Launching the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center
NHTTAC uses a survivor-informed approach to enhance the public health response to human trafficking.
Challenge
The Administration for Children and Families' Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP), which had no centralized training and technical assistance (TTA) offering, was looking to prevent trafficking and support victims through:
- A shift from a more reactive criminal justice framework to the application of a proactive public health framework.
- An assessment of the prevailing landscape to inform and advance the future state of victims support and prevention.
- The delivery of results-based, innovative and adaptive, stakeholder informed training and technical assistance.
- Comprehensive multi-sector capacity building.
Solution
Our team built and launched the first-of-its-kind NHTTAC to build capacity of community partners, agencies, and professionals.As part of that work, our team embedded user-centric innovation into support strategies and solutions. This helps OTIP address identification and prevention—as well as drive change through survivor-informed leadership—at both the community and federal response levels.
By infusing diversity and inclusion into all of the products and processes we developed, our team helped OTIP reach and engage its many audiences.
Results
Over the last five years, we’ve taken OTIP from no centralized TTA to coordinated multi-pronged (e.g., training courses, technical assistance, leadership academy), multi-level (e.g., community, organization, national) and multi-directed (providers, health systems, behavioral health systems, grantees, survivors) TTA organized through the public health framework and built upon a core set of anti-trafficking principles.
In support of advancing the national dialogue on survivor informed anti-trafficking efforts, NHTTAC offers training through the Human Trafficking Leadership Academy (HTLA), which has now graduated seven cohorts. One participant said of the course: “It was very rewarding. I’m hands down a better professional for completing HTLA.” We also created the Toolkit for Building Survivor-Informed Organizations, a collection of new and existing resources that builds organizational capacity to collaborate with and support staff, volunteers, and consultants who identify as survivor leaders.
We designed NHTTAC to provide an adaptive response at the crossroads of vulnerable populations, public health crises, and underserved communities. In particular, NHTTAC provides resources about the intersection of human trafficking and the opioid epidemic as well as resources for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NHTTAC layers technical assistance to meet the demands across healthcare, behavioral health, social services, and public health sectors. It supports accredited, on-demand training, such as SOAR to Health and Wellness Training Program, as well as other innovative training and capacity building programs.
150K+
70+
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“ICF provided high quality services, excellent subject matter expertise and flexibility in prioritizing activities. NHTTAC has more than quadrupled the number of individuals receiving SOAR to Health and Wellness trainings ... successfully managed partnerships with hospital associations, states, professionals with lived experience, nonprofits, and other government offices ... and proven adaptable to providing trainings and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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