Researchers with the CSTOP Now! program placed billboards in 25 Kentucky counties to raise awareness of sex trafficking.
Image courtesy CSTOP Now!
“We know that not all risk factors are weighted equally. Some things are much more urgent and immediate.”
— Ginny Sprang
Middle school staff across Kentucky are being empowered to recognize and intervene in child sex trafficking situations, which often go unseen.
Modeled after successful high school bystander intervention tools, CSTOP Now! focuses on changing knowledge, attitudes and intervention effectiveness on child sex trafficking. The program was developed to be an online, interactive voluntary program for middle school staff, including teachers, administrators and other school workers.
The program also includes educational “See It to Stop It” billboards that were placed in 25 of the counties with participating middle schools. The billboards refer viewers to a website with information on sex trafficking. One-year results showed that users spent an average of 34 seconds on the site’s main page and 68 seconds on a page that asked if they saw the billboard.
According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, federal law defines sex trafficking of minors as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing or solicitation of a person under the age of 18 for the purposes of a commercial sex act.
In short, child sex trafficking — which is illegal everywhere in the U.S. — is exchanging something of value for sex with a minor. Examples include an adult exchanging a child for drugs; a child “agreeing” to have sex with an adult in exchange for cash, clothes or a cellphone; or a runaway child engaging in sex with another minor in exchange for money. Children made up nearly 70% of victims in newly charged federal sex trafficking cases in 2020, according to the Human Trafficking Institute.
In Kentucky, most child sex trafficking is perpetrated by someone in the child’s family and involves kids around age 12, said APHA member Ginny Sprang, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and executive director of the Center on Trauma and Children at the University of Kentucky. Program developers kept that age in mind when deciding where to focus CSTOP Now! training.
“We felt if we wait ’til high school, it’s too late because it’s already happening,” said Sprang, who spoke on the topic at APHA’s 2024 Annual Meeting and Expo in October.
The program, which was developed by a University of Kentucky research team, recruited middle school staff volunteers in 31 schools across the state beginning in 2023. Participants learn about the risks and types of child sex trafficking and then how to thwart or reduce that risk. They are trained how to use a See It to Stop It Indicator tool, known as SITSII, to screen and know when to refer and report child sex trafficking.
Participants also become aware of some of the social determinants of health that can lead to sex trafficking situations, she said. Certain indicators show a higher risk of sex trafficking.
“We know that not all risk factors are weighted equally,” Sprang said. “Some things are much more urgent and immediate, and some things are indicators that if we don’t intervene, something could possibly develop.”
The University of Kentucky research team placed 17 risk factors in three tiers. Using their new knowledge and training, middle school staff use the indicator tool to determine which tier a situation falls into and how to react.
Emerging concerns, which are tier 1, include unstable housing or family conflict. Possible concerns, tier 2, include a parent or caregiver with a substance use disorder, a child who is not permitted to speak for themselves, or frequent unexplained absences from school. Clear concerns, tier 3, include a child who runs away, meets with contacts made online or has sexually explicit photos online.
Despite its progress, recruiting participants for training has been difficult because of the many demands on school staff. Training takes seven hours to complete.
Researchers learned that connecting with a school’s mental health professional can open doors to staff.
“If you can get them involved, then they become the resource, the conduit for spreading this information,” Sprang said.
For more information on CSTOP Now!, visit www.cstopnow.com. For more on child sex trafficking in the U.S., visit www.nctsn.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
