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Your help is urgently needed to ensure a critical tool in the fight to end human trafficking is brought to some of our community's most vulnerable schools. Due to unexpected loss of essential federal funding, the Deceptions program, an evidence-based sex trafficking awareness curriculum for middle and high school youth, will no longer be delivered after December 2016 if we don't act fast to save it.
Watch this 2 minute video to learn more about how my friend was bought and sold against her will right here in Portland, OR and how urgently a program like Deceptions is needed to protect and prevent future victims:
Deceptions is an interactive school-based awareness curriculum for youth in middle and high schools. This curriculum provides tools and builds awareness in exposing the lures of child sex trafficking and internet dangers. The true story of a sex trafficking survivor is utilized to teach students about healthy relationships and boundaries as well as how to protect themselves and others from this form of modern day slavery.
Deceptions fills an important gap in anti-trafficking efforts. The following are but a few of the reasons I think Deceptions is worth fighting for:
· Evidence-based - Deceptions is modeled after a highly effective teen suicide prevention program and is collecting powerful data and insights to help us better understand the scope and nuance of the issue of the commercial sexual exploitation of minors
· Scalable – Deceptions is being fine-tuned for purposes of replicating its success in other communities and providing youth everywhere with accurate and effective education to help them avoid becoming victims of sex trafficking and abusive relationships
· Trauma-informed – The Deceptions program is age appropriate and ensures facilitators and schools understand the nuance of sex trafficking, abuse, and sexual assault and do not cause further harm to any program participants
· Affordable and adaptable – The length of the Deceptions program is specifically designed to fit easily into the schedules of even the most limited school districts, ensuring all youth have the opportunity to receive potentially life-saving information
· Actionable – Deceptions implements a holistic plan at each school receiving the curriculum to ensure students who disclose abuse or potential trafficking will receive timely support from properly trained experts
As a member of the Deceptions Advisory Board, a longtime volunteer and civic leader in my community, and a deeply concerned citizen, I cannot sit idly by as this urgently needed program and the progress made to bring it to scale fades away.
Our youth need this information more than ever as the tactics and technology used by human traffickers is constantly evolving.
A friend once described traffickers/pimps as, “masterful child psychologists.” The tactics used to recruit, groom, and exploit children in our own backyard make anyone susceptible. These are tactics that I, as a grown professional woman, have fallen for. Who doesn’t want to feel loved, wanted, and empowered? Traffickers patiently exploit a victim’s deepest fears and desires to coerce them down a path that claims far too many. The number of trafficking victims is estimated to be far more than we know as reliable data is hard to come by. Without Deceptions, too many youth will never hear this urgent message or learn how to identify the warning signs before it’s too late.
Please help save Deceptions and stop human trafficking.
If you would like to give directly to Deceptions without any service fees going to a third party, please give through the Northwest Family Services site directly. At checkout, type “Deceptions” under “Gift in honor or memory of someone” to ensure your designation is clear.
I’m creating this Go Fund Me to provide as many options as possible to rally everyone we know to save this program. With $50,000 raised by Thanksgiving, we can keep Deceptions in our schools for another year and continue the important work to develop it for an even wider audience.
Please give generously, share, and take a stand against those who systematically destroy young lives for profit.
Watch this 2 minute video to learn more about how my friend was bought and sold against her will right here in Portland, OR and how urgently a program like Deceptions is needed to protect and prevent future victims:
Deceptions is an interactive school-based awareness curriculum for youth in middle and high schools. This curriculum provides tools and builds awareness in exposing the lures of child sex trafficking and internet dangers. The true story of a sex trafficking survivor is utilized to teach students about healthy relationships and boundaries as well as how to protect themselves and others from this form of modern day slavery.
Deceptions fills an important gap in anti-trafficking efforts. The following are but a few of the reasons I think Deceptions is worth fighting for:
· Evidence-based - Deceptions is modeled after a highly effective teen suicide prevention program and is collecting powerful data and insights to help us better understand the scope and nuance of the issue of the commercial sexual exploitation of minors
· Scalable – Deceptions is being fine-tuned for purposes of replicating its success in other communities and providing youth everywhere with accurate and effective education to help them avoid becoming victims of sex trafficking and abusive relationships
· Trauma-informed – The Deceptions program is age appropriate and ensures facilitators and schools understand the nuance of sex trafficking, abuse, and sexual assault and do not cause further harm to any program participants
· Affordable and adaptable – The length of the Deceptions program is specifically designed to fit easily into the schedules of even the most limited school districts, ensuring all youth have the opportunity to receive potentially life-saving information
· Actionable – Deceptions implements a holistic plan at each school receiving the curriculum to ensure students who disclose abuse or potential trafficking will receive timely support from properly trained experts
As a member of the Deceptions Advisory Board, a longtime volunteer and civic leader in my community, and a deeply concerned citizen, I cannot sit idly by as this urgently needed program and the progress made to bring it to scale fades away.
Our youth need this information more than ever as the tactics and technology used by human traffickers is constantly evolving.
A friend once described traffickers/pimps as, “masterful child psychologists.” The tactics used to recruit, groom, and exploit children in our own backyard make anyone susceptible. These are tactics that I, as a grown professional woman, have fallen for. Who doesn’t want to feel loved, wanted, and empowered? Traffickers patiently exploit a victim’s deepest fears and desires to coerce them down a path that claims far too many. The number of trafficking victims is estimated to be far more than we know as reliable data is hard to come by. Without Deceptions, too many youth will never hear this urgent message or learn how to identify the warning signs before it’s too late.
Please help save Deceptions and stop human trafficking.
If you would like to give directly to Deceptions without any service fees going to a third party, please give through the Northwest Family Services site directly. At checkout, type “Deceptions” under “Gift in honor or memory of someone” to ensure your designation is clear.
I’m creating this Go Fund Me to provide as many options as possible to rally everyone we know to save this program. With $50,000 raised by Thanksgiving, we can keep Deceptions in our schools for another year and continue the important work to develop it for an even wider audience.
Please give generously, share, and take a stand against those who systematically destroy young lives for profit.