Human Trafficking for Health Care Providers

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Human Trafficking for Health Care Providers

9 April, 2021 @ 1:00 pm 4:00 pm CDT

Description: This three hour presentation is designed to equip health care professionals with an understanding of what human trafficking is and the skills to identify physical, behavioral and contextual indicators for both victims and exploiters. Heidi Olson, SANE Program Manager for Children’s Mercy Hospital expands on this information through presentation of how victims typically present within a health care setting, what best practice responses involve, and discussion of case studies.

Learning Objectives:

  • Participants will understand the legal definition of human trafficking and the forms that it takes.
  • Participants will be able to identify physical, behavioral and contextual indicators of trafficking as well as vulnerabilities common to human trafficking victimization.
  • Participants will be able to respond utilizing best practices

Alison Phillips is the Director of the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. Her job includes conducting trainings for law enforcement across the state of Missouri, as well as facilitating the work of the multi-disciplinary task force in order to create unified and informed state-wide efforts to combat human trafficking. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City (UMKC), teaching a course on human trafficking to undergraduate criminal justice majors.

Previously, Alison has been a consultant for churches and other community groups to help them design strategic plans for human trafficking engagement. She has had numerous public speaking engagements through trainings, public events, radio, television, print media, including her own Tedx Talk. Alison received a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice and Criminology from UMKC in 2017 and was the 2018 recipient of UMKC’s Community Engagement Award.

In her first career, she served as an airline pilot for a regional carrier in the state of Alaska. She has 3,000 hours of flight time logged, was awarded as the top student in her flight school class in 1994, and served as first officer for charters for two former U.S. Presidents. Alison lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and three teenage children.

Heidi Olson, RN, MSN, CPN, SANE-P is a Certified Pediatric Nurse, Certified Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) and the SANE Program Manager at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO. She has a wide range of experience in pediatric and forensic nursing and has also taught as an adjunct clinical instructor for the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the University of St. Mary’s. Heidi received the Excellent Nursing Student Educator’s Award in 2017.

Heidi’s current role includes performing forensic exams on children who have been victims of sexual assault, training new SANE nurses, running the day-to-day logistics of the forensics program, following up with victims and their families after discharge, communicating with law enforcement, child protective services, prosecutors, the FBI and educating the healthcare staff on relevant topics regarding children and sexual exploitation. Heidi also serves an expert witness for the prosecution during trials for victims of sexual assault. In last two years, Heidi has performed and reviewed over 1,200 pediatric sexual assault cases and has presented over 200 times around the United States about recognizing human trafficking, child-on-child sexual assault, pornography, exploitation and sexual violence. In 2019, Heidi testified before the Kansas State Legislation to advocate for a bill for mental health treatment for children with problematic sexual behavior and the bill was signed into law.

Heidi started and leads the human trafficking work group at Children’s Mercy, is on the planning committee for the Big Search KC (which aims to find missing children), presents with the Anti Internet Child Exploitation Team (a Canadian non-profit), and organized Empower KC, a community event to raise awareness about sexual exploitation in Kansas City. In her free time, Heidi loves being outside, listening to true crime podcasts, and learning.

$49