New Day Program offers one-stop services for youths in Multnomah County
Social service professionals who work with sex-trafficking survivors in Multnomah County will tell you there are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding the commercial sexual exploitation of youths and young adults.
“The major media message has been this happens to young white girls who get kidnapped and put in a creepy van to be taken across state or international lines,” said Sarah Nedeau, New Day manager for New Avenues for Youth.
“Literally, this does happen, but the youth we’re serving often identify as people of color and/or LGBTQIA2S+, have experienced elements of fraud and coercion related to an intimate relationship or potentially lucrative economic opportunity and are generally from Multnomah County and trafficked here in Multnomah County.”
Nedeau is the manager of the recently formed New Day Program, which is a collaboration among New Avenues for Youth, Raphael House and Call to Safety designed to offer immediate and long-term services to those affected by sex trafficking and exploitation.
The partnership is taking a new approach to helping survivors and preventing others from ever entering “the life.” The group is putting more emphasis on growing long-term relationships between social service providers and the young people in need of support.
“The benefit of a long-term relationship is being able to walk alongside youth as they identify their needs and create safety for themselves,” Nedeau said. “It offers an opportunity to hold hope long-term because you’re able to reflect back with the young person about all the ways they’ve changed, what they’ve been through and all the things they’ve succeeded in or overcome.”
One way the New Day program is focusing on long-term relationships is by expanding the program’s eligibility limits to 12- to 26-years old, rather than 14 to 21.
“The brain doesn’t stop developing until 26,” Nedeau said. “The adolescent brain is very much in flux and development in terms of decision-making and consequences. When that intersects with trauma or addiction-as-coping, that has some profound effects.”
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One of New Day’s mentors, Krystal M., shared that she traded sex for survival as a young adult. She participated in “the life” to meet basic needs.
“After a long time in that world, you get tired of the hustle and bustle,” she said. “Then, you realize you have more potential to do something else.”
But as a youth mentor, she understands it’s not always a quick exit.
“It’s going to be hard,” Krystal said. “I’m never going to tell someone it’s this easy transition, because that’s not the truth, but working toward it and being focused on it can help.”
Krystal said when she was struggling, she never realized there were agencies willing to help her. She said the New Day Program offers one-stop services with access to all of the New Avenues for Youth programs, so trafficked youths don’t have to go from place to place.
“If you can only get away from the guy for two hours, and the list of places they gave you is going to take you eight hours, you might just go back to that situation,” Krystal said.
Natalie Weaver facilitates strategic collaborations to address sex trafficking in Multnomah County as part of her role in the Department of Community Justice, Crime Victim Services Unit. She said the New Day Program’s outreach services and emphasis on the Call to Safety Crisis Line (503-235-5333) is showing remarkable success, especially in correcting the myth that sexual exploitation looks like the movie “Taken,” in which a teen is kidnapped and thrown into a vehicle.
“Trying to get the word out that we can’t just show people in chains or in cages, because then providers and community members misidentify (sex trafficking) but also the youth themselves misidentify because they think, ‘Oh, I don’t qualify for those programs because I wasn’t caged like that poster showed,’” Weaver said.
Weaver cited research released in December by Sgt. Molly McDade, a Multnomah County Jail intelligence officer, which said 595 minors and 1,191 adults were experiencing sex trafficking in the Portland area. The same research identified 1,059 suspected or prosecuted traffickers.
A Portland State University study released in 2013 by Christopher Carey and Lena Teplitsky reported that commercial sexually exploited children in the Portland area, served by the Department of Human Services or Sexual Assault Resource Center, were an average of 15.5 years old. The youngest in that particular study was 8, while the oldest was 22. The majority of the young people, 62 percent, were dealing with addiction issues. The overwhelming number of them, 96 percent, were female.
New Day staff members are trying to be creative and flexible with where – and how – they reach out to those in need.
“They will meet in a home, a coffee shop, a motel room, on the way to an appointment or at a wrap-around services meetings,” Nedeau said. “They’ll help young people pack, set up their homes, make plans.”
Nedeau said just getting a cellphone to a trafficked youth can be a lifeline.
“We anticipate a lot of the young people we’re going to serve will not just be with us for three months or six months, but it could be a year, two years … even three,” she said.
Krystal said it’s important to let people forge their own path. “
No judgment,” she said. “If someone comes to you and they’re in that lifestyle, and they want to be open, be understanding.
“If you say you’re going to show up, show up the same way – same smile, same face, same attitude toward them, no matter what.”
Weaver agreed.
“In the moment, when someone offers a youth a resource, and they say no, it may be that they’re just not ready,” she said. “If they see that you are kind and available, they may come back to talk to you.”
The New Day Program is already three spots short of capacity, serving 54 young people with four case managers. Nedeau said they’ve done outreach to more than 100 young people, and more than 40 of those people have accessed stable housing since engaging with the New Day Program which began July 1, 2018.
“They know they can always call or connect with us,” Nedeau said.
Weaver believes the New Day Program’s poster has attracted many of the new clients due to its simple message. The poster asks, “Are you trading sex for money, housing or other needs?” It lists the Call to Safety Crisis Line (503-235-5333) and offers confidential support.
Krystal said, in her experience working as a mentor, you begin to realize it doesn’t take much to help.
“Just let them know they have potential, that there’s more that they have to offer, because feeling unworthy can put you in drastic situations.”
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