Run, Risk, Response: Practical strategies for child welfare that strengthen youth interventions (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)

Child welfare professionals are increasingly on the front lines of coordinating care, services, and emergency response for survivors of child sex trafficking. At NCMEC, we've learned that trafficking prevention efforts must start at a young age and address online safety and running behavior. Advanced recovery planning and specialized response can mitigate challenges, streamline resources and allow for coordinated, trauma-informed interventions. This training will help shift the narrative and understanding of running behavior while providing tangible strategies to effectively engage and safety plan with youth to prevent and address running behavior and online enticement.

This presentation will build on lived experience expertise to incorporate the national perspective and experience from NCMEC’s Child Sex Trafficking Recovery Services Team (RST). RST is a team of 6 regionally assigned Resource Specialists who provide case-based assistance, troubleshooting, and skill-building to child welfare professionals and other multidisciplinary team members when youth are reported to NCMEC as missing from foster care placements. Over the past 5 years, we have supported the efforts of thousands of youth-serving professionals in shifting their narrative around running behavior and strengthening their response for missing youth.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. 1. Employ strategies to engage with youth to identify the root causes of running behavior to tailor interventions to reduce running and risk for revictimization.
   2. Differentiate between ineffective and effective approaches to youth engagement and safety planning, with an emphasis on how strategies are implemented for individual youth.
   3. Recall NCMEC resources that can assist with locating, recovering, and supporting child sex trafficking survivors