Ending Human Trafficking Podcast

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Josie Heyano as the two discuss the importance of bridging communities to prevent human trafficking. JOSIE HEYANO Josie Heyano, LMSW, is a Deg Xinag Athabascan advocate from Alaska, focused on creating holistic and decolonized practices to serve Alaska Native and Indigenous communities impacted by human trafficking. With extensive experience supporting youth facing homelessness, exploitation, and trafficking, she founded Signify Consulting, LLC, to further her collaboration in anti-trafficking work across Alaska. Josie is a Presidentially appointed member of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, advising federal policy, and in 2023, she received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award for her contributions to prevention and intervention in Alaska. Her work honors her great aunt Linda Miller and others still awaiting justice. KEY POINTS * Traditional introductions are important as they reflect relationships and community ties, highlighting accountability and cultural identity. * Serving on the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, Josie highlights the importance of humility and listening to voices within her community that are often unheard. She cites a recent visit by the council to Alaska as an opportunity to humanize the data and issues surrounding human trafficking. * Human trafficking is a symptom of broader systemic issues, such as domestic violence, homelessness, and mental health crises. There is a need for a holistic approach that addresses these interconnected challenges within Indigenous communities. * The Alaska Human Trafficking Data Needs Assessment revealed gaps in data and understanding regarding trafficking. Community relationships and collaboration across different sectors (service providers, law enforcement, academia) are necessary to improve data collection and response strategies. * Cultural practices and community care can serve as protective factors against human trafficking. It is necessary to integrate traditional values and practices into prevention efforts, focusing on unconditional care, relationship building, and addressing basic community needs. * A preventative approach that extends beyond immediate trafficking interventions includes ensuring that community members have access to essential resources, support systems, and a sense of belonging from birth, thus preventing vulnerability to trafficking in the first place. Active, compassionate engagement with community members fosters safety and well-being. RESOURCES * U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking [https://www.state.gov/u-s-advisory-council-on-human-trafficking/] * FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award  [https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/anchorage/news/fbi-honors-anchorage-community-leader-with-national-award] * 277: Navajo Nation Interview, with First Lady Phefelia Nez [https://endinghumantrafficking.org/277/] * Prevention Now [https://prevention-now.org/] * Data For Indigenous Justice [https://www.dataforindigenousjustice.org/] * Missing and Murdered Indigenous Girls Report [https://www.uihi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Missing-and-Murdered-Indigenous-Women-and-Girls-Report.pdf] * Ride my Road [https://www.ridemyroad.org/] * Not Invisible Act Commission Report [https://www.doi.gov/priorities/strengthening-indian-country/not-invisible-act-commission] * Federal Indian Boarding Schools Report [https://www.bia.gov/service/federal-indian-boarding-school-initiative] * ACF MMIP Action Plan [https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ana/report/culture-prevention-strength-based-culturally-grounded-journey-toward-prevention] * Alaska Native Justice Center  [https://anjc.org/] * Signify Consulting [https://www.signifyconsultingak.org/] TRANSCRIPT Sandra Morgan 0:14 Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is episode #333: Bridging Communities: Indigenous Approaches to Combating Human Trafficking. This is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference. Our guest today is Josie Heyano. Josie is a presidentially appointed member of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, advising federal policy. In 2023 she received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award for her contributions to prevention and intervention in Alaska. Her work honors her great aunt, Linda Miller and others still awaiting justice. I’m so grateful for you to be here with us today, Josie, and I’d like to start with a traditional introduction please. Josie Heyano 1:30 Thank you, Sandra, good morning. Ade’ yixudz everyone. My name is Josie Heyano. I am Deg Xinag Athabascan. My mother’s family is from the village of Tanana on the Yukon River. My mother is Naina Heyano. My paternal grandparents are the late Paul and Mary Star and Alfred Miller of Anvik. My father is David Heyano from the village of Ekuk in Bristol Bay. And my paternal grandparents are the late Pete and Rosa Heyano, also of Ekuk village. It’s great to be here with you today. Sandra Morgan 2:06 Thank you. And for some of our listeners, would you please give us a little background on the traditional introductions? Josie Heyano 2:19 Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you giving space for that introduction. It’s a really important part of how I show up, because that’s how I was taught to introduce myself. You’re taught to introduce yourself to explain your relationships, and part of that is culturally, our relationships are how we exist in the world, who we are, how we want to be seen. When I tell you that my grandmother is Mary Star and my grandpa is Alfred Miller, and I tell you about Pete and Rosa Heyano, that means that I show up to this conversation as a representation of them, and that when I introduce myself for people listening to me, they can know who my family is and know where I come from. A piece of that is accountability too, right? I always think people in the audience know my family, know the communities I come from, and it’s really important for me to speak with integrity and to speak clearly and to speak with pride. More importantly for me, is throughout my professional career, you get degrees and letters, and things like that, but the more important thing is not titles that I hold, but who I am and how I came to be here. Sandra Morgan 3:34 Let’s talk about your degrees and your titles in addition to this, because that is also how you show up. Josie Heyano 3:42 Yeah, of course. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to pursue some really wonderful academic channels. I am a graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. They have an incredible social work program. I am, first and foremost, academically, a social worker. I practice social work here in Alaska, and I got my masters at the University of Kentucky. I just finished up my clinical hours, so I will shortly be sitting for my licensing exam to be able to be a licensed clinical social worker. I think that’s about it for degrees. Sandra Morgan 4:23 Oh my goodness. Well, you’re definitely an amazing leader now in this space, and you’re serving at the highest level in our nation. I’m curious what that means to you in the context of how you just shared about showing up. Josie Heyano 4:48 I think serving at the level of the U.S. Advisory Council has meant having a tremendous amount of humility. Paying attention to the voices in my community that maybe haven’t been heard, to the topics and the issues that haven’t had the attention that they need, and doing my best to voice those, and to bring education, to bring awareness, to help people understand some of the issues facing my community. We were very privileged this year, the entire U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking actually came to Alaska with my first my persuasion. They got to walk on the streets downtown, and they got to be a part of our community and meet the people who live these experiences here. That was a really wonderful opportunity. But I think in my role in the advisory council that was my job, was to bring the members here, have them meet the people that we write about, and to bring a humanness to this work too, and remind us that we are doing really high level federal work. Behind some of those numbers and some of that research, and some of the data, are people and experiences, and that’s been a really beautiful part of being a part of the council. Sandra Morgan 6:10 My experience, and you may have listened, I interviewed Phefelia Nez, who was leading this effort with the Navajo Nation, and we have partnered. We’ve had conversations about some of the larger systemic issues, missing and murdered Indigenous women, and Human trafficking as maybe an umbrella or a symptom. How do you see that? Josie Heyano 6:13 Yeah, I definitely see it as a symptom. I think in my federal work, I’ve gotten to have a lot more conversations with leaders and matriarchs across the country who are leading this work in their community. I do think that human trafficking, I do look at it as a symptom. I appreciate you bringing up the missing murdered indigenous relatives conversation, because most of my work has been centered on we can’t talk about human trafficking and then talk about our missing, murdered indigenous relatives crisis. These are the conversations that we need to have together, and it is the conversation that needs to include domestic violence. It needs to include our relatives who are houseless. It needs to include mental health services, substance use services. It needs to include harm reduction. It’s really having a more holistic conversation about human trafficking, so that’s been primarily where I focused my work locally in the community, is helping to bridge that conversation and be able to talk about these issues together. Sandra Morgan 7:53 One of the things that intrigued me as I read more about your work is you did a fellowship with prevention now, and out of that, you co-created the Alaska Human Trafficking Data Needs Assessment, which seems to fit or have an overlay with your comments just now, with all of these aspects systemically. Can you tell me about that? Josie Heyano 8:23 I was so excited to talk about that today. My good friend Kristen Harris, CEO and founder of Prevention Now, I had actually just reached out to her as a college intern looking for practicum placement, and said, “Hey, I’m living in Alaska, and I’m struggling,” because I was working direct service, and I was kind of at the point in a person’s life where they had already experienced trafficking, and it was becoming really prominent to me that we didn’t have a lot of prevention, and we weren’t having a lot of conversations in our communities about what trafficking is. So Kristen, being the amazing human being she is, just took me under her wing and allowed me to just research and have the resources with her. That Data Needs Assessment was actually a result of; we first thought we would gather the data that existed to start to see what some of the regional factors were that were causing trafficking, and that we were going to use Kristen’s AI model to find that out. What we realized was: there wasn’t data, or at least there wasn’t data that made sense. There was data that had a lot of different definitions of trafficking. There was data with a lot of different types of people collecting those data, and there was a lot of data that wasn’t talking to each other, so there was duplicated data. There was no real way to get a clear picture of what’s the understanding. And when we started talking to people about data, the other thing that was really interesting about this project is we also got a weariness. We’re talking to direct service providers, and law enforcement, and educators, and healthcare workers who are very often underfunded and under resourced. Then we bring up the data question, which translates to the notes that you didn’t do, or the extra box to check. The Data Needs Assessment really transformed into not only what are you using to track human trafficking related data, but how do you feel about data? How does data impact your work? How do you value or see data as important in this conversation? I think that really opened up a different type of conversation, which was that people did value data and were simultaneously overwhelmed by it, and didn’t necessarily see it as helpful to them in their role. When we started the Human Trafficking Data Summit and we partnered with Data for Indigenous Justice, hopefully we can provide a link to their website, they are a local, nonprofit organization. My good friend Aqpik founded that one as well, and that’s all about reclaiming indigenous data, and they actually curated the first Alaska list of Missing, Murdered and Indigenous Relatives. One thing I’ll add about that too, is the first report that Data for Indigenous Justice released, there were 229 names curated in that report of missing relatives, which is the number of tribes that we have here in Alaska. It was a really powerful number. Sandra Morgan 11:23 Wow. Josie Heyano 11:24 But the data Summit, really, above all else, became kind of a gathering of women. This is kind of a strange way to take this conversation, but when I think back on the data summit and how that came to be, we also partnered with ride my road. So my friend Lauren came, has strong connections in Alaska. She came and volunteered her time, and it was a bunch of women who said, “We recognize this is a problem in the community. What are we going to do? How do we start the conversation?” And we recognized that in order to start having this conversation, we needed to have relationship with each other. We needed to have relationship with the people in the work, and this was kind of right after COVID, too. We also recognized, we need to bring people together again, and so we did. We had a very small event. Our very first Human Trafficking Data Summit was in a small community area, and it was wonderful. We had people from multi disciplines come and show up and be a part of the conversation. More importantly, though, I think we just spent time with each other. We got to know each other, we got to know each other’s work, and we invested in the relationships that we had with each other. I think that’s what has developed, for me, into a larger impact, is that we didn’t just come to talk about data, we came to actually care about the work that we were all doing and show up for each other. Sandra Morgan 12:54 I think we’re moving into a space where we can shift the conversation, shift the narrative from, “Here are all the bad things happening, here’s the vulnerability,” to some kind of approach, strategic plan for how we’re going to do prevention and protect our community. Can you speak to that? Josie Heyano 13:28 I can definitely speak to that. One of the things that I’m really excited about is just, especially with my my federal platform, getting to meet people across the country. There is so much being done in tribal communities right now that really focuses on our culture, and our culture as a prevention and as a protective factor. I think even if you look in this last four years, what the Biden-Harris administration has done to emphasize work on Missing, Murdered Indigenous People, and to really address that crisis. We’ve seen the Not Invisible Act Commission Report.We’ve seen the the Federal Boarding School Report. We’ve seen all of these reports that are really putting data and information to the things that we have known in our communities for a long time, and so through that we’ve also seen a lot of focus on culture. A lot of focus on combating human trafficking through the lens of ‘we actually already know how to do this,’ and how we know how to do this is caring for our community. And so many people say it better than I do, so many other indigenous leaders across the nation. If we’re going to have the human trafficking conversation, if we’re going to show up and care about combating human trafficking, we have to show up and care about each other. We have to care about every member of our community. We have to have spaces for people to be fed. We have to have spaces for people to be warm, and clothed, and cared for. Ultimately, we have to have spaces for people to experience connection, to be in relationship with each other, and to know that they are valued, and they’re important, and sacred. I think that’s what makes me the most excited right now, is there are so many programs across the country, and more needed here in Alaska, I’ll say, but that are starting to emphasize that the way that we combat human trafficking doesn’t have to look like the checklist that other people, in other places are using. It can actually be the way that we’ve always addressed harm, which is to just unconditionally care for people. There’s so much beauty in that, there’s so much ease when you take the step back and say, “Human trafficking isn’t this complex, unapproachable topic that we don’t know what to do with. Actually, as Native people we do know, inherently, how to care for and protect everyone in our community.” I think seeing the programs across the country that are emerging, that are focusing on culture as the protective factor, I’m thinking about programs in the lower 48 where there are naming ceremonies for trafficking survivors, where they get to be named by their community and really hold the power of that name and learn what that means. I’m thinking of programs where there are sweat lodges, there are ceremony incorporated into the healing process, and the recognition that that might not be right for everybody, so having nuance within that to make sure that we can help whoever is impacted by harm in the best way possible. I think in the Alaska version of this, I’m better at talking about Alaska and my community, that looked like, when I was working direct care, there was kind of this, “Here’s a list of things to do for a trafficking survivor,” and I used to, probably to people’s dismay, throw that list out the window, because it was ridiculous. What I actually needed to do was to sit and have tea. What I actually needed to do sometimes was to just sit, and sometimes just to say, “My door is always open and I see you, and you can be here anytime that you want,” and to have those non transactional relationships, and to just see people and to show up and care about them unconditionally. I think when I think of culture, that’s what I think of, that piece there, where there is no transaction in our relationship. I accept you and respect you and care for you, because you are you, and that’s a really important piece of this conversation. Sandra Morgan 17:50 Integrating those traditional values and practices in the healing and restoration, I keep going back to, because I find it so amazing, the Alaska Human Trafficking Data Needs Assessment. Now, how do you take that and leverage it in your comment earlier about accountability? Josie Heyano 18:19 Actually, the Alaska Native Justice Center here in town, is getting ready with a new Data Needs Assessment that I’m excited to see come out, kind of a chapter two of this. But what we did with that Data Needs Assessment was we had another summit, and this one was bigger, and this one was fantastic. We had, well they were both fantastic, last- oh my goodness, that was actually this Spring, I think. Time is so strange lately. We had the Data Summit again this Spring, we had it at the local library, and we had so many more participants, we had so many more workshops and speakers. This time, we really said, “Okay, here’s what we know is missing, how are we going to address these things?” We brought in people from academia, and we said, “Who are the researchers? Who is in programs right now and you’re looking for a thesis? Who needs a question to be asked to our community?” Here are now the service providers who have a problem. Let’s pair the service providers and the researchers together in the same room so that they can actually understand, so that the researchers aren’t just asking the question they think needs to be asked, they’re hearing from the service providers, “Here’s where the gap is.” Then we took the law enforcement and Department of Law, and prosecutors in the room and we said, what is it that you’re struggling to prosecute? What is it that you’re struggling to see and understand? And we took those service providers, and we took those people with lived experience, and we put them in a room to say, ‘where are the gaps?’ Where might someone not want to tell you what their story is because of how some of these laws work? And so we really asked people to come together and to be solution focused in this, and to say, “Hey, from what we know from the data, the data is not great. And why is that?” Well, the biggest reason was that we’re not talking to each other. We’re kind of creating our own data systems, our own methods of combating human trafficking in a really siloed way, which was not unique. I think we’ve seen that across the country, but I think what was really unique about the Needs Assessment leading to the Data Summit is that we really intentionally said, “We’re not going to set up zoom meetings. We’re not going to just continue to be in groups or task force, or whatever you want to call them, we’re actually going to get together in a room, and we’re going to try to solve a few problems while we’re there together.” I think what came out of that was really deep, meaningful relationships and groups of people who historically are not in the same room together, or who have maybe feared being in the same room together. We created safe places where people could come and have the conversations, because we all had a mutual interest, we all had a mutual goal, and because of that, we were able to have conversations with each other that we hadn’t had before. Sandra Morgan 21:17 I am just so inspired and encouraged by your vision for the future of integrating your own cultural practices with decades of challenges that we’re all facing in this movement. I’ve been in it a really long time, so listening to you is extremely encouraging for me, and I’m going to send this interview to some of my other friends who are also, the word you used at the beginning is weary. We need your generation, Josie, to bring all of your excitement, your energy, and your big questions. I also wanted to work into our conversation a little bit about Savannah’s Act and how that may have influenced the conversation in indigenous communities. Can you take just a couple minutes to speak to that? Josie Heyano 22:28 It’s a little early, and I don’t have a lot of the dates and facts off the top of my head, but I think most impactful to me coming out of Savannah’s Act was the Not Invisible Act Commission. Most impactful for that, for me, were the listening sessions. Part of the Not Invisible Act Commission’s work in their first report, was going to communities and listening. I think that goes back to the conversation we were just having about the Data Summit, which was really what that was about, right? We need to listen to each other, we need to listen to the stories being told, and we need to understand from those stories, not showing up with our bias, or our anger, or our weariness, but to show up and hear each other. That was really impactful for me. That was actually one of the first times that I spoke or addressed anyone on a federal level about what was happening in my community, and I got to speak for the very first time at a federal level, I got to sit there and say, “Our Alaska Native youth are dying and are being killed, and are going missing and they are being murdered, and human trafficking is a common denominator in so many of these cases, and it’s not anywhere. It’s not in our news, it’s not in our community discussions.” Sometimes for me, that was a lot of anger. I was coming out of years of direct service where I was seeing people harmed. I was seeing a lot of harm because of trafficking, and still, our community wasn’t really having a very high level trafficking conversation, or too high level, you might say. We talk about the weariness. One of the things I always notice is how tired I am of having the Human Trafficking 101, conversation. I really appreciated the Not Invisible Act Commission. I really appreciate the work in Savannah’s Act to help create coordinated community response plans, and to start having more community efforts in our tribal villages, our reservations. Here in Alaska, we are PL280 states, so we don’t have reservations in the same way that the lower 48 does. But Savannah’s Act and Not Invisible Act, really helped to start to tell some of those stories and to create action from those stories. For me, it was a lot of forward momentum. Sandra Morgan 24:46 You’ve created a lot of interest for me now, to learn those stories, and I’m going to be seeking them out. I’ve already started making a list of people you’ve mentioned that I’m going to ask you to introduce me to, but I I want to go down the path of what you see for the future in prevention. We started out Prevention Now, prevention is one of my heart’s desires. I go into the schools, we equip our students here at Vanguard to go into the schools. What can we do for indigenous people groups for prevention? Josie Heyano 25:30 When I think about prevention and the human trafficking conversation, I like to ask people to take a step back from just the trafficking conversation. I struggle in this space a lot because I don’t identify strongly with ‘lived experience expert,’ I don’t identify strongly with ‘survivor.’ I don’t know many other Alaska Native women that have not had similar experiences as me. The data, which is terrible, and Alaska shows that we have all survived many things, and we also have these incredible gifts and these incredible protective factors that make us these immovable forces. I think when I show up to the trafficking conversations, my first thing is we have to take a step back. We see the excitement with trafficking, where people want to lean in and they want to do the work, and we know that it’s a problem in our communities, and I ask people to take a step back and look around. Yes, we want to prevent human trafficking, and the way that we do that is what I said earlier. Do people have places to live? Do people have food? Do people have clothing? Are our relatives outside and cold right now? Because if they are, we’re not preventing human trafficking, and we can’t only care about their lives and their value when trafficking occurs, that’s not okay. We have to care about the humanity and the livelihood of every member of our community from the very beginning, not just when a crime has occurred. That’s where I think I find the most heartache sometimes, and balance it with where I do the most service, is we have a lot of members of our community that are struggling and that are not seen as valued or worthy of resources. For prevention efforts, I would ask service providers, what are your policies? Who’s turned away at your door, who is not able to access services, and how can we amend that? Locally here, we have a lot of people who will not be able to access services because they use substances. We have a lot of people that won’t be able to access services because through their lifespan, they’ve never had the access to mental health interventions and services that could have supported a better, safer, and just overall better well being for them. It’s really hard for me sometimes when people say, “We want to fight trafficking,” and it’s the same people who don’t want to fund housing programs, who don’t want to fund community food banks, who don’t want to fund community centers. It goes down even further than that. When we go to our villages, our reservations, our communities, is there clean water? Is there access to healthy, nutritious food? Do young people have a place to go to experience connection, belonging, mentorship? Is there a sense of pride of who you are and where you come from? Is there a way to instill that if there’s not? Those are the things that are prevention to me. I have never met someone in Alaska, in my work, who experienced trafficking, that didn’t have a very long, long story that started far before a trafficking experience occurred. We can’t just show up when it’s trafficking, and prevention means from the day that young person is born, all throughout their life, do all members of our community have safety, have access to community? I think above all else, my grandma Mary Ellen taught me this, and she didn’t teach it because she preached it or she said it in words, I just watched her. My grandma loved people unconditionally. You didn’t have to say the right thing, dress the right way, look the right way, she just loved you. She wouldn’t even say that necessarily, but you could tell in her actions that she would never treat people unkind. She would never snub her nose at people. She would never have judgment. She just knew and understood how complicated it is to be human, and how much all of us need to be seen, to experience connection, and to have another human being look at us with value and respect. When I think prevention, that’s what I try to do in my role. It’s not the big frameworks, it’s not the big systems, those are helpful. Number one, prevention: how do you go out every day in your community and show the people around you that they’re cared about? Sandra Morgan 26:36 We talk about for kids here, if they have one adult attachment, one person who sees them, and knows them, and cares: that is prevention. I feel like today, I’ve had the opportunity to become a little bit of a part of your community, Josie, and I want my listeners to follow you. How can they find you? Josie Heyano 30:14 Absolutely. I have a small consultancy. I had to kind of formalize it because I was just going out and talking at people, and then people would want to know more information. I have a website, signifyconsultingak.org. There’s ways to get in contact with me on that website, I’m also on LinkedIn. You can find me under Josie Heyano, but those are probably the two best places to get in touch. Right now, my work is pretty locally focused, especially I think these next few years, I’m really going to turn my attention to my local community to see where the need is and to be more connected in that way. I still do some work in the federal spaces, but my heart is really on the ground, with people still. Sandra Morgan 31:33 Josie Heyano, what a pleasure to have you with us today. For our listeners, we’re inviting you to go to the endinghumantrafficking.org website, where you’ll find these show notes and links to the things that Josie has talked to us about. It’s also a great opportunity to start subscribing to the newsletter where you’ll get an alert when a new episode drops. Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram, and I’ll be back in two weeks for our next episode.

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Peter Baynard-Smith as the two discuss Hagar International’s Community-Based Care Model. PETER BAYNARD-SMITH Peter brings over 20 years of international development experiences across Africa, Asia, UK, Ireland and Australia, working with World Vision, Concern Worldwide, Tearfund, Engineers without Borders, and most recently the Brotherhood of St Laurence. As Asia Regional Director with Concern, Peter managed country programs across South and SE Asia, including in Livelihood Security, HIV/AIDS, Education, Governance, and Advocacy. With World Vision Australia, Peter led technical specialist teams in economic development, WASH, health, food security, gender and child protection, as well as the research and evaluation unit. Recently, Peter has been focused on the employment and community services sector in Australia, in the context of COVID 19 impact. His journey has also included work as an NGO strategy consultant, leading a technology start-up developing an innovative solution to better safeguarding compliance, and a social enterprise enabling refugees and asylum seekers to pursue their professional career journeys on arrival in Australia. Peter has been a Board member for Habitat for Humanity Australia, and a lecturer on International Development Masters programs. KEY POINTS * The community-based care model focuses on holistic support rather than institutional care, ensuring that survivors are supported long-term. This model includes long-term case management and addresses survivors’ varied needs such as counseling, legal support, education, and livelihood development. * The concept of “the whole journey” involves comprehensive support for survivors that extends beyond immediate assistance. It emphasizes the commitment to work with individuals for as long as it takes to help them rebuild their lives and reintegrate into their communities. * Training for foster families and community partners is crucial. All stakeholders, including employers, law enforcement, and service providers, receive training in trauma-informed care to ensure they understand and can adequately support survivors, reducing the risk of re-traumatization. * The community-based care model challenges traditional institutional care and seeks to engage and strengthen the broader systems in which survivors exist, including legal and law enforcement systems. This shift promotes the idea of creating a supportive community environment for survivors over a purely reactive institutional approach. * Hagar International aims to expand their approach beyond the four countries they operate in, to collaborate with local NGOs and share their successes in building community-based models for care, emphasizing the importance of capacity building and system strengthening in different contexts around the world. RESOURCES * Hagar International [https://hagarinternational.org/] * World Vision International [https://www.worldvision.org/sponsor-a-child?&campaign=400085402&utm_campaign=search-trust-fy23-brand&utm_medium=search&utm_source=google&utm_content=Brand%20General%20Q3FY23&ds_rl=1274668&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_qsmztbCjHpERfFZeOuAJr3lh-P&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0MG5BhD1ARIsAEcZtwRoYuRJzqc_vu2mBmj92rO4AlkA_9EflKyABtTFb2IsgGapOx1HjQQaAs0zEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds] * Concern Worldwide [https://concernusa.org/] * Engineers Without Borders [https://www.ewb-international.org/] * 45- War, Conflict, and Human Trafficking, with Esther and Camille Ntoto [https://endinghumantrafficking.org/45/] TRANSCRIPT Sandra Morgan 0:14 Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is episode #332: A Community-Based Care Model, with Peter Baynard-Smith. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Our guest today is Peter Baynard-Smith. He has over 20 years of international development experience, working across Africa, Asia, the UK, Ireland, and Australia with organizations like World Vision, Concern Worldwide, and Engineers Without Borders. There’s a lot to learn about Peter, but I want to start with asking about your experience with Engineers Without Borders Peter, because usually on this podcast, we’re not talking to engineers. I’m so excited to have you join us on the show today. Peter Baynard-Smith 1:27 Thank you, Sandie, it’s wonderful to be with you. Yes, my background as an engineer actually started out at university, and my passion for International Development and Engineering combined together because I believe that people in all sectors and all professions need to understand the challenges of sustainable development and international development issues. Engineers Without Borders is an organization that educates and empowers engineers and engineering students to engage with social development, with sustainable development goals, and I was the CEO at Engineers Without Borders Australia for a couple of years. Engineers Without Borders Australia is part of a global network of EWBs around the world, including in the USA. So yes, it’s unusual perhaps for an engineer to be working in the anti-trafficking sector, but I think that the important thing is that all of the work that every sector and industry is involved in has an impact. If our working on the ground in development agencies of all sorts, whether we’re doing engineering work, technical development, livelihoods, education, it all touches on the significant challenge and tragedy of human trafficking and modern slavery. I’ve been able to bring some of that experience across into Hagar and focus it on the anti-trafficking space. Sandra Morgan 2:55 I love that my listeners are used to hearing me talk about multi sector collaboration. I often tell the story from my time living in Greece, about the big jars. Pithari, they were called, that the Minoan people, more than 3,000 years ago, carrying down into the king’s pantry a jug that holds 500 liters. To do that, they baked in handles from the top to the bottom, as an engineer, I think you would appreciate this story. Peter Baynard-Smith 3:31 Yep! Sandra Morgan 3:32 …All the way around, so then multiple people could grab the handle they could reach. I think you are an amazing exemplar of finding your handle to join us in the movement against human trafficking. I’m eally delighted to have you here today. Peter Baynard-Smith 3:53 That’s a beautiful picture. I’ll take that one away. Sandra Morgan 3:56 Yeah, you’re gonna borrow that, huh? Okay, good. Well, let’s start off with trying to understand we have listeners in 167 countries. So the principles are what are most transferable for learning how to create a community-based care model. So let’s start with, what do you think are the key elements of a community based care model? Peter Baynard-Smith 4:26 Well, I might start by just explaining that Hagar began 30 years ago in Cambodia at the community level. So our roots as an organization, and therefore the approaches we take, is thoroughly embedded in grassroots community. The key elements that we package together in a concept that we call ‘the whole journey,’ is all the holistic elements that are needed to help a survivor of trafficking, or slavery, or abuse, to restore their lives, to overcome their trauma, and to rebuild their lives and their livelihoods and their future. Those elements include being well managed, case management, and one thing that’s very important at the community level is that case management takes time. It’s not something that somebody can have packaged up for a year, and then that’s it. We work with our survivors, clients, what we say is we work with them, do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. We put no limit on how long we work with a survivor. I think that’s one of the most important elements, is actually not being rushed, not being time bound, not being project bound, but actually committed to working with clients for as long as it takes. The elements we include are counseling, legal support, making sure that they are in a safe shelter environment, safe environment of accommodation, whether that is a shelter or not, usually not actually normally in the community, legal support, also education, skill building, making sure that a survivor is able to get back their livelihood or develop a livelihood despite what they’ve been through and the trauma that they’ve experienced. For Hagar, the community-based model is about a wraparound of all of the provision of all of these areas of need outside of establishing any sort of institution. The important thing is that those in the community that can, whether they are service providers or they are actual community members or extended family, can provide all of those elements. So that’s for us, the most important thing, is being with a survivor for the long term and bringing all of the different elements in a holistic package to provide that support for as long as it takes. Sandra Morgan 7:02 I love the analogy of the journey, because we don’t know if we’ve reached our destination just based on how long we’ve been walking, or if our- I don’t know even how to express this, but I get this sense that in your community-based care model, when we compare that, let’s do that. Let’s try compare and contrast what a community-based care model offers for that more longitudinal journey approach, as opposed to a victim service provider model that’s based on an aftercare facility or some kind of institutional program. Peter Baynard-Smith 7:53 Yeah, I’ll use the example of in Cambodia, the number of women that have been forcibly returned from having been trafficked in China, forcibly returned, particularly during and immediately after the COVID pandemic, and returning back to Cambodia and having nowhere to go, and having been also ostracized and not permitted to return even to their families and their communities. In many, in some traditional models, those young women would be regarded as having to be in some form of institutional care, because where else are they going to go? What Hagar’s model has done is identify a home in the community where, at the initial stage, those young women can return to. We call them Homes of Love, and they can return and literally, they will be there a couple of weeks. They’ll be there simply to be able to get started making sure they’ve got a case manager, they’ve got somebody to support them, that their immediate health and well being needs are being attended to, that the counseling and the support can begin, just that beginning of the journey with them. But all along, it is about reintegrating them into their community and starting that process of overcoming the barriers that they feel, that even their families and their communities feel. Often, there’s great discrimination on women that have been ostensibly married off into, in this case, in China, and have have returned having been abused and having in many cases, severe trauma and severe psychological impact. The ‘Home of Love,’ is in the community. So even though it’s a home, it’s not an institution. It is a house mother in her own home in the community, bringing nd allowing those girls to stay with her for a number of weeks, get themselves back on their feet, and then all of the services and the support from Hagar kicks in over that time, so that then the ongoing case management, the ongoing counseling, any legal work that’s required, and any skill building and training, and all of those aspects can kick off, including reintegrating into the community. It’s bringing a natural family and community environment around the individual, rather than placing them in an institutional environment where they don’t have any connections and they don’t have a sense of a future beyond that. And that’s the big risk, and has obviously been the big change over the last 10 to 12 years, has been a recognition that that kind of institutional model does not lead to long term, wholesome, long term outcomes. Sandra Morgan 11:02 It sort of contributes to some insecurity. And I don’t know how many subcommittees I’ve been on where our topic is “placement,” and “placement,” is is a little dehumanizing. “We’ve got to find a bed,” those kinds of things, but you’re talking about a home environment, and then you’re talking about community integration. I don’t quite understand how to look at that integration piece, because they’re not going to stay in that home. But where are they going now? Peter Baynard-Smith 11:41 There is a few layers, a few levels of that. Obviously, the preferred outcome is that that survivor can return to their own family, their own extended family, in their own home village. When that’s not possible, we look at a wider circle of kinship care. It might be extended family in a neighboring community, might be relatives or cousins in a different town or a different province, so that sort of next circle out of kinship. Beyond that, we train up, we identify and train up long term foster homes. It’s really replicating almost the kind of model that a lot of developed nations would have around their approach to fostering and out of home care. We identify and train up families in provinces all around Cambodia, so that wherever the survivors have actually originated from, after spending time with Hagar in the home of love, they are then able to, if they cannot return to their family or there is no wider kinship care available to them, there is the foster care and home environment. Now this is young people and adults. Again, it can be children, but many of these young women, by the time they return, they are approaching adulthood, or they are adults. That foster model also is around evolving fostering from purely fostering of children, to actually that fostering and caring for vulnerable adults through that model as well. Sandra Morgan 13:23 Love that. So this approach then moves the care that is going to stay with this survivor into a wider safety net, if you will. My next question then, is, when that happens, how dothe community partners….is it very prescribed? How do they become woven into this person’s life? Peter Baynard-Smith 14:03 It’s a very community by community model, so identifying foster families and foster homes and training them up and supporting them, alongside supporting the client themselves through the reintegration process and all the ongoing support, because alongside this, their skill building, their education, their vocational training, their legal work, if there’s a court case going on regarding the broker or the perpetrator of the trafficking crime, all of these sort of things can be going on alongside actually reintegrating and trying to get her life back on track. There’s a multitude of supports alongside, but the foster home is simply the environment where they can live and be safe. The other aspect of the community around all this is related to prevention, because many of the girls that have ended up in these situations have come from situations of vulnerability, whether that’s related to poverty, whether it’s related to domestic violence in their own families or communities, whether it’s related to being susceptible to unsafe employment, the attraction of migration for employment that turn out to be very unsafe migration practices. Built into this model is a whole set of tools available to work with communities, right at the level of the household. One of the things I love in Cambodia, and we have a similar initiative in Vietnam is called The Good Wives and Good Husbands Group. It’s absolutely fantastic because it’s working with, in the case of the Good Husbands Group, actually working with men who mostly, even they themselves have self identified, as enacting domestic violence or not understanding the risks of trafficking, not understanding children’s rights, not understanding rights for women and girls. So actually helping to educate men and husbands around creating a safe home environment that, actually over the years, means that a young woman growing up in that home environment is far less susceptible to being attracted out into a potential migration that turns out to be a very unsafe and indeed a trafficking situation, or seeking unhealthy relationships and this sort of thing. It’s really about building understanding of respectful relationships, the vital role of a healthy and caring home, that that all actually contributes to preventing these situations arising in the first place. Sandra Morgan 16:56 Building this community-based care model, then you’re actually building the community to be a safer place too. Your description of this reminds me of an interview, and I’ll put a link in the show notes, when we interviewed Esther and Camille Ntoto from Congo. Camille had started a men’s group that sounds just like what you’re doing, and it created a safer community for abused women to return to a normal life. So that’s very exciting to see different versions of the same strategy, I love that, that’s very exciting. When I think about this idea of a foster home, because you could tell I was thinking, “Oh, so they’re only going to take care of kids,” because we think of fostering that way. But this idea that you’re providing that safe space for someone that’s an adult, this is a little bit of a new way of looking at things. How do you train the families? You mentioned training and preparation. Peter Baynard-Smith 18:14 A number of years ago, around eight years ago, Hagar in Cambodia really led the way in creating a rigorous and systematic set of guidelines around foster care, fostering in the community in Cambodia. So it wasn’t something as you know, the institutional environments in Cambodia had been very established and had been running for a long time, and the last 10 years or so, there’s been a very significant shift away from that, and Hagar has been at the front leading edge of that when it comes to this particular alternative. The community-based Foster Care is a much healthier and a much better set of outcomes, and a much better way of doing this. The guidelines that Hagar has developed, the work that Hagar does with the government, at ministry level and also provincial and district levels of those ministries, ties it all together. You can work on national guidelines, but then you also need to support and train, and build the capacity at a commune, and a district, and a provincial level to ensure that those guidelines are followed. That’s where the training comes in. The training isn’t just with the foster homefamilies, it’s also with the service providers and the duty bearers around them, because it’s a system. We’re very keen on making sure the work that we do is not setting up a parallel system. We want to strengthen the system and improve the system, and that includes and that requires government and duty bearers to be on board, to enforce it, to enact the same principles and standards in care. We want others to pick up the model, and that’s very important for Hagar. We’re not just about doing it ourselves, we’re also about building the capacity of local NGOs, local organizations, not only in the countries we’re working but also in some other countries as well, so that the standards and the principles, and the good approaches, can be picked up and run and have an impact in other places as well. Sandra Morgan 20:34 If I’m imagining what this is going to look like, because you talked about economic tools and training empowerment, this training isn’t just for the foster families, but say I’m going to employ your survivors in an office building, then the people training the women to be computer data entry people, they have to go through your training? They can’t just start training them for the computer? Peter Baynard-Smith 21:09 You’ve got it. You’ve got it. The one aspect of training that we do with all stakeholders that we work with, and that our clients engage with is trauma informed care approaches. If I take the example of if we’re brokering an opportunity for a survivor to have a job in, let’s just take that example in a data center, for example, it is vital that that employer understands how to work with and have their their eyes and ears open to the impact of trauma in that new employee’s life. If they’re providing their employment services in a way that appreciates the experience that someone may have been through, understands the impact of trauma, they are going to have a much more successful employee, they’re going to have a much more successful employer/employee relationship, and then the survivor is going to have a much more sustainable, successful, long term employment, placement, and opportunity. The training that we provide around trauma informed care is not purely on the social work side, in terms of the care per se, it’s also on employers and indeed, judicial services, immigration departments, immigration officials, police officials, all of those different services that a survivor comes in contact with has to be trained around trauma and understanding how you manage, and work with, and support, and not re-traumatize an individual through the services that you’re providing. Sandra Morgan 22:58 You’ve got all these partners, collaborators, everybody working alongside. I like that because we’re doing it together. To me, that means that your language around partnership is really related to your comment at the beginning about systems. You’re talking about the system, not parallel systems, and at the time I thought, “Huh, I want to know more about that.” And now it makes more sense, but can you explain that just a little bit more? I think it’s unique to an engineer’s mind. Peter Baynard-Smith 23:38 I think there’s three pillars, if you like, that we think of when we think of our work. I’ve talked about survivor care, I’ve talked a bit about prevention. The third pillar is this strength in systems. There are multiple systems, as you say, an engineer’s mind sort of thinks of systems in systems way, that one of the systems that we really want to focus on, and do focus on significantly and increasingly, is the law enforcement and judicial and prosecution system. Because survivors of trafficking are right from the get go, whether it’s in terms of them being identified as a victim, right through to the kind of impact statements that they’re required to give, right through all the evidence gathering process, right through all of the trial, and the legal, and the compensation processes that take place, that whole journey, if you like, that “system,” a victim or a survivor is at the heart of that system, and is highly vulnerable. They are highly vulnerable before they’re even identified. Obviously, they’re in a position of vulnerability in the first place, but they’re also highly vulnerable through that process. We work really closely, particularly in Thailand, our work in Thailand very strongly focused on law enforcement capacity building, victim support through the legal and prosecution process, and strengthening the level to which trauma is understood and factored in to the way that police and investigators, and indeed the legal profession approach and handle survivors of trafficking. That whole system, we’ve got a number of touch points with training, capacity building, building of evidence, and direct support to the survivor through the process and even at the other end. One of the things that I found quite shocking, is the very low level of compensation claims. Compensation may be ordered by the court, but such low levels of compensation end up in the hands of survivors, and obviously, once a court orders compensation, there’s a whole other set of processes involved in actually securing that compensation. Again, supporting a client properly through aftercare, through packages of support, again for the long term, because they can’t rely on a court order to redress and compensate them adequately for what they’ve been through, so you have to bring the ongoing counseling and support, and help with finding work and education in at that end of what is otherwise a judicial and legal process and system, but it’s a system that’s affecting humans, and the individual at the heart of that. Hagar is focused on those individuals and on those survivors, and making sure that all the aspects of the support they need are provided, even while we try and strengthen the systems for the longer term. Sandra Morgan 26:55 I keep hearing this ongoing language, and that really supports the premise of this is a journey, and we’re doing this with the survivor in a community. As the community begins to function in a way that is very organically supportive, what do you see as a future trend that we can expect from the system changes happening because of a community-based model? Peter Baynard-Smith 27:34 I think one of the trends is an increased understanding and recognition of the impact of trauma, and more and more stakeholders being trained and having their own system environments, their own institutional environments, let’s say, in the police. In countries where the treatment of trafficking survivors has not always been front and center, even actually taking up trafficking cases and prosecuting them has often been put to the side and been regarded as less important than prosecuting other types of criminal activity. I think an increasing recognition of the terrible impact of trafficking and slavery, the fact that we can identify it, we can support people, and we can restitute and transform, and heal those broken lives. I think that that recognition is growing, so I think that’s one trend. The other is that Hagar works with Hagar International Offices in four countries, Cambodia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and we are with a partner of ours in Thailand. We have that direct working in those four countries, but we also are seeing a trend of being able to bring our learnings, our expertise, and our strengths to other organizations in other countries that are not necessarily going to be a Hagar program country, but a partner organization that can do all the same great work. An example of that is in the Solomon Islands, also in Myanmar, and I think for Hagar, the trend into the future is expanding the impact from all of the 30 years of experience that we have, by building the skills and bringing the expertise to other organizations that are local. All local organizations, local NGOs, and in the case of the work in the Solomon Islands, has actually, over the last 12 months, brought to the law enforcement process the very first cases of human trafficking in the Solomon Islands. They’re not the first cases that existed, but they’re the first cases that are being brought to the courts, and survivors are being supported, and evidence is being gathered. It’s a big change for a country like the Solomon Islands to actually have an organization, a Solomon Island organization, with the kind of skills, with the backing and support of an international NGO like Hagar, to bring that level of capacity to a system that did not have it before at all. So that’s a very big step, and we’d like to see more of that, we’d like to see Hagar’s work, being able to support and inject that skill set and expertise into local NGOs in a number of other countries around the region and indeed, globally. Sandra Morgan 30:54 Well, I want to help you with that. Can you give our listeners some direction on how to get connected with you to get support on those initiatives? Website, contact. Peter Baynard-Smith 31:08 Yep! Follow us on our socials, on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Go to our website, hagarinternational.org. We’re always open to collaborating with more local and indeed, international organizations working with vulnerable and traumatized populations. The evidence is that modern day slavery and trafficking is occurring everywhere, sadly, and so development and international aid organizations working in many, many countries could, I think, really benefit from having a focus on understanding the trafficking risk, being aware of the trafficking context, and also the impact and the trauma that survivors have been through, and actually be able to work with them within the communities that those organizations are working in. We can bring those skills and training, and we would love to hear from any organizations interested in partnering with us in whichever part of the world they are. Sandra Morgan 32:11 I know when we talk about community based care, we’re thinking of the survivor, but I think part of the outcomes of this strategy is that communities begin to care. Your example of the Solomon Islands, we know trafficking has been happening, but now there is a system response. Peter, I am so grateful that you joined us today. Thank you. Peter Baynard-Smith 32:40 Thank you, Sandie, it’s been wonderful to meet you, and thank you to all your listeners and all your supporters of your podcast. It’s terrific, thanks so much. Sandra Morgan 32:50 Thank you. Listeners, we’re inviting you to take the next step. Go over to endinghuman trafficking.org. You’ll find the resources that Peter mentioned, and the link to past podcast. If you haven’t visited our site before, this is a great time to become a subscriber, and then you’ll get a newsletter every two weeks with the show notes of that particular episode. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, and of course, I’m going to see you again in two weeks.

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Daniel Varon as the two discuss the important of retribution and restitution for victims of trafficking and abuse. DANIEL VARON Daniel Varon joined the Zalkin Law firm in 2020 bringing his experience as an attorney in the Office of the District Attorney in Orange County.  He is an experienced trial attorney, having tried approximately 60 jury trials during his work as Deputy District Attorney. The California District Attorney Investigators Association recognized him as Prosecutor of the Year in 2017. While at the Orange County DA’s office, Daniel worked in the Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit (HEAT). He maintained a full caseload and tried the first human trafficking of a minor case, following the passage of Prop 35. As a Senior Deputy in the DA’s office, he handled pre-trial writs in the California Court of Appeals, drafted and argued appeals in the California Court of Appeal and Superior Court appellate department, and drafted requests for review in the California Supreme Court. During his time with the Orange County DA, he was also deeply involved in developing and presenting comprehensive human trafficking training programs for law enforcement and prosecutors in 12 counties across California. He served as a subject matter expert for California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and training for development of its human trafficking training video and the Post Institute of Criminal Investigations, advancing human trafficking investigations. Before his work at the Orange County District Attorney’s office, he worked for the law firm of Gilbert, Kelly, Crowley and Jennett in Los Angeles. KEY POINTS * The vertical prosecution model is essential in ensuring effective outcomes for victims, as it dedicates prosecutors to human trafficking cases, encouraging collaboration with police and law enforcement. The success of the HEAT unit relied on building trust not only among law enforcement but also with juvenile defenders, victim service providers, and the courts, creating a comprehensive support system for trafficking victims.  * Daniel now represents victims of childhood sexual abuse and human trafficking, and he stresses the significance of focusing on restitution for victims, highlighting the long-term impacts of sexual abuse. * The criminal and civil justice systems have key distinctions, particularly regarding the representation of victims, with criminal prosecutors acting on behalf of the state. In contrast, civil attorneys advocate directly for the victims. * It is important to balance empathetic support for victims while providing them with the necessary structure for independence and self-empowerment.   RESOURCES * Zalkin Law Firm [https://www.zalkin.com/] * Orange County District Attorney’s Office  [https://orangecountyda.org/] * California District Attorney Investigators Association ‘Prosecutor of the Year’ Award [https://cdaia.org/awards/past-awards/#prosecutor-of-the-year] * Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit (HEAT) [https://orangecountyda.org/the-human-exploitation-and-trafficking-unit/] * California Courts of Appeals [https://appellate.courts.ca.gov/] * California Supreme Court [https://supreme.courts.ca.gov/] * California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training [https://post.ca.gov/] * Southwestern Law School [https://www.swlaw.edu/] * Interview with Daniel Aaron [https://www.kuci.org/podcastfiles/1136/Part%204%20Human%20Trafficking%20Dan%20Varon.MP3] * 112: Juvenile Justice Inspiring Hope: An Interview with Hon. Maria Hernandez [https://endinghumantrafficking.org/112/] * Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma (IVAT) [https://www.ivatcenters.org/] TRANSCRIPT Sandra Morgan 0:14 Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is episode #331: Retribution and Restitution, with Daniel Varon. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Our guest today is Daniel Varon, and he joined the Zalkin Law firm in 2020 but I knew him a long time before that. His experience as an attorney in the office of the district attorney in Orange County was a huge part of the battle against human trafficking in my backyard. He is an experienced trial attorney, having tried approximately 60 jury trials during his work as Deputy District Attorney. He was recognized as Prosecutor of the Year by the California District Attorney Investigators Association in 2017. That’s an amazing honor, and I congratulate you. While at the Orange County DA’s office, Daniel worked in the Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit. Colloquially, we called it the “HEAT Unit,” because they put heat on those traffickers. He maintained a full case load and tried the first human trafficking of a minor case, following passage of Prop 35. As a Senior Deputy in the DA’s office, he also handled pre-trial writs in the California Court of Appeals, drafted and argued appeals in the California Court of Appeal and Superior Court appellate department, and drafted requests for review in the California Supreme Court. Now to my listeners, you know I don’t usually do long bios, but I think this could be like a timeline for those aspiring attorneys that have talked to me, who want to be in the battle as an advocate. So I’m going to do just a little more than usual. During his time with the Orange County DA, he was also deeply involved in developing and presenting comprehensive human trafficking training programs for law enforcement and prosecutors in 12 counties across California. He served as a subject matter expert for California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and training for development of its human trafficking training video and for the Post Institute of Criminal Investigations, advancing human trafficking investigations. This is really important because we need those who have gone and been pioneers to help all of us reach the same level. Prior to his work at the Orange County District Attorney, he worked for the law firm of Gilbert, Kelly, Crowley and Jennett in Los Angeles. He has done so many outstanding things, and I think learning more about him outside of when he was serving here in Orange County, my favorite new thing to learn is that when he was at Southwestern University School of Law, he received the Best Advocate Award. I think we could all agree that he still qualifies in that area. Danny, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast, and I apologize for that long bio. Daniel Varon 4:33 Well, thank you, Sandie. It’s great to be here, it’s great to see you. I think I did your podcast, I think seven years ago, while we were in the midst of all of this. Maybe longer, actually. It was great to see you in Orange County a few months ago, and it’s great to do your podcast. Thank you for having me. Sandra Morgan 4:50 I plan to put the link to that podcast in the show notes, so people, if you want more of the content we’re going to talk about here, you can go back and listen to our previous conversation. Let’s get a little history on what happened here in Orange County and what it was like for you to be on the first HEAT team. Daniel Varon 5:15 Well, it was amazing. And I have to say, I was thinking over those days, back in 2011/2012 when we were envisioning what the HEAT unit would look like. It’s hard not to feel like I was the Forrest Gump of human trafficking. Honestly, and you remember back in those early days, we were law enforcement led. We had a grant from the federal government, from the FBI. We had a wonderful federal agent, Steve Wrathall, who kind of spearheaded that effort. They created a task force at Anaheim Police Department, I think in 2010, and part of what they were obligated to do as part of receiving that grant was to learn and then train on human trafficking. In 2011 I happen to be assigned to a felony prosecution unit that dealt with the Northern District of Orange County, and that included Anaheim. I happened to get a few piping cases on my caseload, and we happened to get one close to trial, and that’s how I met those police officers. Greg Freeze, Shane Carringer, Paul Delgado, and others, I don’t want to leave anybody out, I probably did. I really followed their lead. I mean, these were guys that were willing to learn and do new things. They were vice officers at the time, and they took a new approach, and I learned the approach from them. It’s embarrassing to hear my bio read like that. Thank you for the kind words and the kind introduction, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that, like I said, I was the Forrest Gump of human trafficking that happened to be in the right place at the right time, and if I was smart on anything, it was I was smart enough to follow the lead of really good police officers. Sandra Morgan 6:53 Thank you. That’s great. I worked with police officers before we had a vertical prosecutor, and I left the Office of Admin for the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force just as you were coming on. The difference in the outcomes for our victims were astronomical with the vertical prosecutor being available. Can you explain what that means? Daniel Varon 7:32 Sure, Orange County, I think, is different from a lot of DA’soffices, in that it really does have a vertical prosecution model for the serious felonies. What that means, as opposed to a non vertical prosecution model is, the best way I could illustrate it is the difference between what I would say are garden variety felonies, simple assaults, burglaries, robberies, non gang crimes, non sex crimes, non homicides, those garden variety felonies are handled by different units at different times. So somebody gets arrested, police officers prepare reports, they submit it to a preliminary hearing unit, and they’re the unit that’s just designed to go to court to show the judge that there’s probable cause to hold the defendant to answer on those charges, and then once that happens, it gets submitted to a general felony unit, which is the unit that I was speaking about earlier, that I was assigned to the north team for. Then it’s prosecuted to trial by a trial deputy, and then if there’s a conviction and an appeal, the appeal gets handled by the Attorney General’s Office. Vertical prosecution means, instead of having these two separate units within the DA’s office that handle the first and the second phase of the case, the vertical prosecution teams tend to be assigned to specific crimes. Because they’re assigned to specific crimes, they get very involved with the police officers who investigate those crimes. We get very involved in understanding how the crimes work, how they’re investigated, how they’re prosecuted, and we get involved from the very earliest stage. The moment that a crime occurs, the police officers know who the assigned prosecutor is going to be, they can have conversations to make sure that the evidence is collected in the right way, that all of the elements to the crime are accounted for, it’s the DA who reviews those search warrants, reviews all the evidence as it comes in, and is able to meet the victim at the earliest possible stage. And then it also creates consistency for the victim of crime, because the victim has one prosecutor that she knows is handling her case and as it works through the process. It’s, in my view for serious crimes and for complicated crimes, it’s a much more effective and meaningful way to present a case through the process. It’s more effective for the victims. It’s more effective for law enforcement, and, quite frankly, I think it’s more effective for the courts. If you think about homicide, homicide is very complicated, and you want an attorney on the case who really understands the intricacies of the law of homicide. Human trafficking is no different. Human trafficking is very complicated in many respects. It’s complicated because of the social and the psychological components of it, you really have to understand what makes that trafficking relationship tick. You really have to understand the victimization. We used to call it, in the trainings, we used to refer to it as victimology. How does a trafficker recruit their victims? What are they looking for? What characteristics? How do they manipulate them? How do they bring them in? How do they keep them trafficked? You need somebody that has really immersed themselves in that culture, so to speak. And then you also need somebody who understands how to take that information and apply it to the laws. In our case with trafficking, we also were involved in drafting laws. If we thought things needed to change, we were not quiet about drafting proposals to send them to the legislature as well, and I think over time, that vertical prosecution model gave us a lot more credibility with the courts. As we got more and more cases through the court system, the judges knew that we were the trafficking attorneys, that we understood the law. It felt like, at times, since I’m not in the the DA’s office anymore and I don’t practice criminal law in Orange County, I could say it, but there were many times that we felt that we were educating the bench, and that was a really, really important facet of what we felt our role was and what we were doing. Sandra Morgan 11:31 That speaks to one of the elements we talk a lot about on this podcast, is collaboration and federal grants, for the last decade or so, have focused on an enhanced collaborative model. Without building trust, it is not possible to really collaborate, and that’s what I observed with the HEAT unit. I worked in the juvenile courts, and could see the trust between all of the partners supporting one youth who was now involved in this case. So kudos for the emphasis on including the folks on the bench, the law enforcement, the victim service people. I always felt, as a part of the task force, that I was personally part of the victories that we then had with the convictions. Daniel Varon 12:34 Actually, if I can just add one crucial component there, which is that the way that the task force was structured at the beginning, and that I think it’s still supposed to be structured, but I haven’t been there for four and a half years, is it wasn’t just police, and that’s to your point, right? It wasn’t just police and law enforcement. The trust was absolutely crucial. We had to earn the trust of the juvenile defenders, the attorneys who were representing minors who were going through the juvenile court process, we had to earn their trust that if there was a minor that we recommended for detention in a juvenile facility for a short period of time, we had to earn their trust so that they understood that we were doing it to protect the minor from being trafficked, from being abused, from being victimized further. There were some wonderful juvenile defenders who understood that, and we were able to work with them to figure out what’s really in the best interest of the minor. That’s the crutch of California’s juvenile delinquency program. Really, the obligation is for everybody to look at it from the perspective of what’s best for the minor, and we did that, and I’m really, really proud of the work that we were able to do through the juvenile court system. As you know, we had an amazing judge during my time there, Judge Maria Hernandez. She was somebody who was just so dedicated to trying to figure out how to use the courts in the proper way to try to help the minors. She was instrumental in that process. The public defenders who were assigned there that we worked with, some of them were really, really terrific as well. The trust that you’re referring to, it has to go much further beyond just law enforcement and prosecutor, it has to go system wide. Sandra Morgan 14:16 Absolutely. Thank you for that, and thanks for the shout out for Judge Hernandez. We’ll put her interviews in the show notes too, because she has some great comments to add to this. But now you’re not here in Orange County, and you’ve moved from criminal law to civil. What is that about? Daniel Varon 14:38 You know, it was just the right time for me. I had a very long commute, and that wasn’t the only thing, certainly. But the work that we were doing in human trafficking is very taxing. We really, like I’ve alluded to, we really made it our business to be involved. It was never a nine to five job for us, in the unit. Brad, Shane, Laban, who you know obviously, and the others, Julia and the others that we worked with, Brian who is now a judge, we worked a lot. I think when we each came in, the entire emphasis of the HEAT unit and what we were doing was the victim centered approach, that we were taking the perspective of the victim and really trying to do what was in the best interest of the victim, and to achieve justice. Our jobs as prosecutors, fundamentally, were to achieve justice, and we were dealing with crimes that, by their nature, are recidivist. They’re not crimes that, they’re not one-offs. Somebody commits an assault in a bar, a lot of times that could be a one-off offense. Somebody steals a car, you hope that’s a one-off offense. The very nature of human trafficking is that it’s a crime that continues, it’s of a continuing nature. They recruit and victimize somebody so that they can sell them over and over and over and over. And every time they do it, it’s the money maker for the perpetrator. And so we know that when people get out of prison in this arena, they reoffend. I don’t know what the percentages are, but I venture to say it’s in the high 90s. We saw recidivist offenders over and over again. From our perspective, achieving justice meant that if you had an offender, it was our obligation, within our ethical bounds and ethical constraints, to use admissible evidence to ensure that they were convicted and that they were sentenced appropriately. We were focused on it, and we knew that learning and understanding and growing was key to that, so we went out with our law enforcement partners on ride alongs a lot. I spent many, 12:00 till 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning on Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana to learn. I’ve been out to Anaheim’s tracks on Harbor and Beach Boulevard a lot. There were times when juveniles werelocated, where I’d go in at five o’clock in the morning so that I could interview her with the police officer. Those are things that we did, and so it’s very taxing. It’s taxing our families, it’s taxing physically and emotionally, obviously, the subject matter is very difficult. After my time in the HEAT Unit, around 2019, I was moved into the writs and appeals unit, which was a welcome change of pace for me. At that time, I kind of started to reassess where I was at. I did sort of a mental check in, because I don’t share this very much, but in my mind, as a prosecutor, every three or four years, I’d sort of reassess where I was at. I did that because I felt like it was my obligation to either recommit, mentally and emotionally to what I was doing, or find something else that I would commit to. Because if you’re just going along like, “Oh, it’s going to be a 30 year career,” you get stale. You don’t bring the same passion to your work, and it’s not fair to the victims that we try to achieve justice for. It’s not fair to our colleagues. It’s not fair to the office. It was 2019, I was kind of going through that mental check in, sort of, to see where we were. I knew Irwin’s Zalkin and I’d actually given a presentation. He asked me to give a presentation at IVAT down in San Diego, which is – you’re nodding. I think you know what IVAT may be, right? Sandra Morgan 18:20 But for our listeners. Daniel Varon 18:22 Well, I’m going to get the acronym wrong, but it’s an institute that focuses on violence against women, essentially sexual abuse and domestic violence. I gave a human trafficking presentation there, and we had remained in contact. By early 2020, we were in touch, and I ended up here. This is really, it’s a perfect progression for me. What we do in our firm, the vast majority of the work we do is representing victims of childhood sex abuse. Some of that overlaps, obviously, with human trafficking. What we had seen, we never actually got deep into the statistics, but it was very obvious to us that many of our human trafficking victims have been sexually abused when they were minors. Whether they were adult or child victims, when we got them in human trafficking, we learned that a lot of them were abused early. You’ve heard me say this before, Sandie, but we wanted to learn From traffickers and traffickers themselves talk about targeting young women who have been sexually abused when they were minors, it’s one of the risk factors to getting trafficked. The damage that’s done to a child who’s sexually abused is incalculable. It’s a lifelong, life lasting impact, and obviously it impacts everybody differently. For some people it made them more vulnerable to sexual abuse beyond the initial abuse. For others, it made them more vulnerable to human trafficking. For others, it makes them more vulnerable to alcohol abuse or drug abuse, difficulty with relationships. I mean, the manifestations of harm that are done when a child is sexually abused you really just can’t put to words the lifelong impact. For me, this is like the perfect place to be, it’s really where my passion is, is helping people who have been victimized in that way. The natural progression for me was, when I came here, is to look at, well, what about the civil component to human trafficking? And it’s something that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about and looking at, and researching. That’s an area that we’re certainly open to as well, it’s trying to find restitution for people who are victimized in that way as well. Sandra Morgan 20:31 In some of my focus groups with victims of human trafficking, one of the consistent themes that comes up is what justice looks like. It began to concern me that their response was more about restitution so they could build a new life, and they really didn’t care if the sentence was five years or 25 years. If they were out of the system and independent, self reliant, it was a new life. I began watching restitution. I watched some restitution cases in the civil courts in Los Angeles, and I talked to those victims. Can you compare criminal justice with civil justice? Daniel Varon 21:32 There’s a lot of misconceptions, I think people don’t fully appreciate what the role is of a prosecutor. I alluded to it earlier, that as much as we felt that we were trying to achieve justice for the victims, the main distinction between civil and criminal law, I think, if you wanted to just pick one, the main one is that as a prosecutor you don’t represent the victim. In civil law, if you’re a plaintiff’s attorney and you represent somebody who’s been trafficked or been sexually abused, you represent that person. So everything you do is geared towards achieving some result for that person. On the criminal side, you represent the people of the state of California. That might sound a little cheesy. When you look at a criminal complaint, it says the people of the state of California vs., and then it names the defendant. When we would stand up in court as prosecutors, we would say, “Daniel Varon for the people.” Some people might say, “Well, that sounds a little bit strange or a little bit cheesy, or hokey, or whatever,” but it’s not. Every individual in California has an interest in the Fair Administration of Justice, and part of that means that when somebody commits a crime against society by victimizing another member of society, it’s up to a prosecutor to stand up on their behalf, to ensure that justice is done for what happened. We know that there are many, many crimes out there, human trafficking oftentimes is one of them, where the victim, like you said, has no interest in their perpetrator going to jail there. How many domestic violence cases do we know about where the victim goes sideways and she doesn’t want her partner or spouse in jail? It happens over and over again, but the role of a prosecutor is, we can take into account what a victim tells us, but at the end of the day, it’s not a victim’s decision whether a case is brought or not brought. On the flip side to that is, a victim can yell and scream that she wants somebody to be prosecuted, but again, we have ethical obligations to represent the people, and if we don’t have admissible evidence of the crime, we don’t get to bring case, right. One of the hardest things that you ever do as a prosecutor is, a crime that you know was committed against a victim who you know was victimized, but you know that you don’t have admissible evidence to prove it to 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt. That was our burden, and so you have to decide not to file the case. It’s an agonizing decision at times, but it’s one of the most important decisions that you make as a prosecutor, is the decision whether to file or not to file. On the civil side, obviously we have ethical burdens on when we bring a case or file a case on behalf of a client, but we represent the client, and we try to achieve an outcome for the client. You make recommendations to the clients, but there are certain things that only a client can decide. It’s not the same on the criminal side. Sandra Morgan 24:31 In your work, on the civil side now, how is that impacting justice for victims? Daniel Varon 24:40 Well, our justice system is, I would argue we have the best in the world, in my opinion, but it’s not perfect. We can strive for perfection, and I think the fact that, as a society, I think we’re always moving the ball forward, but we’re not there yet. One of the imperfections, I think, is that there really is no way that I have found, to achieve full restitution for victims on the criminal side. That doesn’t mean that in all cases you’ll never get restitution, but in the vast majority of cases that I’ve seen, it’s really difficult to get full financial restitution for victims. We’re not talking about somebody stole your car and you lost $5,000, and then you got $5,000 back and got a new car. Okay that, fine, you get restitution. But when you talk about sexual abuse of a child, or you talk about human trafficking, which involves obviously sexual abuse of a child or a young woman, and I know I’ve been very gendered, by the way, but in my time at the DA’s office, I hadn’t prosecuted any cases where they were male victims. I don’t mean, at all, to suggest that there are not male victims of human trafficking, we know there are, but in my experience that I had dealt with, it was always female victims, and so that’s why I keep using ‘she,’ so please don’t take anything by that. But, you talk about the lifelong needs of somebody who’s been trafficked or sexually abused as a child, the cost is astronomical. The impact to that person is potentially lifelong counseling. Which estimates show that somebody who’s sexually abused as a child could cost anywhere from 250 to $400,000 over the course of their lifetime, just in therapy costs. What about their ability to go to school, housing, change in their employment outlook? What about all of the things that we really don’t talk about a lot, like sexual dysfunction? I’ve dealt with a lot of cases with male victims of child sex abuse, and there are ramifications for them that a lot of people don’t like to talk about. Sometimes we’ll question sexuality. Sometimes we’ll have sexual dysfunction. These things interfere with relationships. There’s no criminal court that will look at an 11 or 12 or 13 year old child who’s sexually abused and say, “Well, I’m going to award $500,000 or 600,000, or a million or 2 million, or ten million dollars to account for all of these things that we expect you to be impacted with over the next 65 years of life expectancy.” It just doesn’t work that way. The side note to that, Sandie, is that even if it did in the perfect world, where the abuser is caught and prosecuted and sentenced under California’s laws, they’re going to be away for a while. So, if they don’t have money sitting around, they’re not going to pay any kind of judgment. Even if a judge ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars of restitution on a criminal case, what happens from a practical standpoint is the victim gets a restitution order, then he or she can go in and try to enforce the restitution order. It becomes a judgment, and then it’s enforceable as a judgment. So go and enforce the judgment against somebody that doesn’t have any assets to speak of, and doesn’t have any prospects for future earnings. It’s just a piece of paper. Sandra Morgan 28:05 So with the civil approach, how does that overcome that hurdle? Daniel Varon 28:11 The civil approach, what we really emphasize in our cases is, whether there are other entities that are responsible for the abuse that happened. If there was a school or a church, or a business or something that was aware that somebody was a risk to abuse, and they turned a blind eye, they covered it up, or what have you, they didn’t follow their own policies and procedures, things like that. If there’s an entity that’s responsible, then you can bring a lawsuit against the entity and you can achieve restitution that way. A lot of the entities are insured, for example, for negligence. If they’ve negligently failed to protect somebody from a known abuser, or they negligently fail to supervise their agent, their teacher, their priest, whatever, then that’s something that they can be held accountable for, and that’s a way to achieve restitution for a victim of some of these offenses. Sandra Morgan 29:10 I’ve worked in the public, non-profit sector for decades, and this is always, in my job description, under ‘risk management,’ because we know that we need to follow certain guidelines. For me, I’m curious if you feel that this approach supports maybe transferring some of the, I can’t really find the right words, but I’ve gone into hotels, to hospitals, to churches, and done training, but it’s always been- not always, I don’t want to say always- it often feels like I’m just checking a box. But when you hit the bottom line, it’s more than checking a box. Can you give me your understanding of that aspect on restitution? Daniel Varon 30:15 Yeah, well, that’s 100% right. The reality is that there are, in our society, there are institutions that we put our trust in all the time, and we trust them with our most precious also. We’re talking about schools. We trust the school to supervise our children, we don’t even think about it most of the time. You have a kid, kid’s in second grade, you go to the first day of school, you drop them off at school. If it’s a private school, maybe you looked at the school, you interviewed there, and you looked at the facilities and all of that. But how many of us are going into the personnel records and checking to see if somebody’s had a prior complaint of abuse? We don’t get to do that, even if you wanted to, but most of us wouldn’t even think to ask that. And we kind of take for granted that these schools that have, really by having a name on the door, we trust them. If it’s a public school, it has the added credibility of being a government institution, and we trust them. We just drop our kids off, and then we come back six hours later and pick them up. And that’s it. If you want to make sure that institutions are doing what they’re supposed to do when you entrust your most precious things in the world, your children to them, then you have to hold them accountable when they fail to do it, because, like you said, the last thing that they want to do is lose funding. Whether it’s a private or public institution, they don’t want to lose funding. Most of these institutions are insured, and insurance companies are in the business of managing risk, and if you can’t follow the insurance company’s guidelines on managing your risk, you’re not going to get insurance, which means you’re going to be exposed as an entity to the liability. Some insurance policies have exclusions. One of the exclusions they have is that they don’t insure things that are expected or intended. So think about it this way: you get in your car, you get into an accident, god forbid, you’re insured. Because you had an accident. It’s negligence on your part or somebody else’s part, or both your parts. That’s what insurance is for. We buy it and hope we never need it, that’s what it’s for, it’s for those accidents. You drive your car and you see somebody you don’t like on the sidewalk, and you decide to intentionally drive your car up on the sidewalk and run them down, that’s intended. Now, insurance company is going to say, “Sorry, we have an expected or intended clause, you’re excluded. We’re not covering that. You’re on your own.” Well, let’s say you had a teacher in a school that was continually accused by students of sexual abuse. They keep reporting it, and the school investigates it, and then they don’t really do much about the teacher. Well, at some point, an insurance company could look at that and say, “This is expected or intended, we’re not covering this,” and then the schools on the hook. They don’t want that. It’s a way of giving them a negative incentive to do what they should do anyway, and how it translates into trafficking is, ou’ve got civil laws that specifically allow a plaintiff who’s been trafficked to hold institutions, the one that always comes to mind is hotels and motels, accountable. If they’re not doing their part to prevent human trafficking on their premises, and that’s another avenue for victims to achieve restitution, is through those institutions that were in a position to help, had an obligation to help, and didn’t. Sandra Morgan 33:44 I have so much hope in how this translates in our communities to more corporate responsibility, more government responsibility. Because even if the initial response is not because I presented a passionate cry to protect our children, but because the board of directors is expecting that the bottom line is met. This is like a new tool, maybe not so new, but certainly you’re fine tuning the approach so that it actually is, like you said earlier, a progression in your work. In our final moments here, I’d love to hear, what have you changed your mind about since you started this journey as an advocate fighting human trafficking? Daniel Varon 34:45 You know, I’ve given that a lot of thought, and it’s a complicated question. Because I feel like I’ve gone through this evolution, not only as a prosecutor, not only as an attorney, but as a human being, and as a father, as a husband. I mean, I’ve learned so much in the process. I started my life as a prosecutor in Orange County, which we always refer to it as being ‘behind the orange curtain.’ We said there was such a difference between the way they prosecute crimes in LA and Orange County, and we really prided ourselves on what we viewed as the relative safety of Orange County, and we felt that we were an integral part of that, and that meant that our job was in seeking justice, to hold people accountable for what they did. We believed very strongly in personal responsibility, and so that’s how we approach the job. As a young and naive prosecutor in the mid i2000s, let’s say 2006/2007-2010, if you saw a young woman come into court with prostitution charges, you would see the same thing. That she had been in three or four, or five different jurisdictions. She got arrested and then failed to appear in each one of those jurisdictions. I would look at that, say, “She’s thumbing her nose. She’s giving the big middle finger to the courts. She’s just saying, ‘I don’t care about you. Your law doesn’t matter. Whatever.'” You would say, “Well, Judge, she needs 90 days of jail. She’s got to be in jail,” and that’s the only tool we thought we had, right. When we get to 2010/2011 and I start working with the guys I mentioned earlier, started to learn the victimology component and what it was that was driving this set of crimes. We didn’t stop to think, ‘How does this young woman, who’s been to five different places to get arrested, how does she get here? She doesn’t live here, but she’s got no phone and she’s got no wallet, she’s got no money.’ We never stopped to think about that, right. Part of it was learning that in 2011 let’s say, and understanding the bigger picture to the crime, and understanding that these were victims that were being brought there, that were being exploited. That changed everything. What it gave me was a sense of greater empathy and understanding to the human trafficking world, and I think that we try to operate,as much as we can, with that empathy and understanding and victim centered approach. But I say it’s an evolution because empathy can be great, but empathy can go too far. I know that in today’s day and age, that might be a very controversial thing to say, and if my wife listens to this it may be controversial in my own house, but it can be. I think where I’ve come today, through this evolution, is that what we do needs to be informed by an empathetic approach and an understanding of both sides of an issue and who we’re dealing with, but blind empathy can also be very dangerous. It can remove from us skepticism, which can be very important, especially as an attorney, you have to have a skeptical eye about a lot of things. But it’s also counterproductive for the person that you’re empathetic towards. You can kill somebody with kindness, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it with an approach to victims sometimes, and I’ve seen it with an approach to clients sometimes, where you want to do everything for a person because you care so deeply about what they’ve been through, and you want to help them, but you remove their ability to learn to help themselves. If somebody doesn’t learn to help themselves, they’re never going to get out of the human trafficking life. They’re never going to heal from sexual abuse. They, I think more than anything, what I’ve seen is that people who’ve been victimized, just like the rest of us, they need empathic understanding from people around them, but they also need structure and guidance, they need to have confidence, and they need to know that they have the ability to stand on their own feet and walk forward. Sometimes empathy can be an impediment to that. Sandra Morgan 38:51 Wow. Okay, a little choked up here. I’m going to spend some time thinking about that, and I’m so grateful, Daniel, that you came to the podcast today. I’m probably going to call you again once I process all of that. Wow, that was not what I thought you’d say, but really valuable. And I ask listeners to maybe go back and listen to that part again, just hit your rewind button. As we’re winding up here, I want to tell our listeners thank you, and go to the endinghumantrafficking.org website, and in the show notes you’ll find previous interviews and interviews with the people that Daniel mentioned here. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and I’ll be back in two weeks. Danny, thank you so much. Daniel Varon 39:49 Thank you, Sandie, it’s such a pleasure to talk to you.

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by the Live2Free president, Delaney Mininger, as the two discuss the upcoming Fair Trade Fashion Show at Vanguard University. DELANEY MININGER Delaney is the president of the Live2Free club at Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice. Delaney is a third year student at Vanguard and a sociology major. She says her passion for preventing human trafficking started at just 11 years old when her mom went with a team to Italy to help women involved in trafficking there. KEY POINTS * The Fair Trade Fashion Show promotes self-expression through fashion while encouraging consumers to consider the ethical implications of their clothing choices and the production processes that affect the dignity of workers. * Fast fashion contributes to overconsumption and supports exploitative labor practices. The culture of buying cheap clothing leads to waste and supports industries that profit from modern slavery. * The podcast emphasizes the importance of supporting Fair Trade items and thrifting as ethical alternatives. Fair Trade ensures that workers receive fair wages, while thrifting helps reduce waste and is often more accessible for budget-conscious consumers. * The Live2Free club, through initiatives like the Safe Kids, Safe Communities Program, aims to educate youth about human trafficking, healthy relationships, and online safety, filling an educational gap often overlooked in traditional school curriculums. * Human trafficking is a global issue, not just a problem in the U.S. The Fair Trade Fashion Show aims to encourage audiences to recognize their role as consumers and to make informed choices that can contribute to reducing demand for exploitative labor practices. RESOURCES * Live2Free [https://live2free.org/] * FairTrade International [https://www.fairtrade.net/] * Fair Trade Fashion Show [https://ftfs24.sched.com/] * Goodwill of Orange County  [https://www.ocgoodwill.org/] * Fiet Gratia [https://fiet.online/en/home/] * Tony’s Chocolonely [https://us.tonyschocolonely.com/] * Fair Trade Fashion Show Tool Kit [https://www.gcwj.org/blog/fair-trade-fashion-show-toolkit] TRANSCRIPT Sandra Morgan 0:14 You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode #330: Fast Fashion Meets Justice, with Live2Free Students at Vanguard University. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. I am so happy to have Delaney Mininger here in the studio with me for today’s podcast. Delaney is the president of the Live2Free club at Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice. Delaney is a third year student at Vanguard and a sociology major. She says her passion for preventing human trafficking started at just 11 years old when her mom went with a team to Italy to help women involved in trafficking there. So Delaney, thank you for coming in today. Delaney Mininger 1:25 Yeah, thank you for having me. Sandra Morgan 1:27 How long have you been president of the Live2Free club? Delaney Mininger 1:31 I have just become president this year. I’ve been fully onboarded. I did some work over the summer, but officially starting at the beginning of this school year I became president. Sandra Morgan 1:42 So maybe I should be addressing you as Madam President. Delaney Mininger 1:45 Perhaps. Sandra Morgan 1:46 Perhaps, oh my goodness. Okay, so one of the first things that happens every fall is we dive right in here at Vanguard with the Live2Free club for a Fair Trade Fashion Show. How did you get involved with that? Delaney Mininger 2:05 Yeah, so my first experience with the fashion show was actually during Welcome Week. I was walking through the campus mall, and I walked up to a booth that was talking about human trafficking. Like forementioned, my mom had been working with victims of human trafficking since I was younger, and so I had an interest, and I just saw that there was a fashion show, and I thought that was such a fun way to get involved and to get some experience with clubs and different activities on campus. I signed up for that fashion show. I signed up to volunteer as a model, and that year was so fun. I met a bunch of people. I made a lot of friends. It was a really great experience. I love fashion, I love thrifting, it’s a big passion of mine, and has been for a couple years now. So I thought it was just so me, and it fit so well. The next year, my sophomore year, one of the interns asked if I would take on a management level position for the fashion show, still volunteer, and just help out with the other models since I had experience from the year before, so I just helped out there with the fashion show, leading some models. As the year went on, I got closer with the interns and they were telling me that I should interview for the positions and get more involved with the club, and I just had a big passion for it, so I got more involved, and that kind of just led to me being here. Sandra Morgan 3:27 And now we’re just days away from the fair trade fashion show. So tell us about your theme for this year’s show. Delaney Mininger 3:36 Our theme for this year is Fashion with a Passion, and Fashion with a Passion is all about considering the individual. In one aspect, fashion is something that the individual can use to express who they are and what they love. I have a lot of people tell me, “Your style is so cohesive, it’s so you. How did you figure this out? You’ve got it all together.” And I usually tell them, “Yes, my style is me, and the reason why it fits is because it’s just everything that I am and everything that I love.” You would point at something and say, “Oh, this looks like something you would like,” instead of, “This is you, you are this and you’re in this box.” It’s like, I have curated my style just to be me and a collaboration of everything that I love and I am. And so I encourage that other people do that, and I love to tell other people that your style should be you, and you should make your own choices of what that’s going to be. We want to make sure that when we’re considering those choices and we’re making those choices for ourselves as the individual, we’re not forgetting about the individual who is allowing us to make those choices, and who’s making it possible for us to express ourselves in that way. We want to make sure that we’re not getting self centered, we’re not thinking about ourselves in a way, but we’re thinking about those who make it possible for us to do that. Sandra Morgan 4:56 Let me ask a question here, because I love this idea, and even though I’m a few generations removed from the students here at Vanguard, I get put in boxes. I get messages on social media that tell me what to wear for my age, and I don’t like that. I’m really leaning into this Fashion with a Passion, but my problem is, how do I do that? Fit my budget, number one, well, maybe number two, because number one is, how do I make it fit my values? People all know how strongly I believe that we have to be part of the solution to ending labor trafficking. So how do I make this fit my values? Delaney Mininger 5:49 A big part of making sure that something fits your values, especially when it comes to fashion, is that you have the opportunity to shop Fairtrade, and a lot of us have the opportunity to do that. Fair trade basically just means that it’s a trading partnership that aims to improve the trading conditions for marginalized producers and workers in developing countries. It’s based on principles of dialogue, transparency, and respect, and seeks to create a greater equity in international trade. The great thing about fair trade is that we have so many different options of what fair trade items we can buy, and then for those who can’t afford fair trade as it does tend to be more on the expensive side, because we’re making sure that every step is taken to ensure that people are getting paid fair wages and what they should be, and treated properly. It does tend to be on the more expensive side, but there is alternative options, such as thrifting or second hand shopping. Sandra Morgan 6:46 Let me ask you about that, it’s more expensive. Because people have complained to me about that, and I’ve challenged that thinking because I’m not sure that we need so much stuff. Delaney Mininger 7:02 Yeah. Sandra Morgan 7:03 Maybe it’s better for us as consumers to think about how much we really need, versus what we want, while at the same time we’re thinking about how it impacts someone else. Is it expensive if someone is getting paid a fair wage? if I’m contrasting that, and here’s my question, if it’s less expensive and it costs someone their dignity, their freedom, is that too high a price for us to pay so that we can save a few dollars? Delaney Mininger 7:50 Yeah, I think that’s really important, is to consider the cost and the trade off. I think the term Fair Trade really well represents what it is, because yes, you are making that trade. You are getting this item, and you are knowing that it is not at the cost of somebody else. You’re knowing that it’s not at the cost of their dignity and who they are, and the value that they have as a person. It is a fair trade that you are getting this item for yourself and that they are getting treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. I think that’s such an important part of this. Talking with older generations, especially, they’ve kind of gotten a lot better at decreasing their consumption and, talking to one of my advisors, they talked about a capsule closet, I think was the term they used, which is like investing in pieces that are going to last longer and going to be better quality. I think that when we’re factoring in the treatment of the people who make them, that just adds even more to it. It’s not just something that you’re going to buy one week and get sick of and throw out the next because it didn’t cost you much, so it doesn’t matter, but it’s something that you are investing in for yourself and for the treatment of others. So it’s going to last long, you’re going to love it for a long time, and you’re going to know that the values that were made to make that item are something that you agree with. Sandra Morgan 9:17 Wow, I love that, and I love that you’re having conversations with your professors, with staff here at Vanguard. It reminds me of one of the co-founders here of the Global Center for Women and Justice. When she first started mentoring me, we had this conversation, that’s a lot of years ago I’m not even going to say how long, and I asked her what she did. She said, “I have a simple rule. If I’m going to get a blouse, I have to decide what blouse I’m getting rid of that is already in my closet.” And I lived overseas for several years, and one of my best friends and I love to travel together. When I’m with a group of Americans, I feel like, okay, I’m doing pretty well because my suitcase is only this big and their’s, I can’t even lift it. But then I’m with my friend in Greece, and we’re going on a three day weekend, and I said, “Do you want me to help you get your bag?” “Oh no, I’ve got it.” Everything. She’s got everything in a backpack for three days. I think it is part of a mentality, and we can do a better job with less. Delaney Mininger 10:43 We’ve definitely become more accustomed to thinking that we need more things than we do. Sandra Morgan 10:48 We could have another conversation about the difference between need and want. Okay, back to the fashion show, because you and I could chat about this, we agree so much. How does the fashion show impact global slavery? Delaney Mininger 11:05 A big aspect of the fashion show is decreasing over consumption, like we were just talking about, as it’s one of the main drivers behind the fast fashion industry and other unethical businesses. For anybody who doesn’t know, fast fashion is basically industries that benefit from people who buy so much, so many pieces of clothing, and they buy them at very cheap prices so that they can throw them out, or they can do whatever, and it doesn’t really affect them because they didn’t pay too much for those items. Sandra Morgan 11:36 Is that like the the culture of ‘I have to have an entire new spring wardrobe, and then a fall wardrobe, and then a holiday wardrobe.’ Delaney Mininger 11:44 And it’s not just seasonal. I mean, with social media, we see so many trends come and go within months, and it becomes this huge thing that everybody’s doing. So then everybody thinks, well, “everybody’s doing” so then everybody thinks that they have to be doing it, and then they buy all of these items, and then all of a sudden they see something that says, ‘this is out, this is in.’ Then everybody’s like, “Oh, well, now I got to throw all that away, and I got to get all this,” and they want to buy them cheap, because if trends are going to come and go like that, then you want to be able to dispose of the items that are out and buy the items that are in. And so social media has definitely increased that over consumption. How does the Fair Trade fashion show counter that? Well, I mean, just in general, if there’s a profit to be made, there are always people who are going to do whatever it takes to make that profit, and they don’t care how it’s going to disparage somebody else or how it’s going to affect somebody else. So we want to make sure, at the fashion show, that we’re encouraging others, that it is important, that we do care, and it is important that we don’t support businesses that profit off of labor trafficking and what we would consider modern day slavery. We encourage, like we said, second hand shopping, thrifting, buying fair trade items. We invite vendors who are fair trade vendors, and we’ve reviewed all of their practices and made sure that they are employing ethical practices. And then we ask them to advertise their clothing and their food, their jewelry, whatever it is that they have, we ask them to advertise those to our audiences so that they know how many options there are to shop Fairtrade and how many choices that they can make that are ethical and that they are not forced into encouraging this negative behavior that leads to disparaging others. Sandra Morgan 13:30 When I go to the fashion show, I can shop? Delaney Mininger 13:32 Oh yeah, we have so much shopping. No, we don’t want to encourage over consumption. So yes, shop responsibly, shop what you need, but also you can walk away knowing that the things that you did buy are going towards a good cause, and they’re not something that is against your values. Sandra Morgan 13:53 If we’re shopping responsibly and we want to have a great fashion show, how are we going to get clothes that university students with student debt can afford? Delaney Mininger 14:08 That’s definitely a big thing. I would say it is a big privilege to shop Fairtrade. It’s a privilege to be able to afford those more expensive items, and we want to make sure that nobody feels like they don’t have an option to also support ethical businesses and ethical practices. We have partners like Goodwill of Orange County who get their clothing donated to them, and then they sell them for much cheaper than the retail prices that you’re going to be seeing. Most stores, I’d say shirts are like 30, 25, at the lowest right now, and Goodwill does like 7, 8, 9, so you’re having a way lower price range, and then it’s just more accessible and more affordable to those who want to shop ethically and want to make sure that they’re not going against their values, but also are on a budget, like us college students. I mean, for me, I even have to be careful about how much I’m thrifting because I am on a budget, and I need to make sure that I’m not over consuming and also that I’m not overspending. Sandra Morgan 15:16 What I love about thrifting, and I’ve been a big fan since the Fair Trade Fashion Show first started here, and I learned how to do that better, is number one, it doesn’t go into a landfill, it gets recycled. So in many ways for me, thrifting is like recycling bottles and bags and all those things. Yeah. It seems like it disrupts the economic cycle of buy, buy, buy, by giving an item of clothing another life. At first I kind of struggled, but I know this brand that I just picked up at the thrift store, and I know they don’t have good practices, so it really became important for me to study what it meant to disrupt that cycle, because that is another aspect of the ethics. I think I also wanted to commend your leadership team for vetting the vendors who will be at the fashion show. Who are they representing? How are they demonstrating that their supply chain is clean of exploited and trafficked labor? So when you’re thrifting, tell me what your experience is, how you take your values into the thrift store with you? Delaney Mininger 16:51 Well, like a lot of people my age and even people older, I started thrifting because it’s all my bank account could handle at the time. I probably started thrifting my sophomore year of high school, and being a younger sister, I just wanted something other than hand-me-downs, because that’s what I had had for most of my life. I just wanted to have more freedom over my expression of self and I couldn’t afford anything other than thrifting, so a couple friends and I started thrifting, and it very quickly became an activity that we all loved to do together, because not only is it more affordable, but it’s fun. I mean, it’s definitely different than your average shopping experience. Every single item is unique, and you’re not going to find two of the same thing, but it’s just really fun. It’s a fun activity for me, and so that’s originally why I had started thrifting, is because it’s what I could afford, and it was a fun activity. But as I learned more about the impact that the fast fashion industry was having and that overconsumption was having, on not just our society and our people, how we treat people, but also our environment. I like that you said that, that you were saying these clothes get recycled. That’s such a big part of it, because the fast fashion industries, they toss out those clothes and they end up in landfill, and the textile industry contributes to so much of the pollution that we’re experiencing in our environment right now. I loved that it had an environmental impact, it had a societal impact, that was something that was so important to me, and so I very rarely shop retail anymore, because of how much I love the experience of thrifting. It’s also a great way to bond. When I meet new people and I tell them that I like to thrift, and I found out that they like to thrift, it’s a great activity to do together, because it’s something that is just so unique. It’s different than other shopping experiences. Sandra Morgan 18:43 I think I’ve watched our Vanguard community, our students, really institute thrifting as an activity that is socially aware, at the same time as socially beneficial to creating strong relationships. And this was epitomized for me when I took a team in 2023 to Madrid, Spain. We were working with a group called Fiet, who works with victims of human trafficking, identifying, restoration, now they’re moving into prevention, and we’re taking another team there in 2025, and our student team said, “Dr Morgan, we’re going to go shopping. When do we have to be back?” When they came back, they had all these bags. They found the thrift store in Madrid, and so they took what they’ve been doing here, on their trip internationally. I think this is a growing trend here, Delaney Mininger 19:52 I think it is one of the better trends, because we are seeing a lot more influencers who aren’t just shopping at these, I mean of course, we see a lot of hauls that are just crazy amounts of things, and they are a lot of the time from businesses that we wouldn’t necessarily want to support, but a lot more influencers and just popular people on social media are encouraging thrifting, and I think that’s a great trend. I think we should be encouraging that, and even if you are buying more of those items, you know that you are not directly supporting businesses that don’t match your values. Sandra Morgan 20:27 And disrupting that cycle is just one piece of the big picture. We also are focusing on asking businesses to follow supply chain transparency best practices. We’re asking businesses to look at the workers along that supply chain and how they’re caring for that. We’re asking our communities to actually learn about how this works. Yesterday, I had a dear friend here in the office. She’s been a mentor for me, and so we’re talking about another generation, she could probably be your great, great grandmother. Delaney Mininger 21:16 Oh, wow. Sandra Morgan 21:17 And I gave her a Chocolonely bar, and she asked me all about it. Chocolonely is the chocolate from the Netherlands where the founder actually had himself arrested because he contributed to labor trafficking. Of course, they dropped the charges, but he made the issue on the front page, so people realized that his choice to eat chocolate enslaved a child in Africa. That’s the kind of awareness that we want to create here. And as my friend was leaving and she picked up the remains of her chocolate bar, she said, “Well, now I have to buy chocolate that doesn’t use any slave labor.” It changed her life. and I think we are hoping that the Fair Trade Fashion Show will make that kind of impact right here in our own community. Let me ask you one more question. Rnding human trafficking has listeners in 166 countries. Why does this matter to them? Isn’t this just a problem in America? Delaney Mininger 22:39 I think that’s probably a question that a lot of people have. I, as we talked about earlier, know that human trafficking is not something that just happens in America. Labor trafficking is not just something that happens in America. Modern day slavery happens all over the globe right now, and it’s a huge problem that people are facing everywhere, in countries like Venezuela, in countries like Chile, Brazil, there’s so much labor trafficking going on, whether it be for our clothing or for our food, and though it might not be right in our backyard, we might not be the ones with slaves who are asking them to do these things, if we’re supporting businesses that are asking that of people, that are asking people to live with no wages, asking people to work with no wages, or in bad living conditions, then that’s not right. That’s just as bad as being the problem, contributing to it, letting people benefit from that unethical practice, it’s not something that we want to be doing. So it’s important to people in all these different countries that are listening to this podcast to know that it is happening all around you. And even if you are not the one that has a slave, you’re not the one that’s directly contributing to it, you’re still being a part of the problem if you aren’t checking yourself and checking what you’re buying, checking the practices behind. It’s not enough to just not be the problem. You have to make sure that you’re taking every effort you can and in every choice that you have, making sure that it matches your values and it matches what you want to do and who you want to support. We really want to encourage people, at the Fashion Show, to check their options, check what they can do. We know that it’s all around us. It’s something that we’re going to run into no matter what, and it’s difficult. It’s definitely harder not to be a part of the problem, but it is possible, it’s possible to not contribute to that. I think we should have that conversation of what is a want and what is a need? What things do we need? Those things that we do need, how can we make sure that when we are buying them, we are buying them in a way that represents who we are and represents how we feel about people and what they deserve? That’s such a big part of Live2Free and our mission. The fashion show is not only a great opportunity to mix people’s passion for fashion and passion for social justice, but it’s a great way to encourage people to check themselves, check their choices and when they’re expressing themselves, which is a freedom and privilege that they have, to also think about the individual behind that. Think about the individual who is giving them the opportunity to do that and the freedom to do that. At Live2Free, I just want to give our mission statement, we challenge a generation to make personal choices that recognize the dignity of the individual, the responsibility of consumers to slow the demand that drives modern day slavery, and to network with others, to rescue, rebuild, and restore the broken lives of victims. That’s our mission, and that is just a huge part of the fashion show and something that we really want all of our attendees to see and feel and relate to, and then take that and act on it. Sandra Morgan 25:51 Delaney, your passion comes across so well in that and I believe you are living that mission statement. This is another generation of Vanguard students from Live2Free that will go out into the world and end up in some of those 166 countries, making their passion, living, and useful, hands on. Let me ask you how people can connect with Live2Free. Delaney Mininger 26:25 With our Live2Free club, you guys can connect with us. If anybody’s on campus listening here at Vanguard University, you can come up to us, any of the cabinet members. There’s Kevin Arciga as our vice president, Chloe McLeroy as our communications chair, and me, Delaney Miniger as president. You guys can come up to us, ask us questions, get involved. For anybody listening anywhere else, our social media is @_live2free_ on Instagram, and we also have our email, l2f@vanguarduniversity.edu that you guys are able to contact if you guys have any questions, if you want to find out how you can get involved, how you can support us on our mission, even if it’s from a distance. We would totally appreciate that, and we’re always looking forward to hearing from anybody who has questions or wants to get involved. That’s some ways that you can reach us. Sandra Morgan 27:17 I heard that if you are a teacher in Orange County, you can ask for a Live2Free team to come to your school. Is that true? Delaney Mininger 27:27 Yes, that’s going to be our Safe Kids, Safe Communities Program, which was originally peer educators, and that’s also a way that I got involved with the club, originally. Before even becoming president, I became a peer educator, and I got to have the experience of going to these different high schools and teaching kids things that I certainly was never taught in high school. We’ve had a lot of other people on the team say very similar things, that it’s just so great to be able to share this experience with them, share this information with them, because it’s something that we lacked when we were in high school. It totally would have been helpful for us to have somebody older than us but still in a similar age range, somebody that could still relate to us, just let us know that they care about us, and they care about our well being and who we are, and what we are going to do with our lives, they care about what happens to us. I mean, that would have been so life changing for me to hear at that age, and I think it really is for a lot of these kids, important to hear that somebody, anybody, cares about them and their well being, and the choices that they make. We talk about different things like healthy relationships, online safety, we do overviews of human trafficking, and it’s just something that the health programs at schools, especially when I was in high school, were totally lacking, and it’s vital information. We want to make sure that we’re getting out there and sharing that with kids and sharing that with teachers too, so that they know how to help kids the best that they can and recognize signs of kids who are in danger or kids who are at risk. We want to make sure that they are aware of those things so that they can help them, and it’s just so important to us. I love the peer educators team and I would definitely recommend, if you guys are on campus, any Vanguard students, getting involved with that, it’s a really great opportunity. We have a good team lined up, and we’ve been doing so much to prepare to go back to these high schools. If you can get involved, highly recommend it. If you can support this in any way that you can, we definitely recommend. Sandra Morgan 29:27 Thank you so much your passion, like I said, your passion is contagious. For our listeners who aren’t in Orange County, reach out to us. We would love to give you some resources, get you connected, because you can raise up an army just like this in your own community. Thank you for being here. Have a great day. Delaney Mininger 29:53 Thank you for having me. I will have a good day, you have a good day too. Sandra Morgan 29:57 Okay, bye, bye. Delaney Mininger 29:59 Bye. Sandra Morgan 29:59 Listeners, we’re inviting you to head over to the endinghumantrafficking.org website. That’s where you can find resources we’ve mentioned in this conversation and so much more. Check out the Fair Trade Fashion Show Tool Kit. If you haven’t visited our website before, a great first step is to become a subscriber, then you’ll receive an email with the show notes with each new episode every two weeks. Of course, I’ll be back in two weeks for our next conversation

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by her friend and colleague, Madeline Rodriguez, as the two discuss the importance of restorative practices. MADELINE RODRIGUEZ Madeline Rodriguez is the Director of Programs at Project Kinship, where she leads and works alongside teams dedicated to supporting and training individuals impacted by incarceration, gangs, community violence, and trauma. She has a strong background in community intervention, clinical leadership, and restorative practices. Madeline is passionate about providing culturally competent, community based, behavioral and mental health services. KEY POINTS * Project Kinship aims to provide a sense of home and community for individuals impacted by incarceration, gangs, violence, and trauma. The organization’s approach fosters a judgment-free environment where individuals can feel safe to express their pain and experiences. * To ensure an individual feels heard and supported in their healing journey, it is important to use trauma-informed care. One aspect of this is empathic accuracy, which involves understanding and responding accurately to the emotional state of an individual.  * Restorative practices play a crucial role in addressing community violence and individual trauma. These practices focus on repairing relationships, building community, and cultivating leadership while maintaining the emotional safety of participants. * Project Kinship engages with community partners and employs “live handoffs” rather than simple referrals, ensuring vulnerable individuals receive the support they need and foster meaningful connections to promote healing and stability. * Consistent, supportive relationships and interventions can help facilitate healing and personal growth in both youth and adults. With dedication and the right support, healing is possible for those affected by trauma. RESOURCES * Project Kinship [https://www.projectkinship.com/] * International Institute for Restorative Practices [https://www.iirp.edu/] * Project AWARE  [https://projectawareenterprises.org/] * 268: Rebuilding the Brain, with Dr. Anne Light [https://endinghumantrafficking.org/268-2/] * Alternatives to Violence Project team [https://avpusa.org/] * Intraconnected by Dr. Daniel Siegel [https://drdansiegel.com/book/intraconnected-mwe-me-we-as-the-integration-of-self-identity-and-belonging/] * Neuro Sequential Model of Therapeutics [https://www.bdperry.com/clincal-work] TRANSCRIPT Sandra Morgan 0:14 You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode #329: When Violence, Gangs and Incarceration are Part of the Culture, Where Does Restoration Begin?, with Maddie Rodriguez. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is a show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. I’m recording in my office at Vanguard University, and Madeline Rodriguez is in the office with me, I call her Maddie. She is a dear friend and respected colleague. She is the Director of Programs at Project Kinship, where she leads and works alongside teams dedicated to supporting and training individuals impacted by incarceration, gangs, community violence, and trauma. Maddie has a strong background in community intervention, clinical leadership, and restorative practices. She is passionate about providing culturally competent, community based, behavioral and mental health services. There is so much more to learn about Maddie, and we’re going to dive right into our conversation. Thank you so much for being here with me. Madeline Rodriguez 1:46 Thank you for having me. Dr Morgan, it’s such a privilege and honor to be here with you this morning. Sandra Morgan 1:51 How long have you been at Project Kinship? Madeline Rodriguez 1:55 I’m going on four years. Four years at Project Kinship. Sandra Morgan 1:59 I would love to know how your life has changed in four years of working in this community. Madeline Rodriguez 2:12 Well, using some humor, I’d say I got my first gray hair. Sandra Morgan 2:17 Oh, well, that’s kind of fun. Madeline Rodriguez 2:20 But I’d like to think that it’s wisdom that now is being imparted to me, and now growing from within and out. No, it has been a phenomenal journey getting to this place and really embracing what we call at Project Kinship, the heartbeat of Project Kinship. Sandra Morgan 2:41 I love walking into Project Kinship, the sense that for so many, this is home. Can you just explain what that means when you see that on the wall? Madeline Rodriguez 2:56 Yeah. So for those of you that haven’t visited our office, we welcome you to come visit. We love having individuals come by to tour. But as Dr. Morgan is mentioning, we always say you get two welcomes when you come into the doors at Project Kinship. The first, we have a wonderful gentleman named Carlos, and he will greet you with a big old smile and say, “Welcome to Project Kinship, I’m glad you’re here,” and the second welcome is that quote on the wall that you’ll see. And Steve often tells a story of how he came up with that, because when we first received the building and knew that Project Kinship was going to be moving into that facility, Steve was nervous about putting a quote on the wall. He tells his story all the time. He spent eight hours, candles lit, eight hours of Mariah Carey on the background to try to help him with his Writer’s cramp. He ended up coming up with something to the effect of, “In your darkest hour, let hope be the light that sees you through.” He went the next day to the office, and was there with one of our community members and great friends, his name is Ruben. He asked Reuben about this quote and when he told Ruben the quote, he was like, “Oh, it’s okay.” He was like, I spent eight hours, Mariah Carey, candles lit, how is it just okay? And he said, “Well, if you have something to say, what would your words be on that wall?” Ruben said, “Well, I’m a lot more humble than you, so my words would not be on the wall, but if they were, it would say something like, ‘Welcome to Kinship, where judgment and pain are left at the door, you are home.'” Steve’s mouth dropped and said, “How did you come up with that in 20 seconds? I spent like eight hours trying to figure something out.” He goes, “Steve, it’s simple,” and he’s a very tall gentleman, tattoos on the face, “When I’m in the community, people look at me like they bit into a Sour Lemon. But when I come here, I feel like I’m at home. I’m not judged, I’m received, and I can leave my pain at the door.” That’s the welcome, and that’s the sentiment. When people see our brand, they see the logo, whether we’re in the community, behind glass at a facility, or at our home base, we want people to feel like they’re at home. Sandra Morgan 5:12 I love it. I absolutely love it. And for my students, who have got to have the opportunity to be there, have partnered with you in schools, it is a life changing experience, because there is a certain amount of skill that is necessary to create that judge-free, and yet structured and safe community. We’re going to talk about that right now, with the hope that for many of our listeners, you’ll pick up some new vocabulary, you’ll find links to new resources, and begin to consider what does this look like in your community? Because this is necessary for every community, to have the kind of resource that Project Kinship has. So my first question is, how do you approach and integrate trauma informed care and mental health support, specifically for youth at risk of exploitation? Madeline Rodriguez 6:31 Thank you for that question, Sandie, and it goes back to something that you just mentioned about, the skill sets that are required to create that environment. When you ask this question, the first thing that comes to mind is being still. When I say that, it means that oftentimes in the community service, social work field, we feel like we’re always making momentum or moving with, or journeying with, and often it’s forgotten that one of the key components in even starting is just being able to be still and stand with. Standing with individuals that are at the margins and those that are most impacted by trauma, violence, exploitation. This requires cultural humility. It requires empathic accuracy. Sandra Morgan 7:25 What is empathic accuracy? Madeline Rodriguez 7:28 Glad you asked. I’ve been doing a lot of research on empathic accuracy and coining this term. We know that it’s important to empathize with individuals, but I would like to say empathy is not enough. Empathy with accuracy, and accurate tracking, and standing and sitting with, is what’s required to mirror, model, shift with that person, to really attune and be with them. So, that empathic accuracy means I’m not only here sitting with this emotion and feeling, but I’m also making sure that how I’m presenting myself with you, with what you’re bringing into the room, is what you need in this moment. Sandra Morgan 8:11 So the accuracy is measured in what way? Madeline Rodriguez 8:18 How the individual feels when you are mirroring, modeling, tone of voice, body language. An individual, for example, I hear practitioners all the time say, “Yeah, I’m empathizing. I can really feel that emotion, but I didn’t know what to do with myself,” when they were saying or bringing that thing, that emotion or that situation in the space. That accuracy part is being able to hold, and yes, I’m empathizing with that person, I’m also being able to maneuver and knowing what to do with what’s being brought into the room. Sandra Morgan 8:59 Okay, this takes me back to being a pediatric night charge nurse and being empathetic was part of the job. I mean children in pain, and in your case, we have young people who are in a great amount of pain, but it’s not going to help them if I burst into tears and can’t help them with the next step. So when I think about this concept of empathetic accuracy, I’m remembering how important it was for me to demonstrate that mirror and then model a safe and confident response to their pain. I can just give you lots of incidents where, when you show up and you have to give a child a shot, and they’re like screaming and everything, I learned how to be empathetic and at the same time, help them manage the fear, the anxiety, the pain, and dial it back so that it didn’t completely unhinge the situation. You’re going to have to send me some guided reading. Maybe we’ll put a link to something, because I think this is a great term. Madeline Rodriguez 10:41 Absolutely, and you hit the nail on the head with those examples. That’s exactly what that would look like when we have youth that are coming in and sharing some of the deepest wounds of their own pain, oftentimes not even physical, emotional. For our staff, it’s being able to, just as you said, being able to sit with, feel it, but manage and again, attuned in a way that they can support that youth in an appropriate manner, to help them regulate and provide what’s needed for them to also put the lid back onto the container so that they can still continue forward with their day. We can’t move or shift what they’re bringing with them right now. What we can hope to do is help them hold, regulate, and allow them to know that there’s a safe place for them to contain that, and allow us to walk with them when they’re ready to walk. Sandra Morgan 11:43 Okay. Can you explain about how you address the kinds of challenges that you encounter when you’re trying to create that trauma informed safe space? Madeline Rodriguez 12:04 Yeah. So even when we talk about how we approach situations, how we approach our community members, it really is a comprehensive approach, and we have to look at all the different pieces that an individual is bringing with them. Because oftentimes, it’s not just one thing that’s happening. There is an array of different barriers or challenges. I am thinking of an incident with a young individual from one of our school sites, probably two years ago at this point. This individual initially was struggling on campus and was referred to the restorative practice specialists that they had at the school, only to find out that there were challenges that were going on at home with caregivers. There were challenges in the community of where this individual lived, a lot of violence that was happening. When you have this young person, we had a look at all of the different pieces. I think one of the other things that we’ll get to later on today is talking about that collaboration, and how imperative that other stakeholders and other community partners come in to wrap around the individuals that we’re working with as much as we provide. When we look at things comprehensively, we understand there are things that we can support, and then there’s things we need others to help us with, because to carry all of these other challenges that come with the one individual and their story, we need other champions to help support us, to really help the individual thrive. Sandra Morgan 13:42 Okay, that’s so significant, because when I’m sitting in my office, I have a student here who has really high anxiety levels, isn’t able to go to class, some of those things. I’m looking at, how do I fix the situation right now? When I learn that they are not in a living situation that is safe and secure through no fault of their own, they are exposed to substance use, they’re exposed to violence, they are living in compromising housing where sleep is not easy. I mean, can you imagine trying to sleep when people are coming and going and you don’t know who the people are, and those are some of the situations that our students have. So I’m teaching my student a nice breathing exercise. Well, that doesn’t help them in the middle of the night, when they feel so afraid and unsafe. So we have to have partners. You mentioned restorative practice practitioner in the school. Let’s talk about restorative practice. Is this another phrase we need to define and figure out how to measure? I think I’m going to keep hitting on this idea, we can’t manage what we don’t measure. That’s an old, old adage. We need to understand what we’re measuring, but we have to have a way to do more than guess. We have to have a way to do more than be positive, optimistic, and carry this aspiration. We have to actually have some structure for what that’s going to look like, Madeline Rodriguez 15:54 Absolutely. So restorative practices comes from a framework of restorative justice work, and it comes from the social sciences that really focuses on three main goals. And those goals include repairing relationships, building community, and helping shift mindsets by building leaders. It is a practice, and as we receive training on restorative practice, we are extremely grateful for the International Institute of Restorative Practices that does a phenomenal job in trainings nationwide, actually, to support individuals and understanding the fundamentals of what Is restorative practices, and how do we integrate this. Understanding that even previous generations, and even indigenous cultures showed how imperative it was to form a circle, to come together as a community, to share with one another, to maintain positive relationships, because it meant survival for that community, in those indigenous times. We have fallen apart as a society, as a community, by not being connected. Going back to even that first question that we talked about, the importance of standing with restorative practices allows us to form intentional moments with individuals, to be seen, to be heard, to be felt, to be reminded that they’re cared for. There’s something really profound with that consistency, that consistent touch point. I know that in other conversations, we’ve talked about the importance, especially with youth and individuals who are experiencing trauma, having that consistent touch point. And so as a practice, even at Project Kinship, whether we’re in a staff meeting, an interview, or a circle, we always start our meetings with our name, how we’re feeling, and then a question of getting to know you, in honor of the intention of helping individuals be able to verbalize what they’re bringing with them. But also, we have a great mentor and friend, his name is Reginald Washington, and he is the founder and CEO of Project AWARE in San Diego. Now he was a 16 year old facing a life sentence, and at his time it was in an adult facility, and he was in his four by four cell. He shares with us that even in that cell, he was still full of all the rage and anger that had led him there in the first place, and as he started to do his own internal work, he realized that in all of his journey, there was a lot of pain and no safe adult had ever stopped to ask him how he felt or what was happening. He talks about restorative practices as well, and leads with how important it is to help young people, individuals, to verbalize and have safe spaces to verbalize how they’re feeling. What restorative practices guides us to doing is creating spaces, building healthy relationships, enhancing awareness and education, promoting accountability and empowerment. So if I caused harm, I need to take responsibility for that and I need to repair with the individual whom I’ve caused harm to, providing support networks, addressing underlying issues, and really encouraging positive identity and purpose. Sandra Morgan 19:34 I can’t help it, but I just keep going back to my identity as a pediatric nurse. Alot of the problems that children have when there’s no strong attachment is, and when we think about attachment theory, I think the most important aspect of attachment theory for people generally to know is that when a baby cries, someone comes and relieves whatever the situation is. Startling, a wet diaper, hunger, whatever somebody comes. When a child is raised in a situation where no one comes, then there is no relief from whatever the distress was. What you’re talking about now with restorative practices, actually looks like building a new pathway that someone is coming. When you said consistent, I am like, okay, so this is how we build attachment when it didn’t get built when it was supposed to get built. It is possible. Madeline Rodriguez 20:57 It’s possible, it’s absolutely possible. Dr. Bruce Duncan Perry’s work, he leads the Neuro-Sequential Model of Therapeutics. I truly appreciate his breakdown of the different regions of the brain and what is literally happening in child and adolescent brain development, and how that ties with why it’s so critical to help young people, and even adults who didn’t have that, form new neurological pathways to heal and provide opportunities for them to respond versus react. Because from very early on, from infancy until they say age 25 is when our brain stops developing, when that’s happening, we’re absolutely operating from a higher survival state from infancy, and then the executive functioning is that lasts to grow. So if we’re looking at things and if individuals are constantly in a survival state, then that executive functioning is stunted in a way, if trauma, adversity, challenges, are exposed to that child, to that developing brain, an individual. Restorative practice is format, is a tool that allows us to stop, regulate, relate, so that these young people can then reason. And this follows that neuro sequential model that Dr. Bruce Duncan Perry talks about. How am I going to expect a young person, an adult that’s distressed reason if their behaviors and how they’re presenting, what their body is telling me is they are in a survival state and they are reacting. I need to first be still, help them regulate, relate. I’m making eye contact, I’m a safe adult here with you, I’m a safe person with you. Then we can sit and get to that reasoning when we’re thinking, and talking, and processing, what just happened, what was the trigger? Help me understand, and how do we move forward? That follows the 3 E’s of restorative practices as well. It talks about we would need to engage, we need to explain, and then we need to set an expectation, so past, present, future. Sandra Morgan 21:52 And you do this like once a quarter with a kiddo? Madeline Rodriguez 23:29 The circles? Sandra Morgan 23:31 Yeah. Madeline Rodriguez 23:31 So currently, with our youth transformation program, we’re actually doing circles every day. We have 14 units that we are in, and every unit gets a circle at least once a week. In our schools program, we’re in 39 campuses now, six different school districts. Some of our RP staff have circles running weekly. Some of them, again, may have it every other week, so depending on the climate, they’re really accurately attuning with their youth and what their needs are. Absolutely, we have circles running every week. And in our adult programs, we have circles almost every other day as well. Sandra Morgan 24:19 I think that was my point in asking that question, this requires frequency. You can’t go to the gym once every quarter, every 90 days, and expect to build muscle. You have to go regularly. Madeline Rodriguez 24:34 Yes. Sandra Morgan 24:35 And that lack of attachment that is so critical to development, but it’s not going to be a one time shot. It’s going to take repetition to grow those new neurons. I love that our brain is plastic, and in the show notes we’ll add links to Dr. Anne Lights’ interviews, because I know there are people who are listening to this and they work in populations where there is violence, and gangs, and incarceration, and they’ve said to me, “Oh, Dr Morgan, you just have so much hope.” It’s like, no, I don’t think I’m unreasonable. I really believe that we are designed to heal. Just like if you get a wound, it begins to heal. It’s going leave a scar, but you’re designed to heal physically, and you are designed to heal mentally, emotionally, and this is going to take time, though. You don’t have a wound, and tomorrow you go to the doctor, they sew it up, you still have to go through the healing process. I love Dr. Anne Light, in one interview, told us that your body, which includes your brain, produces 1 billion new cells every day. Maddie, your body produces 1 billion, with a B. Madeline Rodriguez 26:17 With a B. Sandra Morgan 26:18 Yes, so we are not stuck with what we’ve got. Madeline Rodriguez 26:22 We’re not. Sandra Morgan 26:23 We can change, we can grow. So, all right, I’m going ask you another question, although you look poised. I love doing in-studio interviews instead of online, you look poised to tell me something, really wise. Madeline Rodriguez 26:38 I was going to mention when you were mentioning individuals, I don’t know. They’ve maybe given up on individuals. They’ve lost hope because a certain individual is more challenging, or appears to have more challenges than others. It’s important to remember that when humans are in a need state, there’s a priority in helping them discover what is their need. We just finished a training with the Alternatives to Violence Project team, and they have some fundamentals, and I’m going to read some of their priorities in their circle of transforming power. Here they have listed you always want to expect the best, think before reacting, ask for a non-violent path, caring for others, and respect for self. We were going through this needs list. When a need is not met, then what is the emotion that’s paired with that? We talk about cognitive behavioral therapy, which asks us to look at how our thoughts impact how we feel, and how we feel impacts how we behave, and looking at that sequence of consequences that result, and helping individuals look at that part. So if I can help individuals change that narrative, oh my gosh. What is wrong with this person, to what happened? Help me understand, then we can get to the root of what’s the need? What is happening internally, at the root for this individual? And if we can shift our approach to say, “I can see that you’re frustrated, I can see this is not working. Help me understand what that need is, because I can see that there’s something and we need to get to that root.” When we do that, then we help stabilize individuals, where they’re feeling safe, they’re feeling secure, and then we see progress. Sandra Morgan 26:55 Another really important aspect of this is the role of the community. I mean, they can’t live at Project Kinship. They have to go out, they have to work, go to school, services that are required because of their mental health that are challenging. How do we engage, and I’m thinking like I’m part of Project Kinship. Madeline Rodriguez 29:19 You are. Sandra Morgan 29:21 How do we engage the community? Okay, I’m back to night shift in the hospital in pediatrics. I have a baby that has been admitted for pneumonia three times this winter already, and every time, I spend a lot of time with mom, who is probably someone who needed to go to Project Kinship. I know that my kiddo is not going to be okay unless I engage with her and give her the tools she needs. But my baby keeps coming back, so I don’t know how I can change things. And the third time when it’s in ER, middle of the night, and her cap says it all. It says, “Party till you puke,” and I know that if the culture, the environment I’m discharging this baby to isn’t supporting all the therapy and care I’ve delivered, I’m not going to be successful. So give me some tips on how Project Kinship engages community collaboration, cultural humility. Tell me what to do please. Madeline Rodriguez 30:49 You know, it’s interesting that you have that example. One of the things that we’ve learned from Father Greg and even Steve, Kim, our founder, they’ll always highlight this notion of serving and not saving. Because we often might feel obliged or responsible to save a life, to save this person, but as you mentioned, we can’t go home with community members, we can’t be with them 24/7. So we have to trust that, as Maya Angelou would say, “People forget what you did for them, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” The hope is that what we’ve provided and how we have made them feel in that moment will stay with them, so that one, when they go out into the community, back to their daily lives, and they’re doing all their other responsibilities, that they know there’s a safe place they can always come back to if there’s a challenge or there’s a disruption in the plan that maybe they have created with us, for themselves. When we talk about partnerships and collaboration, we’ve shifted our language from ‘warm handoffs’ to ‘live handoffs.’ The reason for that is for a lot of individuals, if we call and say, “Hey, we’ve got an appointment set up for you at this place and they’re going to take care of you.” Chances are, they might not find their way there, or chances are, maybe they make their way there but have a lot of anxiety or don’t feel comfortable, and end up leaving or not following through. But when we go with, some of our community members that say, “I don’t know, let’s go with you. Let’s make sure you get to that appointment. Let’s make sure we’re also consulting and collaborating with that other community partner so that you feel safe and welcome there too.” That increases our success rate with them following through, and then that collaboration with that other community partner enhances our work and ensures that continuity and consistency of care. I’m reminded of the story of the forest and how the forest, I learned recently and it was so beautiful, that in the center of a particular forest there’s this circle of trees. They call them the elder trees, or the motherhood trees, and these trees roots are the deepest and most expanse in the forest, and they end up creating this interconnected system of roots. I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, Lord of the Rings, had it right. These trees are talking to each other.’ Sandra Morgan 33:44 That’s right. Madeline Rodriguez 33:46 And they send signals. These linchpin trees are responsible for sending signals, or receiving signals when one, another tree in the forest is sick, and they send nutrients to help nurture that tree. If there’s a new sapling growing, they’ll send nutrients to the new sapling to help it grow. And I said, ‘How fascinating that in nature itself, nature is showing us the importance of a community that is interconnected.’ Dr. Daniel Siegel, I have to give him credit in his phenomenal work, he has a book called Intraconnected. He talks about the science of me+we=mui. He says the self cannot be healthy unless I am also thinking of the other and taking care of those around me, because that means it enhances my wellness. Again, going back to restorative practices, it’s this fundamental principle that humans are hardwired to be connected. We receive hormones in proximity when we’re with each other that enhance and reduce cortisol. Hugs, I’m a believer in hugs. I prescribe hugs all the time. Sandra Morgan 34:57 Yes. Madeline Rodriguez 34:58 We need 12 hugs a day! Sandra Morgan 35:01 Twelve? Madeline Rodriguez 35:01 Twelve for optimal living, and the science is that we have the vagus nerve. When we hug and embrace each other, heart to heart, it stimulates that vagus nerve, and it actually releases oxytocin, which is that hormone that allows us to feel connected, and it also reduces stress. How beautiful is that? So there are these fundamentals of human connection, and I say all that to highlight again, yes, we do a great job at Project Kinship, and we are so grateful for the Dr. Morgan’s. We’re so grateful for Vanguard, we’re so grateful for all of these beacons of community partners that allow us to work together to optimize the whole person, care for the individuals that are coming through our doors. Sandra Morgan 35:56 I want to kind of land back at the beginning of how I see a child. For me, an 18, 19, 20 year old still looks like a child to me, and wondering what happened that your sense of safety and security didn’t develop that attachment. Now listening to you, and this intervention of connection, someone sees me, someone is responding, it is going to take a while to believe that, to actually grow the neurons so that your response is in the context of ‘someone’s coming.’ If my car breaks down, I know someone’s coming. I’ve got a wonderful husband, two daughters, someone will come. I’ve got AAA. If you have nothing, and your whole life no one has come, it’s going to take a long time to trust and we cannot step in and say, “Well look, I’ve got this, this and this, choose that, and we’re done.” It’s a commitment to relationship, Madeline Rodriguez 37:18 Absolutely, and as you said that I thought of a gentleman, may he rest in peace. We actually had a funeral recently for him, he was involved in a tragic car accident, thank you. This gentleman had worked with us for a while, he was a middle aged adult, and one of the things that he would say when he would come to the office, I always greet everyone, I would say, “Good morning. I’m so glad to see you. I’m so proud of you.” He would look at me and he would say, “Maddie, why are you so nice to me? I’m not a good person. I’ve done some really bad things in my life,” and I would look him in his eyes, and I’d give him a hug. I said, “Because you are worthy. Because you are doing the best you can, and you’re stepping into your purpose, and it’s important for you to know that you are worthy, that you are loved, that you are cared for, and there’s people that believe in you.” And he would say, “Thank you,” he’s like, “I haven’t had that very much in my life.” If he were here to tell his story, even though he was, again, being middle aged, his childhood was wrought of so much trauma, so much pain that he was still carrying with him as an adult. He was giving an opportunity for himself to work through finally, and he was always so grateful for the progress and for the healing that he was able to receive with the incredible work of the entire team and other community partners that wrapped around this individual. I’m reminded again, as much as we’re there to stand with people, we’re constantly reminded and gifted with that opportunity to also receive reminders of the importance of connection, the importance of compassion and love, and connectedness. Yes, we have these fancy strategies and evidence-based practices that we abide by, but at the principal foundation, if we do not start with just stopping and seeing people, then we’re doing it wrong. Sandra Morgan 39:28 This week, my good friend Dick Foth was on campus, and he said there are two kinds of people in this world. There are people who say, “Here I am,” and there are people who say, “Ah, there you are.” Maddie Rodriguez, you are a ‘there you are’ person, and I’m so grateful for you. Madeline Rodriguez 39:52 And so are you. Sandra Morgan 39:54 I wish we had more time. I just love this conversation. Okay, tell us, how do we connect with Project Kinship? Madeline Rodriguez 40:03 Yes. So we are very active on our social media. On Instagram, if you follow @projectkinship, you’ll find us, and we’re very lively on our social media there. Facebook, just projectkinship, LinkedIn projectkinship, or you can go to our website projectkinship.org. If you’d like to learn more about our programs and services they’re listed there. If you have a young person that might be in one of our school sites and you feel like you would like to have them refered to one of our staff, or if you have a young person that happens to be on probation or in juvenile custody, or an adult, an adult that has been formally incarcerated, all of that referral information can be found on our website. There’s a smart link, it’s just one smart link. You put in the information and it’ll help you navigate with putting in the appropriate information to get to the right program and service, and our team will do the rest. Sandra Morgan 41:06 Wow okay, so we’re going to put links to the things you’ve talked about here in our show notes. I am just so grateful that you came today, and I want to assure our listeners that you will be back. Project Kinship has been part of Ensure Justice, partnering with us for years, and you’ll be back in March, right? Madeline Rodriguez 41:31 Yes, absolutely, if you’ll have me. Sandra Morgan 41:33 Oh, thank you. All right. Well, listeners, we’re inviting you to take the next step and go over to endinghumantrafficking.org to find the resources we’ve talked about here. If you haven’t visited the site before, take time and become a subscriber. I want to grow our podcast, so what I’d like to start asking you to do is, when you meet someone and you think, ‘Oh, I heard that on a podcast, invite them to be a subscriber.’ You can find us on Facebook and LinkedIn at endinghumantrafficking and of course, we’re going to be back in two weeks for our next conversation. Thank you so much, Maddie for being here. Madeline Rodriguez 42:28 Thank you, Dr. Morgan for having me. It was a pleasure.