What we do Survivor Services
Our programs help survivors recover from human trafficking and gender-based violence, reduce their risk for re-exploitation, and support their resilience and security. We use trauma-informed and evidence-based approaches in all our services. Through our participatory model, our services address survivors’ real priorities and needs.
Our Services
Crisis Intervention
Survivors experience many forms of crisis in their recovery, including suicidality, experiences of violence from their families and communities, homelessness, and acute mental health crises. We provide immediate, short-term counseling and psychosocial support for survivors in crisis. We connect survivors with emergency services needed to help them stabilize, stay safe, and build coping skills and stronger support systems.
Counseling
We conduct individualized counseling sessions for survivors experiencing mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sessions focus on strengthening coping skills, providing social support, and ensuring a safe space to debrief challenges.
Mental Health
Education
We educate community members, families, survivors, and service providers about mental health. We equip survivors, families, and communities with concrete skills for cultivating mental and emotional wellness. We help communities know where and how to access help for mental health concerns.
Trauma-Informed
Yoga
We implement a mindfulness-based mental health intervention for survivors called Healing and Resilience after Trauma (HaRT). HaRT is a 12-week group mental health program incorporating yoga poses, mindfulness, and supportive group discussions. The program has been shown to be effective in reducing anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms.
Economic
Empowerment
We help survivors build a financial safety net to reduce their risk of re-exploitation. We run savings groups for survivors and we match survivors’ savings to help them build a safety net for the future. We combine asset development with individualized and peer counseling to help survivors experience greater safety.
Why it matters
Much attention has been given to helping people escape human trafficking. If they’re not given the proper support afterward, many end up being re-trafficked and experiencing other forms of violence and exploitation. We support survivors in community settings so that they don’t end up being re-exploited.
Recovery from human trafficking and gender-based violence is often a long journey. Survivors benefit from safe and supportive relationships and communities where they can heal in their own time.
How it helps
While our services are diverse, all our programs follow the same principles:
- Integrating evidence-based and research-informed approaches
- Centering survivor voices and leadership
- Culturally-relevant and adapted for the context
- Trauma-informed
We don’t implement programs unless survivors themselves say that they find them helpful. Survivors take key leadership roles in our programs through the Survivor Leadership Council and by serving as Peer Facilitators co-facilitating activities with staff.
Published research
Laura Cordisco Tsai, Ivy F. Seballos-Llena & Rabia Datta
Laura Cordisco Tsai & Ivy F. Seballos-Llena
Laura Cordisco Tsai, Carmina Charmaine G. Domingo, Elizabeth Hentschel, Ran Hu, & Melinda Gill
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