For Immediate Release: November 30, 2017
Ohio
Awarded Funding to Improve Outcomes for Youth Victims of Sex and Labor Trafficking
Three Ohio partner agencies will receive funding
for efforts
(COLUMBUS) – The Office of Criminal Justice
Services (OCJS) was recently awarded a total of $949,968 by the U.S. Department of Justice’s
Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) to combat human trafficking.
The
Improving Outcomes for Child and Youth
Victims of Human Trafficking grant is a three-year project that addresses
three over-arching objectives:
- Develop, enhance and
coordinate programs and activities geared toward improving outcomes for
child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking;
- Develop and implement
a jurisdiction-wide strategy to address the state’s greatest challenges in
responding to child and youth trafficking; and
- Enhance or develop
policies, procedures or protocols to ensure that child and youth victims
of human trafficking are not penalized for crimes committed as a result of
being trafficked, particularly those related to prostitution.
Through strategic trainings and technical
assistance, Ohio’s specific goals are to increase the expertise of child
welfare agencies to identify and refer potential victims for services, reduce
barriers to services for trafficked youth by promoting and implementing
screening protocols for identifying and referring victims, implement screening processes for identifying
potential minor victims of trafficking within county juvenile courts, and increase
implementation of the Safe Harbor
legal statute for minor victims of human trafficking.
OCJS serves as the program director and fiscal
monitoring agent for the grant and will provide sub-awards to three partner
agencies: the Ohio Department of Youth Services; the Public Children Services
Association of Ohio; and the Ohio Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers.
A large part of OCJS’ first year of implementation
of the grant is strategy building and developing the accompanying performance
measures. All trainings, meetings and project activities will be internally
tracked to ensure they are on track with OCJS’ Time-Task Plan.
The federal award amount of $949,968 will fund a
three-year project period from October 2017 to September 2020.
To learn more about the state’s anti-trafficking
efforts, please visit http://humantrafficking.ohio.gov/
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OCJS serves as the lead
justice planning and assistance agency for the state. Through research,
technology and grants, OCJS serves a wide variety of agencies committed to
reducing and preventing crime across Ohio.
For additional information, contact:
China Dodley at (614) 466-2551
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