We are so happy to announce that Omphalos has joined the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking in Northeast Ohio. This organization, founded in 2007, states “a multifaceted human rights and public health issue like human trafficking cannot be solved by one organization or system alone.” As such, over the past 15+ years, the Collaborative has joined over 70 organizations in the goal of addressing human trafficking in northeast Ohio.
We could not have joined at a better time. In February, the Collaborative launched a youth summit, focused specifically on addressing child sexual exploitation and trafficking, with a focus on building upon the strengths already inherent in our community. Our team joined individuals from various child serving agencies, organizations, and institutions in exploring what we all do well in the area of supporting and empowering youth and how we could best lean on these strengths to move forward, together, building bridges to ensure no child falls through the cracks. Omphalos had key seats at the table for several of the conversations (particularly around enhancing trauma informed supports within the school environments and in multi-disciplinary communication and information sharing) and will be actively engaged in conversations focused on how to best move these initiatives forward into the action stage.
Key takeaways from this event included: the need for survivor voices to be central to community response, the fact that awareness of these concerns is still lacking in the general population, and the reality that true collaboration is hard to create, maintain, and support; yet, it is necessary for moving forward in addressing child sexual exploitation and trafficking.
