traffickers come in, they're able to
create, just like Alana said, they're able to create whatever reality that child
needs. And because they've never had a baseline of what it's supposed to be, they
really don't know where to go from it. It's normal. So trauma is one of the
strongest predicators of trafficking vulnerability. DOJ funded a study in 2020 and
found that 84 % of traffic minors had a prior history of sexual abuse. I've seen
numbers as high as 93 % have experienced past history of sexual abuse. Two -thirds
had prior involvement with the child welfare system or child neglect. The adverse
childhood experiences, the ACE scores, youth with four plus ACE are 12 times more
likely to attempt suicide and more likely to be exploited. Children of sexual abuse
and self -harm. So the meta analysis found that 22 to 29 % of sexually abused youth
engage in self -harm behaviors, whether it's cutting suicide attempts,
things like that. There are three to four times more likely to try to commit
suicide. Girls who experience sexual abuse are 4 .7 times more likely to engage in
suicidal behavior. The overlapping risks runaway youth with prior sexual abuse and
histories are often the highest risk group. They carry untreated trauma, they seek
safety and connection online, they are more likely to struggle with depression,
anxiety, self -harm, and traffickers recognize these overlapping symptoms within the
child. So in summary, children with histories of sexual abuse, self -harm,
or suicidal behavior are among the most vulnerable. Their trauma magnifies the risks
of running away unsafe online activity and mental health struggles. Without strong
protective factors and trauma -informed interventions, these youth are the greatest risk
of danger of exploitation. A lot to swallow. That's tough stuff.
Can you tell us, in addition to the factors like trauma and prior abuse and things
like that, are there particular ages or developmental stages that children may be
more vulnerable than other ages and stages? - So that is another great question.
Unfortunately, each developmental aspect of a child has different risks, right?
So there's really no age that would be a safe age when it comes to that. So in
Delaware, we've identified children as young as two and four when our trafficking
report that involve child sexual abuse material, research shows that parents and
caregivers, they're the ones that typically produce the child sexual abuse material,
right? So a study done showed that 82 % of the child sexual abuse material cases,
all the victims one to nine years old. So then you go to like 11 to 14, that's
when you see youth that are seeking independence, they might be acting out more,
they might be engaging with strangers more online. This is a good time like first
grooming. They might be exposed to their first grooming episode within this. Med
adolescents, so 15 to 17, is the peak risk of the trafficking window. The DOJ data
shows that 70 % of minors are trafficked between ages of 14 and 17. Transition into
adulthood. So this is the thing, when a child turns 18, they're not magically an
independent adult that can handle life, right? So youth aging out of foster care
face extreme risks. They're actually one in three become homeless within the first
two years, making it easier for traffickers to offer them services work. Predators in
online communities. So we found KidFlix was a platform that was shut down in 2025.
It had 1 .8 million users and 91 ,000 videos of child sexual abuse material.
So just to go back a little bit when Yolanda was mentioning that they have books
and manuals and things like that, there are currently over 117 active websites right
now on the dark web that have millions of users and they go from explaining how
early you should be able to sexually abuse the child without it being noticed,
right? How to traffic them, how to exchange children at play dates, how to target
children from their children's Facebook accounts, that's one. So they'll go to their
other kids and see their friends on their Facebook accounts. One global operation,
law enforcement identified 1 .84 million users across five child sexual abuse material
sites. So in summary, 11 to 17 is typically the most dangerous age, but even
infants and toddlers have been identified in trafficking and child sexual abuse
material. Adolescents are actually, well, obviously they're very vulnerable.
Their brains are not even developed yet, right? Like, and especially if they have
unstable backgrounds. So that's, that would be the biggest indicators that I would
say.
I am sorry to interrupt this interview. It's so equipping and helpful for parents
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check them out at bit .ly /JBFsupport. Now, let's go back to the interview.
So Yolanda, in addition to the factors that Sarah just shared with us, what are
some other systemic factors that you and your organization have discovered that
contribute to a young person's vulnerability? I would say the lack of a safe,
stable, nurturing relationship with one person.
Sometimes that is enough to be enough of a protective factor in the covering to
keep a child from looking elsewhere for that, and that's something that anybody can
do. In addition to what Sarah was saying, when we look at all of the dark web and
the internet, and we look at the lack of parental oversight, right? So when kids
lack parental oversight, what do they do? What's their natural go -to. Social media,
gaming, the internet, their peers. And what we've seen with youth is there's a lot
of recruitment even within foster care homes. And so this is something that your
audience may want to be aware of. So what I've seen in the last 13 years of doing
this work is that we have amazing, loving foster families that want to love these
kids and take them in. However, I think nationally, there is a lack of resources
and wraparound and training for the families that are taking in these complexly
traumatized children that have been trafficked. And so we're not giving these foster
families the tools and the equipment that they need to bring in these highly
traumatized, complex traumatized youth and most of the time people don't understand
the pseudo -family dynamics that are set up by traffickers that they sort of look
for in the foster home. So for example, if there is a 15 -year -old who the only
time she ever had any attention from an adult man was when she was hyper
-sexualized, that's how she learned to get attention, that's what she understood that
her worth and her value was wrapped up in. So she comes into this home, and there
are triggers, and there's trauma, and there are behaviors that this family has never
seen before. And in order for her to relate to the man that's there,
she goes back to often to what she knows, right, sexualization, which then creates
all kinds of disruptions and issues and complexities in the home.
And then the child is then blamed and then the child runs. And then the family is
traumatized and says, oh my gosh, we're never gonna take in a kid like that again.
That almost destroyed our family. So that's one example. So if we don't have the
training and the resources to help the families that are taking in these kids, we're
going to traumatized not only the children, but the families and now we've got one
less foster family than what we had before So another issue would be so I have
three children and if I were to bring in a trafficked child into my home I would
run the risk of Even if my husband was not an issue These perpetrators tell these
kids if you recruit and you bring me a kid I'll give you two thousand dollars in
cash a brand new cell phone and take you shopping for a whole day. So then these
children walk into these homes across the threshold and the parents have no idea
that their other children in the home are at risk for being recruited and taking
out of the home. And so those are the pieces that sort of systemically nationally,
that's the need that I see, the greatest need is training and awareness and having
some kind of system in place that we have support for the families in the
community, whether that's a community resource, whether that's a church, whether we
can have two or three groups within every county that says, look,
we will wrap around care for a foster care family that is gonna take in one of
these kids. So we can do our background checks and do fingerprints and we can do
respite care one day a week or we can come in and we can clean your house or we
can make meals or we can, you know, supply a birthday party or we can shop for
Christmas presents and drop it off to you. And when you need a break or a shoulder
to cry on and we're a community that you can come to when you feel like you need
support. Right. So nationally, not only do we not have stats, not only do we not
have a national tracking system, we don't, like Sarah said, everything in every state
is different, so everything is so siloed that it's going to come up with sort of a
broad brush for what we should be doing in the country. And so trafficking, you
know, on an Indian reservation in South Dakota is going to look very different than
a certain street in Washington, DC, with prostituted adults who are trafficked versus,
you know, where we are in lower slower Delaware, you know, where we have, you know,
labor trafficking in fields and then we also have children being sold in residential
brothels. And so there's so many, there's dozens of different kinds of trafficking
all throughout the United States. And it has become the second largest criminal
enterprise that we have in our country. It has surpassed weapons and is now only
behind drugs. And that does not happen and it does not become a 32 plus billion
dollar a year industry in our country alone without an enormous participation.
- That's hard stuff to hear. I think one of the challenges that foster parents have
is first of all, not just that they don't have enough support around them, but
they're also met with challenges from the child coming in. They don't often have
control over what the child brings in with them. So we could be a foster family
welcoming a 15 -year -old child. We don't know what they've been doing on their
phone, but they come to our home with the whole world in their hand. And we have
to tread slowly and gently on establishing their compliance or their participation in
our family rules for cell phone use and tablet use and device use.
But we also have to have kind of that hyper awareness in the back of our mind
about what they are doing while we're slowly rolling out their participation in now
our family culture because they had a different culture from wherever they came from.
And tying all of those challenges together makes for a very difficult road for
adoptive and foster families who already don't feel like they have enough at their
fingertips to help them. So to support those caregivers and adoptive or foster
parents, Sarah, could you give us just a couple signs or red flags that we should
be watching for when we are welcoming a teen to our home or a young person to our
home, or when we're seeing some changes in our kids that may be at risk.
- Yeah, no, absolutely. So I wanna touch on this too, and I'm sure foster families
are keenly aware, but when you're dealing with children that have either been
sexually abused or trafficked, things like that, they could be extremely mature in
certain areas and be extremely childlike in other areas. So when it comes to the
family, they look at the child and they see this very adult -like sexualized
behavior, but they don't know how to tie their shoes or they don't like things like
that, right? So sometimes it can be, it's very difficult to navigate what their true
developmental age is outside of the sexual trauma. Some red flags would be like
sudden withdrawal. If you see sudden withdrawal, mood change, if you see like older
friends is another red flag. So if you see a change in the friend group, super
quick, depression, anger, hopelessness, if they suddenly their appearance changes
significantly, if they become more sexualized, if you see that they want to be more
sexualized, like they start asking for things that are more adult type clothing that
they wouldn't ask for in the past. And you're looking at more of a quick, like not
just a kid trying to get away from wearing shorts too short for school. You're
looking at a, with a tone of sexualization to it, right? You could also running
away episodes. If they start running away, like Yolanda said, a lot of the kid, I'm
going to say a lot, I think that's fair. Some kids run away, they run right back
to their trafficker, right? Like they're running right back to where they came from,
because that's where they know. So that would be a huge red flag, because you don't
know where they're at when they're running away. If you see a child that's like
hypervigilant, always on edge, startling easily, things like that, that could be
another red flag. Now material possessions, this is a big one, so multiple cell
phones. If you ever see a kid with hotel room keys, like that should not happen.
Kids with multiple social media accounts on multiple platforms is another sign that
something could be going on. But like Yolanda said, the biggest predecessor would be
parental involvement to make sure that those sites are being monitored, their accounts
are monitored. Parents should have access to the cell phones at all times, if they
want to be able to take them and look at them, the social media accounts, they
should be checking the social media accounts. Trafficers will create social media
accounts that match the needs of the kid. So they'll go to the kid's social media
accounts, find out all the stuff about them, and then they'll create an account that
matches that child's needs. So if a child obviously shows up, especially transmitted
diseases, pregnancies, repeated medical visits, unexplained bruises, things like that.
That's obviously a red flag, but many children are not exploited by strangers. So
that's where this gets sticky, right? A lot of children that are exploited, they're
exploited by people that they know. So it's also incumbent upon the community and
other support systems to also keep an eye on the child, right? So if you have a
child that moves in somewhere or something happens, school stays the same, friends
stay the same, but there's a doesn't change in the child's behavior. Well, that
might indicate that there's obviously something happening with the caregivers, right?
So it's important to not just focus on strangers and stranger danger and all that
stuff, 'cause a lot of times it's people that they know. It's easier to manipulate
people that you know than people that you don't know. And that's just, that's the
way that traffickers work. So I would think, Elana, do you have anything to add to
that? - I think one thing that you said is really important that I'd like to
highlight. And what we've seen is the girls that we have here now are 15 years
old. And to your point about their development in their brain, we know that the
point of trauma, that's where the brain development stops. So if you have a child
that has been, you know, first abused at four or five years old, It's very much
like a muscle the more you use it the greater it develops So that fight flight or
freeze is in the bottom part of the brain. It's in the basement part of the brain
So four or five years old, you know our brains develop if this is the bottom of
the brain It develops up here to the prefrontal cortex not till you're 25 years old
so if you're in your basement brain at four or five years old and You are abused
then that fight -flight -or -freeze actually makes that lower brain overdevelop, makes
the upper brain underdevelop, and that prefrontal cortex is where we make the
decisions, that are logical, rational, emotional regulation,
all of those things that probably your listeners already know all about that. But we
have now 15 -year -olds who behave sometimes like a seven -year -old,
but they have the street smarts of a 38 -year -old, a 15 -year -old body. And so it
can be very, very confusing. And so understanding that dynamic and not being sure
which part of the brain you're dealing with at a certain time, I think, can be
really, really helpful. And even when we're talking about phones and looking through
apps and To Sarah's point, they can have another phone that you're not even aware
of, but sometimes there are apps that as you're scrolling through your child's phone,
may look like a typical app that you think, "Oh, yeah, that's safe." For example,
the calculator app. >> I was going to say calculator, yep. >> You're going to just
scroll through and you're going to say, "Oh, that's a calculator," and you just whiz
past it. But what the parent doesn't understand is that there's a four digit code
that goes into that calculator and it opens up to a world of just this child in
the predator 'cause they're the only ones that have the code and there's all kinds
of chat rooms and videos and pictures and texts that are being exchanged that if
you don't have the four digit code, you're never gonna get into it. And so like
being aware, trying to stay ahead of the traffickers is almost an impossibility,
but if you can, again, be that safe, stable, nurturing relationship for that child,
that they don't have to go looking elsewhere, but again, to Sarah's point, they
often, the first thing they want to do is run back because they are trauma bonded
to their trafficker. They still believe that they love this person or that they need
this person and they bonded to them. And so, you're working against something that
is a physiological component that no matter how much love you give this child,
you have to understand that going no contact with that perpetrator is like coming
off of a drug physiologically. And so for parents to not, and foster parents and
adopted parents to not take that personally and not think, well, my love isn't
enough, it really is a physiological dependency until they're able to get enough help
to get out of that situation. - That brings up a really great point. So let's go
back a little bit in the conversation and talk about where trafficking might start
for a vulnerable child. What are some of the things that kids fall prey to that
can set them on that path that we need to be aware of. - I don't know,
Sarah, if you feel differently, but in our experience, we've seen social media, the
internet gaming, and Pierce, the recruitment with Pierce. I would say that those are
the main areas that we've seen. There are dating sites,
websites, sugar daddy sites, college agents will often self -report that they quote
put themselves out there so that they can make college or earn money to get a new
car and they're just going to do it just a couple of times to earn some money.
And then it sort of grows bigger than their ability, you know, to manage. And now
all of a sudden they're 18 and they're adults and they're on their own and they're
in college and their peers have encouraged them, look, I made a thousand dollars
last weekend. Yeah. Check it out. There's no strings attached. You can just make as
much money as you want. So there's as many ways as there are to explain somebody
and as much imagination and creativity as a perpetrator has, that's how many ways
there are to bring somebody into relationship to traffic them. Sarah, do you have
anything to add to that? No, she covered it perfectly. Think about like this.
it's like blood and shark water, right? Like if they see a weakness, that's it.
That is it. They will prey on it and that is it. They are hunters. They are
hunters and our children are the prey and that's the easiest way to say it. Okay.
So what should a caregiver do, Sarah? If they suspect that the child they're caring
for, whether it's a foster child or an adopted child or a family member that
they're caring for, What do they do? Like what are kind of their first steps if
they suspect trafficking or exploitation? So the first step will be the base of the
relationship, right? So the child has to feel supported and they have to feel that
they could trust the person. So that would be the main thing. So there are studies
that show that like 40, around 40 % of kids are less likely to experience online
sexual exploitation, anything like that if they have a supportive environment at home.
I can say all the trafficking survivors that I had the honor to speak with, they
all said that they felt invisible. They all say they felt invisible in their home.
So it's as simple as acknowledging them, right? It's as simple as being plugged into
them. There are tons of online resources that I'm going to send over to you that
are free that caregivers can access. I would say stay away from the myths that are
attached to trafficking. There are a lot of misconceptions that are fueled by media
and things like that. So just have a really strong understanding of what it actually
looks like, right? It's not the white van in the Walmart parking lot, right? Like
that's not what we see. So just continuously have short,
meaningful interactions with a child, whether it's car ride, a meal, any time that
they're around that child is a chance to engage with them. And we know that those
short engagements are far more impactful than sitting the child down and lecturing
them for an hour. Sorry, so just be consistent. I can't stress that enough. So when
you have a past history of sexual abuse, you have these traffic children, they need
consistency, they need stability. It'll be very triggering for them if that's not
provided, right? Yolanda, how about you? Do you want to share one or two things
that a parent or a caregiver could step into? I think that Sarah nailed it.
I think the consistency, being trustworthy, not taking things personally,
validating that child's feelings, whether you, you see the situation or not,
there's a million things that have happened to them that they have not been able to
share or express. And that goes into a, it builds their perception, it builds their
filter through which they see the world. And so making sure that you can separate
your task at hand and you're loving this child and taking care of this child and
not having the expectation, no expectation at all from that child.
Like sometimes we can get disappointed and we've poured ourselves in and we've given
her home and we've given our lives and we've opened ourselves up to all of this
risk. And now this is the things I get. And the child picks up on that very,
very quickly. These children know how to read people. They have survival mechanisms
that most of us could never even dream of. They can read a face, they can read
body expressions, they read tones, whether they read it correctly or not, is not
always the case. But they do read and they're very hyper vigilant because they have
learned to survive by picking up on vibes from other people. And so that's ingrained
in them. They're trained to do that. It's not something that they decide to do is
just something that happens in their brain as part of the survival. And so make
sure that we don't take that personally and we check ourselves as adults because
sometimes we can get triggered because we may have stuff in our past or our history
that we've never been through therapy through or we've never worked through it and
so then we're pinging off of each other and then the safety goes away, the trust
goes away and then we become you know more at odds than at peace.
And when that happens, that's one of those push -pull factors. It will push them out
of the house and the traffickers' arms are open to pull them right back in again.
- Always, yes. - Yeah, and it just reminds me, one of the public speakers that I
love for issues like this and learning about our tweens and teens is Josh Ship,
and he talks a lot about the power of one and how if just one safe,
stable adult is regularly connecting to and investing in a child who is at risk for
whatever the risk factors might be, that one safe, caring, stable adult can make
such a huge impact on a child's life. And we have the honor today of speaking to
hundreds and more of one who are making that difference for a child's life.
So I want to make sure that people understand that they have so much power and
impact on the child that they're caring for right here and now. Let's talk a little
bit about what parents and caregivers should do if a child is brave enough to say
I'm being trafficked or I'm experiencing a, you know, manipulative,
controlling relationship that is going down a scary path for me. What are kind of
the dos and don'ts of how parents and caregivers should be responding to that
moment? So I would say if that happens, kudos to the caregiver for establishing
already a safe relationship where the child can come to them and say, "I believe
this is happening to me." So keep doing whatever it is you've been doing to create
that. Stay consistent, stay trustworthy, stay safe. You also are a mandated reporter.
So you have to report that to your child protective services or DFS or whatever
your kids department is in your state for reporting. And then also the 1 -800 number
for the with human trafficking hotline so that they can collect data and help
connect to resources for help. So Sarah and I think we'll supply your listeners with
a lot of different resources for parents, for caregivers, for reporting, for red
flags and indicators. So we'll make sure that you have a lot of resources following
this podcast. And we'll link those in the show notes for those that are listening.
Thank you. Let's move on to the kinds of services or professional supports that
caregivers can access when they are helping a child in their care recover from one
of these very controlling manipulative relationships or recovering from reported
trafficking. I would say, unfortunately, there's very few resources throughout the
country. So, the resources that we do have, they're few and far between,
honestly. And that's why I believe that we need to train communities and churches
and civic groups in sort of like a small cell group kind of thinking in the way
if you have a humongous church that is a state. And in order to connect with
people and make people feel like they're part of a community, they often will have
like small cell groups where people meet. If we take that same concept in a state
by communities or by counties and say, okay, this one or two churches or this one
or two rotary clubs or this one or two civic groups, whatever it is that's there
that that state has to be able to be trained and how do we wrap around families
that have these children in their homes. But there also are many webinars and
websites and resources also that can connect parents like Love 146 is a phenomenal
resource for parents, foster parents. They have a lot of the information that we've
talked about and a lot of resources just on that website alone. So even if you're
connecting with people to Zoom throughout the country. You know,
what if we were to create a network and either a webinar once a month where people
can come to the webinar and say these are the issues that I'm having, can we find
a webinar on this and then have a group discussion? And the people that have these
traffic children in their homes to be able to talk to each other and get and have
that support so that we're not, you know, We don't have to go to meetings, we're
in our homes, and we can take an hour a couple of times a month and really
support each other. And this is what works for me, this is what did not work for
me, and let's support each other in that way. So maybe even families could support
each other in that if something was created in a platform to be able to do that.
- So connecting with other parents and caregivers who are maybe walking it right now
or have walked it kind of following the lead of others who've successfully and
productively supported their children through those kinds of experiences. I think it
goes to the importance of community. It goes to the importance of vulnerability,
putting aside our preconceived notions of what people might think of us when we say
this is what my kid has been through, kind of working to tangibly overcome those
stigmas that go around mental health issues, because as Sarah indicated earlier,
one of the indicators or one of the red flags is depression. And so if we can, as
parents and caregivers, start unifying and linking arms with each other in ways that
say, I'm not going to bow to these stigmas. I'm not going to bow to my internal
sense of shame or embarrassment or even guilt, because guilt is a huge one for a
lot of parents and caregivers who are, you know, raising kids that have participated
in very vulnerable or risky activities, linking arms and being that community with
each other and saying we're in this together. I appreciate that that's something that
you brought up. I would also add that it's really crucial to find a trauma
-informed, trauma -sensitive, trauma -competent therapist for the child.
- Yes. - You're just gonna say that. For the child who is in this vulnerable state,
but also for the parents and caregivers, whether that's individual therapy or family
therapy together, finding that safe space to process these really traumatic experiences
and feelings and crafting a plan for how to move forward and a plan for healing,
not just for the child, but as we who our parents know when our children are
hurting or wounded, we are hurting and wounded also. And so creating a plan for
everyone to heal and thrive together. Yes, and I would say not just not just that
but even Sometimes having these children in our homes no matter how big and tender
our hearts are it can create Trauma within us. Yeah, and so being sure that not,
you know, not only the child gets the help that that child needs but also That as
parents and caregivers that we're taking care of our hearts as well because
oftentimes it's many, many months before these children are ready to open up and go
into therapy. Like they have to feel have felt safety in their bodies before they're
willing to open up even a little bit and in the meanwhile that might take months
and there may be some traumatization that happens in the home that the foster
parents need to go to therapy themselves, even without the child. That's part of
supporting yourself and your home proactively. Even if you feel like you don't need
it, it's always good to go check in and just say, I want to establish safety and
rapport in a relationship with a therapist so that if something does happen and I
need to come in quickly and we're having a crisis that we don't have to go through
the two or three months of what it's going to take in the first stages to build
that relationship. Or to get off the waiting list for care, because that's what most
families experience right now. And if I could just add something else as far as
resources, there are several homes throughout the United States that house children
and give wrap around services, residential services. So we are Zoe ministries of
Delaware. We offer several programs, including an equine mentorship program, a clinical
counseling program. We do a lot of professional trainings around the community. We
are throughout the state of Delaware and beyond, but we just this past June,
we did open a therapeutic residential facility for traffic youth.
So we are licensed by the state. We can take in six. That's our max number.
Females, biological females only ages 12 to 17. So that's what we're licensed for.
We could house 10 or 12, but six is sort of the magic number as far as maximum
number for this population and this age. So we know that I think it was in 2023
or 2024, there were more than 90 kids identified in the state of Delaware alone
between the ages of two and 17. And those again, were just identified. And so we
can house six.
- That's a big gap. - It's a huge gap, which is why part of the infrastructure that
we have been working and dreaming about after we get this home open and running
into full capacity, my goal would be to build a subset of foster care specific to
traffic youth. And so if we can build this in Delaware, because we're a small
state, we have three counties and less than a million people, right? So we should
be able to do a statewide program that I would love to become the national model
for other states so that we can build it here and then train other states.
This is how we did it. Other states will have to adjust to whatever their laws and
regulations are, of course, but because there is such a gap,
we're the only home of our kind in Delaware. And we know we're leaving dozens and
dozens and dozens in that void. And so we want to be able to address that.
And so being able to connect with creating a family and all the work that you all
do to be able to say, okay, let's do a pilot program. Okay, this is how we built
it in Delaware. Let's do a pilot program with some of your families and start
really small, just with five to 10 families and say, okay, let's make this work.
What do we need to do in this sort of microcosm of this infrastructure and then
start building from there? And I think it's unhopeful and positive about it.
We will do whatever we can do in ministries with resources and training to be able
to help make that happen.
I just want to interrupt one more time to tell you about our prenatal exposure
parenting workshop. It's a three -session workshop where parents and caregivers can
learn about the impacts of prenatal substance exposure to alcohol and drugs. They get
to interact with each other and interact with others who are raising kids like
theirs and learn new skills for parenting children who have the impacts of prenatal
exposure to drug and alcohol. You can sign up when you go to bit .ly /prenatal
-exposure -training that's B -I -T dot L -Y slash prenatal exposure - training.
And speaking of challenging behaviors, we also have a brand -new free downloadable
guide for parents who are trying to navigate challenging behaviors, whether it's from
trauma or from prenatal exposure or other impacts on a child. You can subscribe to
our monthly newsletter, which is also free, and then you get to choose to download
this brand new guide, it's called Navigating Challenging Behaviors. So if you go to
creatingafamily .org /newsletter, you fill in your information and then you can choose
the brand new guide called Navigating Challenging Behaviors. Thanks for listening and
let's head back to the interview now. Okay, let's move into discussions of prevention
so that the parents and caregivers who are listening today feel equipped to do the
work kind of on the front end. Sarah, what are some of the preventative measures
that parents and caregivers, because we do want to recognize that we have many
relative caregivers who are welcoming children into their homes from family or
extended family, and they might be seeing some of this and want to be informed and
prepared. So let's talk about prevention. - So the greatest key to prevention as
simplistic as it sounds is empowerment. So the more that the youth are empowered,
the more that they are aware. So you don't want to build more fear, you wanna
build empowerment, right? You wanna build hope, you wanna build, you wanna solidify
those types of messages. So just ensuring that you, like I said, you have frequent
check -ins, car rides, meals, anything like that. Just, hey, what would you do if
somebody asked you to share a picture of yourself online? Or what would you do?
Just very basic questions, right? That are not going to cause anxiety for the kids.
So you want it to have very casual. You want to be very casual, too. That'll be
more effective, especially with the population that we're talking about. I can't
emphasize enough the routine consistency with the child. That will help them learn
them better anyway, right? So if their sudden changes is moods, anything's like that,
it'll be easier for the caregiver to spot them the more communication that they
have. I would recommend if possible to create a list of three to five trusted
adults that the child can go to within that system that the caregiver feels
comfortable with, that is able to work coincide with everyone, right? To ensure that
the child's needs are being met. You would wanna reinforce that an adult's never
gonna tell you to keep a secret. Like things that we know that are very basic that
have been exploited upon with these youth, just reiterate it. Like I said, as
simplistic as it sounds, nobody's gonna try to make you feel uncomfortable, nobody
has the right to do certain things. So again, it's just open communication. You
could even do there's some resources online for caregivers to do role play with
children. So you can go through simplistic questions with them. And just keep calm.
Like you said earlier, it's the biggest thing you have to keep your emotions in
check, right? Because there's going to be some things, especially if they have
experienced exploitation, that they may tell you that is going to make your skin
crawl, right? Like it's going to definitely be alarming. So the main thing is you
cannot let the child see that as much as possible. Online awareness, just continue
to solidify safe online practices, what that looks like. And you can even,
like I said, there's resources that we'll give you guys to that will show the power
of no and the power of just being able to be or have the child be in a place
where they're secure within themselves, if that makes sense. That's the greatest,
one of the greatest precursors to if they're approached or not. - Yolanda,
could you add a little bit about kind of the things that caregivers should be
sensitive to at home, things that might unknowingly contribute to increasing a child's
risk factor? It may piggyback on what Sarah said, but I would say the positive self
-worth, understanding healthy relationships, like having that modeled in the home,
what does a healthy relationship look like? Skills for consent and refusal, letting
them practice making choices within boundaries. So oftentimes in trafficking and even
pre -trafficking, they feel like they don't have choices. And so when when the rules
are so strict at home, that can sort of be a push factor to into,
you know, running away and becoming trafficked. So having the flexibility within
healthy boundaries and modeling that to them and consistency. Again,
like strong digital like privacy settings and being really familiar with what your
kiddos are doing. Like even sitting and doing a trafficking awareness with like
sitting next to them and learning alongside them so that they're aware that you both
know the same information and there's consistency. And so there's a language there
that you can use that's familiar, that if something does happen, they already have
that language to come to you about it. But I really think I cannot stress enough,
the safe, stable, nurturing relationship. I know I keep going back to that, but that
is please do. That is the absolute number one protector against this.
- Yep. So increasing the sense of connectedness between you and your child,
trying to reduce this sense of vulnerability by increasing the sense of your voice
matters, your preferences matter. We want to hear from you. We want to work through
these things with you in a collaborative way. I liked what you said about sitting
next to them. They love to teach us about their social media platforms or about
their new games. So sit with them and take in what they're trying to teach you and
then at the same time be very observant while you're doing that about where some of
the risk factors of that particular activity might be and don't necessarily jump on
it right away when they're sitting there trying to teach you but instead maybe
circle back later and say, "Hey, I was thinking about that game, and I saw that
pop -up of somebody asking to play with you. I didn't recognize their name. Did you
know who that was?" And having those conversations, but not in a confrontational way,
but in a way that gives them the voice and believing them when they talk to you
about it and believing them when they express their concerns or their frustrations or
even their fears. What are the kinds of conversations that we should be having with
our tweens and teens, Yolanda, about potential risks for trafficking or potential
risks for exploitation? - I think everything sort of that we just covered in the
last half an hour can kind of be wrapped up into that question. I think that,
you know, as Sarah said, helping them understand that it's not strange or danger,
you know, that that awareness and education are the number one prevention points. I
also think that in building safety, and having those relationships building that
connection, one thing that's important that has not been mentioned yet is the
importance of training and de -escalation. Oh, yes. And so that's one of the things
that we really train our staff in, because without de -escalation skills, you cannot
build safety, rapport, and a nurturing relationship. And so really learning how to de
-escalate a situation, bring yourself up out of the situation to a 10 ,000 foot view,
rather than engaging one -on -one, really in close contact, it becomes a conflict. And
so I think that de -escalation training training is really, really important. So in
ministries, I've written a curriculum for that. There's also trust -based relational
intervention through the Karen Purvis Institute in Texas. I find that they are really
effective, I would say with like 10, 11 year olds and younger. They do have a sort
of a segment for teens, but it's not real robust at this point. but there's also a
system called EGIS, A -E -G -I -S. We're also trained in that. Now, they also offer
physical holes if there's a dangerous situation physically to a child or the family.
But I would say that without de -escalation training, it's going to be really
difficult to do what you need to do at home with these kids and move forward in a
healthy way. >> It's something that we talk about at creating a family a lot. It's
impossible to help a child self -regulate if they haven't learned how to co -regulate
and no one can co -regulate if the adult is not regulated. And so we have to bring
our regulated self to these conversations and interactions. Another thing that we
didn't touch on yet is how to use your regular everyday children's books,
videos, media, songs, things like that, to jumpstart conversations, particularly with
teens and tweens, ask them what they're listening to, and check it out on Spotify
on your own so that you can see what the lyrics are and hear the messages that
are being sent, and have conversations from the empowering perspective of, you know,
is that really what you think about yourself, or is that really what you think men
think about women or men think about boys or things like that and how do we how
do we normalize getting into our kids' worlds by using what's at their fingertips
and having that healthy dynamic between us. It's pretty easy to just let them go
off to the movies with their friends and not really engage in what they just took
in for an hour and a half or two hours, but the more intentional, more protective
factor is getting involved and either seeing the movie yourself or going to see it
with them or talking about it later, those kinds of things. Sarah, as we're getting
ready to wrap up here, can you tell us kind of on the maybe national level,
because not all of our listeners are in Delaware, on the national level, what are a
couple websites or hotlines that you can recommend to kind of get parents and
caregivers started. - So absolutely. So the National Human Trafficking Hotline Polaris,
so if you Google Polaris, they have a ton of resources, trainings, things like that
that you can take. The NICMIC, they have sex torsion, different materials like that.
We also have like, there's the blue campaign, there's three strands global, which has
a huge or aspect to it that I really like. I think once you get the materials
from Yolanda and I, I think that you'll have an abundance of things, I believe.
- Great, and again, we'll link those in the show notes for families that are curious
about educating themselves. So let's wrap up with a short list of practical
protective factors in addition to the power of being that one stable nurturing
relationship, let's list maybe two or three other protective factors that parents and
caregivers can walk away with today. Sarah, you wanna go first? - Sure, absolutely. I
would say for them to be informed about themselves to know their own needs, their
own emotional needs when it comes to how they can deal with these youth, that would
be outside of things that we already talked about. I know you wanted to talk about
that too, 'cause you may not know that you're gonna be triggered by a situation. So
as a caregiver, you need to be prepared if that happens, what steps you're able to
take to emotionally regulate yourself. That would be one of the biggest ones. Just
know that you're not alone. So that'll lead to human trafficking like this, right?
So there's the media, what everybody sees, the movie taken and stuff like that,
right? And then there's like what traffic actually is. So if you just dig a little
bit deeper than the movie taken and stuff like that. There are a ton of resources
online for caregivers pretty much in any type of situation. So just know the
resources that are out there and just don't be afraid to reach out. There's no
shame or guilt. Thousands of families unfortunately have dealt with this. So just
know that like Yolanda said, we're all here to help support each other and whatever
we can do that you can reach out to me. I'm sure Yolanda will say the same thing
at any time, just know that that door is always open. - Great, how about you,
Yolanda? You wanna add anything to that? - Sarah did a great job covering most of
what I was probably gonna say. I would say community connection, like find other
foster families, even if they're not taking in traffic children, they still have
traumatized children. So I would say, connect with two or three other families,
making sure again that you're in therapy. And the two TED Talks that I feel like
all foster families, whether they have traffic children or not, should watch for
themselves. But also looking at it through the lens of the child and how the child
feels about themselves is Brene Brown. I love Brene Brown. And she has two TED
Talks. One of them is vulnerability and one of them is shame. And we know that
because of the experiences that these kids have, they internalize the guilt and it
becomes the shame, which says, "I am bad." The guilt says, "I did something bad."
But when you are looking at this child through the lens of they feel deep shame
within themselves and you understand what that really is, it really does build a
compassion rather than looking at just the behavior. And so I would definitely
recommend those two TED Talks for sure. Well, thank you ladies. Those are great tips
to end on. I learned a ton today that I did not know. I think that I love that
it comes back to how impactful we as foster parents, adoptive parents,
and relative caregivers can be in the life of a child, both to prevent risks of
trafficking, but then also to help a child heal from trafficking. And I deeply
appreciate your time and your expertise. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Thank you so much for having me here.