Introduction
Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have increasingly emphasized the importance of a proactive, multidisciplinary approach to human trafficking—one that involves all systems responsible for protecting children and youth, including schools. In fact, several states have passed mandates requiring students and/or educators to receive sex trafficking prevention education. However, limited guidance exists on how to best equip educators and other staff and students to prevent human trafficking and on how schools can or should respond to human trafficking concerns.
In 2020, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) established the Human Trafficking Youth Prevention Education (HTYPE) Demonstration Program. The purpose of the HTYPE Demonstration Program is to fund local educational agencies to partner with a nonprofit or nongovernmental organization (NGO) to create, implement, and build the capacity of schools to deliver prevention education and skills-based training to educators and other school staff and students; and to establish a Human Trafficking School Safety Protocol (HTSSP, or “protocol”) that addresses the safety, security, and wellbeing of staff and students. Eight HTYPE Demonstration Program projects were awarded in September 2020, with a performance period of 36 months. In partnership with OTIP, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) is overseeing a process evaluation of the HTYPE Demonstration Program being conducted by RTI International.
Purpose
The goals of the evaluation are to investigate and document how HTYPE projects approach and accomplish program objectives and to inform the refinement of future implementation and evaluation strategies. The HTYPE Demonstration Program represents the first federal initiative specifically designed to support school-based human trafficking prevention education and response. As a “demonstration program,” this initiative provides education agencies an opportunity to partner with nonprofits in the development and delivery of human trafficking prevention and response programs and activities. Lessons learned from the eight demonstration projects have the potential to create a foundation for the design and delivery of future school-based human trafficking prevention and response efforts.
The purpose of this report is to describe Year 2 (2021-2022 school year) project implementation activities conducted by the eight projects. Specifically, this report provides:
- A cross-project synthesis describing Year 2 project activities and accomplishments; and
- A cross-project synthesis of project goals for the end of the program in Year 3.
Key Findings and Highlights
- Project staff and their nonprofit partners consistently described five key activities:
- delivering prevention education to students,
- delivering prevention education to educators and school staff,
- training qualified staff to deliver project activities,
- using the HTSSP;
- and maintaining and developing new partnerships.
Methods
The information in this report is informed by semi-structured interviews with 23 project staff representing the eight local education agency grant recipients (15 interviews) and their nonprofit subaward partners (eight interviews).
Interviews were designed to obtain information about project implementation, including initial program delivery and feedback from program participants. All interviews were conducted during the summer of 2022 after the conclusion of the 2021-22 school year, capturing reflections over the second year of the demonstration grant program.
Citation
Yu, L., Brown, J., Hendrix, J., Pfeffer, R., Halpin, S., & Charm, S. (2023). Human Trafficking Youth Prevention Education (HTYPE) Demonstration Program: Year 2 Reflections, OPRE Report No. 2023-133, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- HTSSP:
- Human Trafficking School Safety Protocol
- HTYPE:
- Human Trafficking Youth Prevention Education
- LEA:
- Local Education Agency
- ToT:
- Training of Trainer