Sharing experiences: Director of Programmes, USA
Name: Kendra Penry
Position: Director of Programmes
Organisation: Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition
Country/State where based: Houston, Texas, USA
1. Tell us a little bit about your role and how you're involved in supporting children affected by sexual exploitation and/or trafficking?
My role is the Director of Programmes with a nonprofit in Houston, TX. The sole focus of our organisation is to raise awareness with the community and educate frontline professionals about the identification of human trafficking and how to respond to it. My specific responsibilities include coordinating trainings for law enforcement, educators and others who work directly with youth in the community as well as conducting a prevention programme with youth. My organisation believes that the first step to supporting those who are exploited is learning how to identify them; therefore, we work with everyone in the community to give them tools to do just that. Secondly, we believe that it is always better to proactively prevent trafficking/exploitation than react to a victim, so we work to empower youth with the knowledge and tools to avoid exploitation.
2. What activities and assistance does your organisation offer to children and their families who have been affected by sexual exploitation and/or trafficking?
The programme we offer is an adaptable prevention programme that we can tailor to the group. We work with both boys and girls to discuss what trafficking/exploitation looks like and how to avoid it and/or actively work against it.
The programme can be from 2 hours to 10 weeks depending on the group and covers both labour and sex trafficking. It is fairly common that through the programme, we discover that one of the participants has been involved in or knows of a situation of exploitation in which case we connect them to the appropriate resources for follow-up care. We always make sure the youth know that those resources are available if they are willing to participate in that process. Once we have connected them to a local service provider/case manager, they are provided with whatever services they need and are willing to accept.
3. What are the biggest challenges in working in this area?
The biggest challenge is getting an audience. Sadly, the general public is still unaware of the extent of the problem and schools especially are very wary of allowing us to talk with the youth. Because of this persistent lack of education, exploitation continues. Therefore, our work must go on in the area of general public awareness as well. The more that everyone in the community asks for youth to be educated about this issue, the better we are able to find an audience.
4. What are the highlights?
There have been multiple highlights. First of all, we have managed to identify victims previously not recognised. These victims have been connected to services and cared for appropriately since then. It is especially rewarding when the youth become so involved with the issue that they want to do more. Youth have incredible passion, creativity and energy so it is a joy to provide them with the tools and abilities to continue to fight against exploitation in their own communities and around the world.
5. What do you think works well or is important for children in their recovery and why?
What we have seen works well is a continuum of services that is tailored to the youth as an individual. They need to have a sense of security and that you as a service provider will actually do what you say you will do. We do not provide those services ourselves, so I can only speak from the experience of witnessing a few of the youth go through the initial stages of working with a service provider, but continuity, security and honesty have proven to be the most important.
6. What knowledge or information would help you and your colleagues strengthen your work?
Continuing research on a local level is always needed. Making information relative to youth is all about showing them how it impacts them here and now so it is great to have as much research into local phenomenon as possible.
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