Much has been happening since we last communicated, so we wanted to take a moment to fill you in on all the progress that has been made thus far. First, we have six U.S. healthcare systems committed to be part of our human trafficking healthcare training and study initiative. They are all prepared and ready to have the live in-person teams conduct their human trafficking trainings. The sites and training dates are:
1. Baptist Health, South Miami Hospital, FL
2. Advocate Aurora Health, Chicago, IL
3. Hackensack Meridian Health, NJ
4. Harris Health, Houston, TX
5. RWJ Barnabas Health, NJ
6. Northwell Health, PA
Here is a look at some photos of our recent training at Baptist Health South Miami Hospital:
They have all worked very hard to develop their own internal human trafficking policy and protocols prior to having the team come to conduct the training in their chosen Emergency Department.
Dignity Health / Common Spirit Health is at the forefront of developing and delivering human trafficking training for healthcare professionals, thus we asked them to lead this initiative. They, together with Selah Freedom will be providing educational teams for all sites. These training teams will be selected, coordinated and managed by Petra Linden, the System Director for Dignity Health, now Common Spirit Health, and our GSO Director of Education.
· All healthcare sites will receive three days of training from a team of 3-4 people including content experts, a clinical lead, and survivor speakers.
· Paula Besler, a legal expert from Selah Freedom, will join the training teams to offer her expertise.
· During those three days, a ‘Level 1’ basic human trafficking program will be taught for the first 2 days at hours around the clock to reach all shifts for personnel from the ED including doctors, nurses, social workers, security, registration staff, chaplains, etc.
· The third day will be dedicated to ‘Level 2’ HT Training to those who will be more directly involved with the victims, i.e. nursing managers, supervisors, and social workers and train the trainers. Note: an online training module will be available for anyone who misses the live training, as well as all future new hires.
In addition, on Day 1 of the training, a Strategic Leadership and Community Meeting will take place to bring together several external local partners from their community programs/NGOs, law enforcement, community agencies, district attorney’s office; local Homeland Security Investigations agents, etc. to meet with hospital leadership to ensure access to services for patient identified as having indicators of trafficking. Homeland Security will work with leadership to return at a mutually convenient time to provide their new training for the healthcare industry to complement what GSO will begin.
What’s Coming Up?
Once training is completed in January 2020, the research component will begin. Dr. Cathy Miller, our GSO Director for Research, will assist all sites on pre- & post-training data collection. Fortunately, Cathy was successful in obtaining an IRB approval from UT Tyler, and all sites have agreed to reciprocity. Cathy has also offered her assistance to all sites for the opportunity to write their own case study as it relates to developing their policy & protocol development should they so choose.
A Press Conference has been scheduled on Thursday, January 30th, 2020 in Washington, DC during Human Trafficking Awareness Month. The purpose is to give recognition to the six CEOs, their leadership teams and their healthcare systems who are pioneers in leading this important initiative. This will also be an opportunity to highlight the importance of training healthcare professionals throughout the industry – realizing that without such training it will be impossible to reach the SDG goal of eradication of human trafficking by 2030.
Things to Look Forward to…
We will continue to keep you updated as this program develops. In the meantime, here are some things to look forward to in the future:
· Final Research results and findings will be delivered at the United Nations venue, date and time to be determined
· Second ‘wave’ of GSO initiative both domestically and internationally to be launched