Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak provide key principles on community engagement. They discuss the need to evaluate and assess what exists in the community and how to develop responsible and sustainable models of community engagement.

Key Points

Resources

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 20, recorded January 2012. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:27] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:29] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And this is our 20th episode, Sandie, so we are back for more conversation today about how we can start to end human trafficking by studying the issues, being a voice, and making a difference. And we’re coming to you from the Global Center for Women and Justice here at Vanguard University in Southern California, where in January, it’s about 80 degrees right now. So sorry for those of you in warmer parts of the world, but we’re certainly glad to be here and glad to be back talking with you today.

Sandie [00:01:07] Absolutely. And we have a new direct dial phone number.

Dave [00:01:12] We do.

Sandie [00:01:13] Yeah.

Dave [00:01:14] For audio feedback. It used to be you had to call a phone number and then call an extension. But now you can actually call a direct number to us. And that way you can either talk with us directly or if we’re not there, you can leave a message and we will respond to you on the podcast. And that number is 714-966-6361. Or, of course, you can always e-mail the center directly at [email protected]. And that stands for the Global Center for Women of Justice, which the podcast is produced out of. And Sandie, today we are going to be talking about the importance of community engagement and the ways to do community engagement the right way. But before we even do that, we need to talk about the conference that’s going to help all of us to continue this, to study these issues. And I’m excited because we’re just a few weeks away.

Sandie [00:02:07] I’m really excited because our conference focus is on community engagement, on the difficult issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The Ensure Justice 2012 focus is standing together to end the exploitation of girls and bringing the resources to you to be able to engage in best practice models and efficient, effective ways of engagement is really important. We hosted at a summit, a human trafficking summit at Vanguard on exploited minors, and we had law enforcement, juvenile court representatives, judges. And one of the specific gaps that they identified in that two-day summit was the need for more community engagement. Well, it’s a really nice, Dave, to say community engagement, but what does that mean? And we want to do a little overview today and let you know that that is going to be the content of this conference to engage the community, to connect you to the judges, to the probation department, to the victim service people in your area. And if you want to register for that conference, you’re going to need to do it quickly to get the early bird rate. And you can go to Ensurejustice.com or you can go to GCWJ.vanguard.edu.

Dave [00:03:37] And the conference will be March 2nd and 3rd, 2012, and it will be here in Orange County, California, Costa Mesa. And on Vanguard’s campus here in Costa Mesa. And so if you want to enjoy some wonderful weather early in March and enjoy coming out to California, but also to educate yourself about these issues, it’s a great opportunity to do that.

Sandie [00:03:58] And I’m excited because people asked me who should come to this. Well, during the summit, they pretty much identified who the community is that they want to engage with in order to make a difference to end this kind of exploitation. And I’m going to read you the exact list that they came up with. So, you know, if you’re on this list, you can you can be sure that you’ll find something at this conference. School nurses, homeless student liaisons, people who work in sexual abuse or SART, the Sexual Assault Teams, school boards, lots of people on school boards are in all come from ...