Human Trafficking can include both sexual exploitation and labor. Since 2019, SARCC has been working to coordinate community responses to human trafficking through protocol development, education, and advocacy for trafficking survivors.
In February, the Schuylkill County Human Trafficking Response Team held a Strategic Planning session to develop goals and deliverables for the next two years of trafficking work. The mission of the HTRT is to prevent, detect, and disrupt human trafficking and support restoration for those impacted by it through coordinated community response. This work has grown out of capacity building work through the STOP Team and our partnership with Rural LISC and the Bureau of Justice Assistance grant in Tamaqua.
The response team developed values to guide the next two years of work, including:
- Safety – We protect, educate, and support the most vulnerable and at-risk members of our community.
- Collaboration – We promote a person-centered, respectful, and trauma-informed response by service providers, community, law enforcement, and school.
- Growth – We commit to continuously sharing information, evaluating our response, promoting healing, and making informed choices to stop and prevent trafficking.
- Equity – We work to understand and break down barriers to accessing support, services and resources for all survivors.
There are also specific goals and timelines for how to move our trafficking response to the next level in our community. Specifically, the team will work to gather aggregate data about trafficking in the community to better understand the scope of the problem; review and update response protocols and educate key stakeholders and system partners on how to respond to trafficking; and develop coordinated, in-county housing options for survivors and other high risk community members.
Check out the attached Human Trafficking Strategic Plan Overview for more information, or contact Ali Perrotto to learn more or join the response team.