Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Nicole Strattman and Sgt. Juan Reveles. Nicole is a licensed clinical social worker, senior social services supervisor in Orange County Social Services, and she is the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Coordinator for Children and Family Services. Juan has a background working with gangs and narcotics with the Anaheim Police Department and is currently the Chair of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. They discuss how their work to end human trafficking has been impacted during the current public health crisis.

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 224 – Crisis Impact on Human Trafficking.

Production Credits [00:00:08] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:35] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:37] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, today we have two people with us, two guests who’ve made a difference. And I’m really excited about our conversation ahead on crisis impact.

Sandie [00:00:54] Well, I’m very happy to welcome two wonderful friends and colleagues and experts. Nicole Strattman, licensed clinical social worker, senior social services supervisor here in Orange County Social Services, and she is the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) Coordinator for Children and Family Services. What that really means is that when we have a CSEC victim, Nicole keeps track of all of the services, she manages protocols, she keeps everybody in the loop- coordinator for sure. We also have Sergeant Juan Reveles from the Anaheim Police Department. Big shout out to Anaheim, they’ve been leading on this for several years now. He has a background in gangs and narcotics and is the Chair of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. So, I want to welcome both of you, Nicole and Juan to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

Nicole [00:01:58] Thank you.

Juan [00:01:59] Thank you, Sandie.

Sandie [00:02:00] So, kind of is a way to get a little bit better acquainted. I want Nicole to tell us about the award that you recently received.

Nicole [00:02:11] So, the award is the Above and Beyond award, which was granted to me by the California Department of Social Services. It was granted in January of 2020, which was the first time they have done this award, and it was in recognition of Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

Sandie [00:02:26] I was really impressed that you were the local girl made a statewide star. So, we’re really proud of you.

Nicole [00:02:33] Yes, I was the only one in Orange County, so it was an honor for sure.

Sandie [00:02:37] We’re proud of you and grateful for your long history of serving well. Sergeant, you were on KTLA recently, so we’re going to put a link to that news story because it looks pretty impressive in the investigation right along by the journalist. Do you have your SAG card yet?

Juan [00:02:57] I’ve actually had it for probably 20 years and then it expired. So, I just got it back up again. But no, I do not.

Sandie [00:03:04] Well, we really appreciate what a great advocate you are locally and statewide and beyond in advocating for law enforcement training in anti-human trafficking. And so, the first question I’m going to ask each of you is how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted Nicole’s services to CSEC victims. And Juan for you, law enforcement response.

Nicole [00:03:33] OK, so with regard to services, we do continue to provide services to exploited youth. We still respond to calls of allegations of exploitation of human trafficking. Our social workers are still responding in the field and are still doing what they can to assess the safety of children. One of the things that has been impacted, though, is their ability to attend what we have in Orange County called Grace Court, which stands for Generating Resources to Abolish Child Exploitation. The specialized collaborative court that is there to really support the youth in foster care that has been exploited. And that court allows the youth to be there more frequently, to have more of a personal relationship with a judge and those on their team to provide services. And currently, because of the closures, they cannot go in person to court, although they are still able to call in, court proceedings are still moving forward to some degree. And so, there’s been a bit of a negative impact because they can’t physically be there. But we still are providing services the best that we can, given the current orders that we have.

Sandie [00:04:42] So, Juan, how about for law enforcement?

Juan [00:04:46] I’ll pick up on the comment that Nicole made, given the current orders that we have or directives from the department and the city and the state as well too, a lot of it has been to minimize contact and proactive investigations. And at the same time, though, especially when it comes to juveniles, nothing has changed for us regarding that respect. In fact, over the last several weeks, we’ve got a couple of calls from social services where we have responded and investigated the leads or allegations of potential human trafficking. So, as it relates to juveniles, nothing has changed for us because they maintain our highest priority. Now with respect to adults, that is a change that has occurred. I can get into that later.

Sandie [00:05:27] Well, we’d like to understand how the intersection with the crisis looks when we’re thinking about human trafficking. And Nicole, maybe you can start with what that means.

Nicole [00:05:43] We are concerned about the isolation and that youth are, we’re expecting, online more looking for connections online since they can’t do that as much in person. In addition, youth are not in plac...