Lifeline Community Services, in partnership with the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, work regionally to combat human trafficking and offer survivors support to regain their identity. These two organizations will come together to share real on-the-ground examples of how to re-assess program effectiveness, pivot your service model to meet the needs of the communities you serve, and continuously optimize services.

While this session focuses on anti-trafficking work, the model and trauma-informed techniques can be replicated broadly across programs serving vulnerable populations. Best practices for helping professionals are forever in a state of transformation and growth. Modernization and innovation are more than buzzwords. They are the necessary adaptations for organizations to meet clients’ ever-changing needs. Before a program can be ‘rebooted’, it must go through the stages of evaluation. Including increasing ones’ own understanding of why programs must continue to evolve, identification of barriers for clients and workers, reviewing best practices in adapting services/policies through a trauma-informed lens, and lastly implementing changes to become a survivor informed practice.

Program evolution allows client voices to be at the center of program design, capturing real challenges and needs. Troubleshooting and rebooting promotes sustainable solutions for some of our most pressing barriers.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify ways to spot barriers against client and staff needs.

2. Review best practices to adapt services/policies/collaboration through a trauma-informed lens.

3. Understand why this work requires a network of partnerships and good collaboration.

4. Review of the Polaris First National Survivor Study.

5. Understand benefits of becoming a survivor informed practice with testimonials and statistics from Project LIFE of Lifeline Community Services and the Bilateral Safety Corridor.