Helping the Victims in Front of Us (with Heidi Olson)

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rustin, President of NC Family. And each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion, for family values in your community, state and nation. And now here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy Devitt Griggs.

Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. North Carolina has been described as a, quote, hotbed for human trafficking, in part because of major interstate highways and the agriculture industry, which has traditionally provided jobs for seasonal migrants. Well, tragically, Hurricane Helene will make people even more vulnerable to human trafficking because of the housing and food insecurity it has created for so many living in western North Carolina.

Statistically, 90% of trafficking victims come into contact with a health care worker while they're being exploited, but less than 5% are identified. Well, today's guest is trying to change that. She's founder and president of Paradigm Shift Training and Consulting that offers state-of-the-art training to combat human trafficking and child exploitation in medical facilities. Heidi Olson, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.

All right, so tell us, how did this happen? How did you become a nurse who works on human trafficking cases? Yeah, so it wasn't something that I set out to do. I didn't even realize the just enormity of the problem. I became a forensic nurse with the intent that I wanted to take care of kids who had been sexually assaulted. And really, within probably a month or two of doing that job, I realized we're seeing kids who are being trafficked, but we're not calling it by its correct name. So we're labeling these kids as, oh, this is a runaway. This is a kid using drugs. This is a sexual assault victim. But beneath all of that was exploitation and trafficking.

The kids just didn't have that language. You know, they're saying that's what's happening without saying it through their behaviors and kind of other disclosures. And so I think for me, I started to realize very quickly, this is a huge problem and we're not doing anything about it as health care workers. We're not screening.

We don't have protocols or policies in place. You know, we don't even understand how to truly identify this population. So that was about 10 years ago that this journey started and just the amount of trafficking victims that are seeing health care workers is mind blowing. So tell us a little bit about what you might tell these emergency room or hospital personnel as far as how to recognize human trafficking.

Yeah. So I think for a lot of health care workers that I teach, the first thing they say is like, this isn't happening here. We're not seeing it. And the reality is, yes, you are.

We're calling it by a different name. So unfortunately, oftentimes this population is stigmatized and labeled as, oh, this person's crazy. They're a frequent flyer. They're always here. They're drug seeking. They are the one who always causes a ruckus in the ER. They are homeless.

They're a prostitute. Whatever sort of stigma label we're putting on them, we're failing to see the exploitation that's underneath and the trauma that's causing the behaviors that we're seeing. And so I think really what I'm doing is shifting a health care worker's mindset to say, you are treating this population already. We're calling it by this label or this diagnosis. Can we look beneath the surface at what's really going on?

Yes. The person who comes in and tests positive for fentanyl. Are there other things that are happening where they're actually being exploited? What are the signs that you're seeing in their body and their mental health history and their social history that point to trafficking? Because victims are not going to come in and disclose. You're never going to have a victim that sits down in an ER and is like, help me, I'm being trafficked.

It doesn't work like that. But there are lots of signs that we can look for. Well, let's talk a little bit about what happens. Somebody comes into a hospital and they've taken your training and they're like, oh, my goodness, this person has meets all the signs that I was trained to look for.

What happens there? So that is something we equip health care workers with. We don't want to only teach here's the signs that you look for, have the awareness, but they don't know what to do. And so if we're talking about kids, of course, we are mandated reporters as health care workers. We have to follow mandating reporting protocols and we have to safety plan. We're recognizing this with a child. We have to make sure they go somewhere safe.

With adults, there's a little more autonomy. And so what we do when we train is we connect hospitals with advocacy groups who work with trafficking victims, local nonprofits, other places that can help provide support outside of the hospital. So we try to connect the hospital with that continuum of care.

OK, we recognize this. We're providing resources. If a victim wants those resources, then kind of where do we send them? How can we help support them as they get out of this life? OK, so basically for an adult, you're just letting them know that you understand what's going on with them.

Here are some resources that they want help. And then pretty much the ball is in their court. Yes, and it has to be. I think that sometimes we have this perception of we have to go in and rescue that person, have to yank them out of this situation. And if a person is not making a choice of their own free will, they're going to go right back to that situation because it's known, because it's familiar. And so they have to be the one saying, I'm actually choosing to do something else, even though it's terrifying, I'm going to accept services. So it can take seven to 11 times of intervention before an adult victim chooses to leave a trafficking situation. Wow. Great statistic there. Thank you for sharing that.

OK, so I've heard that most of us encounter people who are human trafficked without even knowing it, whether it's in a restaurant or a cleaning crew or something along those lines. So do you teach other industries as well, or is it just medical? I do.

Yes. So we tailor our trainings to anyone who wants to learn more about this and how to recognize it. So to churches, community members, social workers, teachers, anyone who's interested, the reality is all of us are intersecting with trafficking victims. It's hidden in plain sight.

It's in front of us. Just most of us have never been taught what to look for. You know, we think it's like the movie Taken where people are being abducted and thrown into a van and hidden in a basement somewhere.

When many survivors I've talked to are like, I was going to school while I was being trafficked by my parents. I was in church. I was encountering all of these different professionals and people.

I passed by people in the community at Wal-Mart or at a gas station. And so I think when we can equip people with here's what you look for, here are the red flags, you're going to have a gut feeling about it. And here's what you do.

It really starts to increase recognition. You're listening to Family Policy Matters, a weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. This is just one of the many ways NC Family works to educate and inform citizens about issues that impact faith and family here in North Carolina.

Our vision is to create a state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive and life is cherished. For more information about NC Family and how you can partner with us in pursuit of this vision, visit our website at ncfamily.org and be sure to sign up to receive our email updates, action alerts and Family North Carolina magazine. You can also follow us on social media at NC Family Policy.

That's at NC Family Policy. It's not always sexual, right? There's other ways of trafficking humans.

Absolutely. There's lots of other ways. And so I think the ways that get overlooked, of course, we've got labor trafficking. And I think that is often overlooked, just like you were saying. It's happening in places like restaurants, in fields, in nail salons and in massage parlors.

I mean, it's all over the place. Labor trafficking is happening and it can happen in conjunction with sex trafficking, right? Someone can be sold for sex at night and be forced to work at a gas station during the day and they're not getting compensated at all.

I think another one that we miss a lot is forced criminality. So traffickers trying to make as much money as he can. So not only am I selling this person for sex, but guess what? You're going to sell drugs for me, too.

Or you're going to forge checks for me or you're going to shoplift for me. And so a lot of victims get arrested for forced criminality where the trafficker has forced them in to engage in some kind of crime. And very often the criminal justice system is not recognizing those persons actually being trafficked. So there's lots of sectors who are intersecting with this population and missing them, unfortunately. What about policy? Are we dropping the ball a little bit on public policy or are there some ways that we can step things up so that we can protect more of these people, especially here in our state? Unfortunately, what I have seen happen, so kind of my role, right, as a health care worker, I'm boots on the ground.

I'm seeing victims kind of in this crisis moment. And I think a lot of times what happens with policy is it's getting made at this level way up here with policymakers that are like, in theory, this is a good idea. And then it doesn't actually trickle down to boots on the ground. This is how it's implemented, if that makes sense.

So I think I've seen lots of different states where it's like, that's a great idea. It never gets practiced. Right. The different laws never get enacted. The funding doesn't come through for victim services. And so I think that's sort of where the disconnect, at least where I see lies, that we can have great policy in place. But if it doesn't actually translate down to the people who are providing services, what good does it do? And I've seen that many times where there's policies in place or policies that sound good in theory, but none of the legislators have bothered to talk to tracking survivors.

Right. To say, would this actually make sense in the context of this crime? So in their heads, it makes sense.

But it's like, you've never been trafficked. We have to talk to the population. It actually impacts.

So I think there are there's lots of great policy. There's a lot of, I think, care and empathy that exists in this space. But it doesn't always translate down to how does this impact the population in those front line spaces? So you also talk a lot about pornography and its connection to child on child sexual assault. Why do you feel like that goes along with the human trafficking training that you do?

It's all connected. So more than trafficking as a forensic nurse. So, you know, of course, I'm seeing lots of trafficking victims, lots of sexual assault victims, more than kind of that side of things. I am seeing so much child on child sexual assault, you know, meaning a kid who is sexually harming another child.

And no one talked to me about this when I became a forensic nurse. And so this was just a trend that blew my mind. So as I started collecting data and gathering information, I started to realize there are so many kids sexually assaulting other kids in part because they're being exposed to pornography and they're acting out what they're seeing. So what the way this all is connected to trafficking is we're seeing a ton of kids who are seeing porn at really, really young ages, violent porn.

It's extremely desensitizing. They go online and people are asking them for nude photos and videos. There's no red flags going off for these, you know, 11, 12 year olds who have been seeing porn for years at this point. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, this is normal. Everyone does it. I've seen naked bodies for years at this point.

No big deal. They send nude photos and videos, which is child sexual abuse material at that age. And then they've got, you know, they send a picture to a stranger, say on Snapchat, that stranger shares it with all kinds of people. And then suddenly we've got traffickers, predators, pedophiles, just inundating these kids online with, hey, if you send me another naked video or photo, I'll send you money to your cash app.

I'll buy you this, all whatever. So now we've got a sex act in exchange for something of monetary value. That's considered trafficking with kids.

There doesn't even have to be a trafficker present. So we're seeing that a ton with kids who are exchanging nude photos, videos, things like that because they've seen so much pornography and people are giving them things for it. So it's normalizing transactional sex. And these kids don't think they're being abused or exploited. They're like, I'm awesome.

Someone thinks I'm hot. And so there's been this societal grooming to normalize that. It's a really, really frightening trend. Wow.

That is frightening for parents who might be hearing this and think, gosh, I'd love to bring them to my church association or I'd like to have this in at my work. How can they go about getting in touch with you? So you can find me at my website. It's Paradigm Shift TC as in training and consulting dot com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn under Heidi Olson.

Either way, send me a message and I will meet with you and we can talk through what you're needing. I love doing trainings. We get great evaluations.

It's absolutely affordable. So really what we say is we want everyone to have this information. So we're willing to work with different groups kind of within the confines of their budget. We don't have a set right to say like it's going to be five thousand dollars every time because we know a lot of groups can't afford something like that. And this information, we don't want to be gatekeepers. We want people to have it. So please reach out. We'll work with you. We love training and equipping people.

All right. Heidi Olson with Paradigm Shift, training and consulting. Thanks so much for your good work and for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org and check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.