Model and Strategy
The FBI lists the Bay Area as a hotspot for child sex trafficking in the U.S., and African-American and Latina youth are disproportionately represented as victims. Freedom FWD believes that engaging those who have been most affected by trafficking is a crucial step in delivering better programs and instituting better policies. This project enables youth who have been impacted by trafficking to have a seat at the table on the San Francisco Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking for the first time.
Forward Fellowships provide dynamic, trauma-informed leadership training to prepare youth impacted by trafficking to engage with dignity and power in conversations about the policies, programs, and systems response that most affect them. A Forward Portal will enable young women to anonymously share the type and quality of interactions they have with services throughout the year to support data-driven improvements to San Francisco’s anti-trafficking response.
Impact
Our theory of change borrows evidence from human-centered design, which has found that successful projects often put those being served at the heart of developing processes to achieve lasting change. Additionally, our focus groups and research have highlighted the ways in which leadership and advocacy opportunities help redefine survivors’ sense of self-worth.
As San Francisco develops city-wide approaches to prevent sex trafficking and support survivors, we believe the Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking is missing the most critical set of voices —the voices of youth who have survived trafficking or have seen firsthand how our systems and culture have enabled the exploitation of someone close to them. The Task Force convenes 224 individuals working on anti-trafficking issues. Because of its central role in the city, its connection to the Mayor’s office, and its composition of all key anti-trafficking agencies, we believe an investment in supporting youth voice on the Task Force will have rippling effects that permeate the city’s trafficking response.
Forward Fellowship will equip youth who have been impacted by trafficking with the skills and resources required to participate on the task force with dignity and power. Through this project, youth will witness their own power to make direct and indirect change, and we anticipate seeing the emergence of a much more responsive and youth-friendly anti-trafficking ecosystem across San Francisco.
Leadership
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Alia Whitney-Johnson
Executive Director