This special edition of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioner’s TeamPeds Talks podcast, FocusED sponsored by the Pediatric Emergency Care Special Interest Group.   FocusED is a podcast program that offers listeners unique insight into the broad scope of pediatric emergency care by exploring a variety of emergency care topics through different lenses across the care continuum.

Cassandra Newell is a pediatric nurse practitioner. She received her master’s degree in nursing from Yale University School of Nursing in 2005. After graduation she worked in general pediatrics at the University of Kansas before moving to the Emergency Department (ED) at Children’s Mercy Kansas City (CM-KC) Adele Hall Campus, where she has worked for the last 12 years. Cassandra currently serves as Secretary for the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioner’s (NAPNAP) Pediatric Emergency Care Special Interest Group. Since 2019, she has volunteered as an Advocate for the Alliance for Children in Trafficking giving peer-peer education presentations to health care providers. Cassandra serves as Secretary for the Greater Kansas City Local Chapter of NAPNAP.

In this episode, Russ Tuttle describes how and why he started The Stop Trafficking Project program. He shares his perspective and insight on the role of social media in the exploitation of vulnerabilities among children and students. Lastly, he gives advice on how nurse practitioners can educate their patients and parents about the dangers of social media in the exploitation of their vulnerabilities.

Russ Tuttle is the president and founder of The Stop Trafficking Project. The Stop Trafficking Project is a program to help end domestic sex trafficking and exploitation of the vulnerable populations. He is an active member of several coalitions and task forces in Kansas and Missouri and the creator and director of BeAlert, which helps in the prevention and awareness strategy of The Stop Trafficking Project.