Key Outcomes
5,649 Survivor Outreach Contacts
103 Survivors Connected to Employment
20 Professional Trainings Delivered
54 Agency & Task Force Consultations
4,172 Professional Trainings Delivered
Model Expanded to Additional Jurisdictions
Context & Challenge
Communities across Washington State were responding to commercial sexual exploitation through fragmented systems that often focused enforcement on those experiencing exploitation while placing less emphasis on reducing demand or expanding coordinated survivor support. Although organizations were addressing pieces of the problem, no unified framework connected survivor services, criminal justice partners, employers, technology interventions, and public awareness efforts. When initial funding ended, the challenge became sustaining and expanding a collaborative model capable of driving long-term systems change.
Assessment & Strategic Opportunity
The collaborative recognized that no single intervention could meaningfully reduce exploitation on its own. The opportunity was to align survivor services, buyer accountability efforts, employment pathways, technology-based interventions, public awareness campaigns, and criminal justice into a coordinated model that leveraged the strengths of each organization.
Approach & Execution
To sustain and expand the initiative, I led development of a successful $1 million grant proposal that secured multi-year funding and established a shared implementation framework across partner organizations. Working alongside nonprofit leaders, prosecutors, survivor advocates, and community stakeholders, I helped operationalize a coordinated strategy that combined survivor services, employment opportunities, buyer accountability efforts, technology interventions, and public education.
Within OPS, I directed the organization's participation in the collaborative, overseeing survivor engagement efforts, educational programming, community outreach, communications strategies, and expansion activities while supervising the statewide coordinator responsible for bringing the model to new jurisdictions.
Stakeholder Alignment
Success depended on maintaining alignment among nonprofit partners, government agencies, prosecutors, survivor leaders, service providers, and community stakeholders. Through regular collaboration, shared planning, survivor engagement, and coordinated implementation efforts, the collaborative strengthened referral pathways, reduced duplication, and created a more unified response to exploitation.
Results & Impact
The collaborative secured and successfully implemented a $1 million multi-year investment that sustained and expanded a coordinated response to exploitation across Washington State. Through combined partner efforts, the initiative reached more than 4,100 individuals through trainings, consultations, programs, and presentations while outreaching more than 5,600 survivor contacts.
By 2020, the collaborative had delivered 20 professional trainings, facilitated 16 survivor convenings, provided 54 consultations to agencies and task forces, connected 103 survivors to employment opportunities, and trained more than 2,300 employees through employer engagement efforts. The model continued beyond the grant period and helped establish a durable framework for coordinated anti-exploitation efforts throughout Washington State.