Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation: Hope Amidst Adversity

[00:00:00] Arnold: Do you know the difference between commercial sexual exploitation and sexual trafficking? We're going to find out today on St. Louis In Tune.

Welcome to St. Louis In Tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders, and everyday people. Who are driving change and making an impact that shapes our society and world I'm arnold stricker here with mark langston mark. How are you today, sir?

[00:00:42] Mark: I'm, fine, sir I know I You're the only one that calls me, sir Does that mean i'm younger than you are unless it yes unless it's younger kids that are like working at Someplace and sir, can I help you? I was like, I've just never I can never get used to that Sir, it's 

[00:01:00] Arnold: how I was raised 

[00:01:02] Mark: sir. Yeah respect your elders.

Hey Gramps. There's a concept respect your elders 

[00:01:10] Arnold: It's now you must have been looking at my no I did return to civility I didn't live and now folks I'm not kidding. I didn't look behind the curtain. He did not look behind the curtain You know don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain really The return to civility today.

Mark. Huh. Hold on to your seat. All right. Be considerate and respectful to the elderly. No Yes, it's longevity and endurance deserve respect. Oh my, 

[00:01:37] Mark: I can't. Wow. That's great. 

[00:01:40] Arnold: Be considerate and respectful to the elderly. Endurance. Longevity and endurance deserve respect. And that is really true.

Downtown, there's a a lady who, I don't know how old she is, but she lives in one of the elderly apartment buildings. Huh. Buildings down there. And she walks around and tools around with her walker and when one of the local grocery stores went out of business, I guess she has to walk down to Schnucks, which is way down on 9th Street and she was crossing 12th Street, Tucker.

And that's interstate Tucker down there with eight lanes of traffic. And I was like, Kathy, how are you doing this? Yeah, she was just tooling along. Wow. She endures. 

You have to do what you have to do, especially if there's no one there to help 

[00:02:22] Mark: you. That's right. And yeah, and we should help out folks.

We should. Everybody matters or nobody matters. 

[00:02:29] Arnold: That's correct. That's another good return to civility. So folks be considerate and respectful to the elderly. 

[00:02:35] Mark: Okay. 

[00:02:37] Arnold: We're considerate and respectful today because in studio we have Katie Rhoades. She's founder and executive director of Healing Action.

Since 2005, Katie's been raising awareness about commercial sexual exploitation through speaking about her own experience as a survivor. mentoring other survivors, and consulting with agencies that support victims of violence. She holds a master's in social work from Washington University here in St.

Louis, as well as a bachelor in social work from Metropolitan State University. Katie, welcome to St. Louis In Tune. 

[00:03:06] Katie: Absolutely. Thank you. 

[00:03:08] Arnold: It's great to have you here. And we've had several folks on previously to talk about trafficking and exploitation, and I will refer those. In the show notes to folks, they can go back and look at those, but let's discuss a couple things to clarify for folks.

What is the difference between trafficking and exploitation. 

[00:03:30] Katie: Absolutely. If you look at human trafficking as a spectrum, on one end you have really what's been called lately, what we hear now as sex work, where it conjures this idea of 100 percent free choice folks choose it's a profession, very much heavy on the agency aspect of it.

And then on the other end of that spectrum, you have sex trafficking, which is, tends to conjure up things like the movie taken or folks don't have any choice whatsoever. They're being kidnapped and forced in basements and things like that. What we find though, is that most people that we identify Is there somewhere along that spectrum?

So human trafficking is definitely involves force fraud and coercion. If folks are 18 and older and there is somebody who is using force, fraud or coercion forcing them into the sex trade, then we would consider them sex trafficking victims. And on the other end they could be engaging in sex work but there's not necessarily somebody who is quote, unquote, forcing, coercing, or using fraud to get them into that.

Now, We can get into the definition of choice, right? What is choice? And that's where the term commercial sexual exploitation comes from. So myself and then at Healing Action, we view sex work as inherently exploitive. And so we use the term commercial sexual exploitation regardless if there's a third party kind of forcing adults.

And the reason why we do that is because a lot of the folks that we serve, they started in sex work as minors because they didn't have a choice. And if, if you have to feed your family or you have to keep a roof over your head and you're engaging in sex work, or if you're trans and you don't, no one will hire you because you're trans, and then you have to engage in sex work is that really a choice or is that exploitation?

And so we use the term commercial sexual exploitation. 

[00:05:32] Arnold: That really helps clarify some things. And thank you so much. For listeners out there, there is other kinds of trafficking. We're not really going to speak about the servitude kind of trafficking or we're going to specifically talk about the sexual exploitation today.

So St. Louis is the 16th top city for human trafficking and Missouri is the 15th. highest state in the country as it relates to hotline calls related to that. What is the significance of our city and our state as it relates to this? 

[00:06:06] Katie: Absolutely. So Missouri and St. Louis is really Central America. It's right in the heart of the country.

And because of that, we are at the center of several intersections and several highway systems. And so you can pretty much get anywhere. in the country from Missouri. And so that definitely increases access to folks who are trafficking folks. They might just be coming through, they might already be in St.

Louis and trafficking folks within here in St. Louis, or they might be stopping on along the way trafficking folks and then going to another city as well. There's a, there's another couple reasons, I think, that St. Louis in, in particular, we see high rates of commercial sexual exploitation or sex trafficking.

And part of that is we have a very high homeless population. population. We also have a high homeless youth population. And so when, especially kiddos, I know teenagers don't like to be called kiddos, but when kiddos are on the street and they don't, again, they're just susceptible to exploitation, whether that is, Hey, you can come stay with me.

You can, I'll give you a place to stay. I'll give you food. But by the way, you have to do X, Y, and Z for me. for me so that minors that would be considered sex trafficking. And so it opens the door to more of that exploitation for them. 

[00:07:29] Mark: Katie, can I go back? So St. Louis is one of the. The biggest biggest cities for this?

[00:07:35] Katie: For sex trafficking, we definitely rank higher particularly for sex trafficking. It's hard to tell with statistics, right? Is that because we have, we're starting to have better identification and so people are hotlining more? Or is it because of incidences? We have found that during the pandemic that incidences have gone up Just because of the economic strain on communities and then also, a lot of people losing their jobs During at the beginning of the pandemic a lot of people were forced indoors.

And you weren't really seeing the external You know street prostitution things like that happening very often. And so it started to get a little bit More hidden. We also saw domestic violence increase during the pandemic as well. 

[00:08:16] Mark: I don't think anybody wants to claim, that their city is at the top of that kind of a list.

And it's just it's disturbing, that St. Louis is that way. But like you say, people that are on the streets and have nowhere else to go, no other, Not just no one to help them. So they fall into this and this is terrible. 

[00:08:37] Katie: Absolutely and strained family Relationships, there's a lot of folks.

I don't want to give the impression that it only happens, right? You know really in poverty stricken areas or economically disadvantaged areas that it happens. It can happen to anybody's kid It can happen to any adult mental health plays a role substance abuse plays a role You know Kids that are estranged from their family, whether they live in Chesterfield, South St.

Louis, or St. Charles, are all affected by this. 

[00:09:05] Mark: I'm interested to hear how we stop it, curtail it. 

[00:09:09] Katie: Absolutely. I know we'll 

[00:09:09] Mark: get to that in the 

[00:09:10] Arnold: interview, 

[00:09:11] Mark: but 

[00:09:11] Arnold: One of the reasons Mark, I wanted to have Katie on was because she, along with Kevin Coleman Cohen from FBI, are going to be an expert panel on human trafficking, and there's also going to be a film screening about a film related to trafficking.

And this is National Crime Victims Awareness Week event, and that will be taking place at the International Institute of St. Louis on April the 25th from 5 o'clock to 7. 45 p. m. And we'll talk more about that as we go through. So Healing in Action, you're the founder and executive director. Why did you And I'm going to start with some of 

[00:09:48] Katie: the questions that I found.

Healing in Action. Absolutely. The quick and simple answer, and I'll expand a little bit more, is that we just, we didn't have services in St. Louis. When I came here for graduate school, I was looking for services or organizations that provided services. and there really wasn't any at the time the organizations that exist now were actually just in the very beginning stages.

I got interested in anti trafficking work because I myself am a survivor of sex trafficking and exploitation. I was fortunate to be able to get out of the life in 2002 and I was 18 when I was first when I first got involved in sex, I guess you could say sex work, and then met a pimp and was taken to a different state, California, and forced into prostitution there.

And I was fortunate to be able to get out when I was 21. And I just started my journey of healing at that point. Some contributing factors, of course, were past trauma. I had undiagnosed PTSD. I was dealing with suicidal ideations and substance use and mental health. And I was a kid.

I didn't know how to deal with that stuff. I did not have a good relationship with my family. And so I was not able or willing or able. It depends on, who you talk to or of particular circumstances to go back to my family. And I ended up sleeping in my car and that began that kind of process for me.

Again, when I got out, I just focus, I spent a lot of years focusing on my own recovery from addiction. I firmly believe that you can't really do much healing if you're still not sober. And so being able to do some healing with addiction and stay sober long enough to do some additional healing was really important for my growth.

And I knew I wanted to help people. I wasn't. Sure. What that looked like. I hated social workers . Why? It's funny 'cause I am one now, but I did I hated social workers because I had interacted with social workers at, when I was trying to get out and I just experienced so much, and this was in early two thousands, right? , 2002 ish. And human trafficking wasn't language. back then. We were prostitutes and that's just what we were and we made choices and we we got what we deserved. And going through substance use treatments and then some other programming, at one point they categorized me as a sex addict and which is not, 

No, that's not really what was happening.

And at one point they tried to diagnose me with paranoid personality disorder, which was interesting until a seasoned psychiatrist came back and said, literally, you're not paranoid if someone is actually after you. I'm sorry, but to me that's funny because, cause it was a young student.

student, and she's she seems very paranoid. I'm like of course I was, I was terrified that a pimp was going to find me. And so I just had a bunch of negative experiences. So when I got time to figure out what I want to do with my life people were suggesting you'd be really good at social work.

And I was like, no, Not even close. But what was amazing is I took an intro to social work class and I had this awesome professor at Metropolitan State who taught social work through the lens of social justice and about systems change and about how kind of systems create the environments that we live in.

And that really resonated with me. And so I, I fell in love with it and that's what I started doing. And. That led me to Washington University, their social work program there. Again, when I graduated, I had no desire to start an agency. I, I didn't even know what that entailed. I had no, I didn't have a business degree, anything like that, but we just didn't have services and I would knock on a lot of doors and people were like, no, this doesn't happen here.

Agencies were even saying, we don't see this. And I, yeah, you have to look for it. So I got, I didn't get discouraged. I got determined, I think. And so I was like, fine, I'll create my own agency. So that's what we did. We've been going now next year is our 10 year anniversary, which is crazy. We've served over 600 individuals since we opened in November of 2015.

And we have a staff now of 15 full time staff. And we're continuously expanding services which, sometimes I can't tell if that's good or bad because that means the need continues to be there. And right now we serve about 80 ish survivors at any one given time. 

[00:14:15] Arnold: Wow. That speaks to the quality of what you're doing and the need, and that I think people are getting some healing going on.

Absolutely. Obviously, 

[00:14:23] Arnold: healing action. 

Absolutely. 

[00:14:24] Arnold: Now this is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis In Tune. We're going to come back to some of the specifics that healing action does, because I want to go through those. But before this flies out of my brain, you mentioned a couple things that kind of perked my interest.

How many people have you dealt with that have had similar journeys like this? You mentioned a journey of feeling. You also mentioned family situations, substance abuse. As you've talked to people and helped people along the way, have you seen similar kinds of what I would call markers or underlying factors that may make someone more prone to be Accessed or brought into that great question.

[00:15:13] Katie: Absolutely. I think there are some, there's of course outliers, but I think there's some common themes. Childhood abuse definitely plays a role. Childhood sexual abuse trauma from that abuse. Anytime, folks carry unresolved trauma we can be a little bit more susceptible to folks offering us different, either different ways of life or I find, and this isn't a conscious process, it's, I find that folks mix up what, they don't really know what actual caring and love looks like, and I remember a period of time where I was living with a drug dealer and caring I used to say he really cared for me, but his caring was making sure I had food and I was hydrated after giving me methamphetamine, so in my head that was caring, right? And I was fortunate. I did have love in my life growing up. And once I got through the addiction, I could recognize that discrepancy. But when you're in it, anytime someone's showering you with affection or love, you tend to think that's what that is.

So definitely abuse. It's unfortunately one of the biggest kind of perpetrators of trafficking that we have found with the folks that we serve is family. Studies have also shown that it's, it can be a family member and same with, just sexual abuse in general. It's always, it seems to be someone you know more so than someone you don't know.

So whether it's a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, somebody at school that tends to pull you into that life. 

[00:16:50] Arnold: What was the thing that helped you get out or what was the point at which you said, I've had enough of this? Or I need to get out to survive. 

[00:17:01] Katie: Yeah, I had, there were several points.

So I actually ran away once and then went back to the pimp. And I went back because I had, my father had passed away. And it showed my pimp shows up, of course within a month after my dad dying. He changed his tune he offered me something different than what he was offering me previously.

So It depends on the time in my life that you asked me this question. I think that for what I say to this question, because at the time in that moment, there was a lot of fear and I had been Left alone by my pimp in Portland, Oregon, and he was in California and I was what they say out of pocket.

So I was doing things I wasn't supposed to be doing. I was quote unquote spending his money, things like that. And so he called me and said, this is, Multiple times I've had to call you like you're out of pocket. We're taking you back to California. And there was a level of fear that I just don't think I experienced before that.

Because I know I knew what happens in California when you were out of pocket and in my mind I was like, I'm going to end up in a dumpster or I'm going to be sold to another pimp. And this might sound crazy, but I don't know how else to say it, but like my pimp was a. This is weird. Was a decent pimp?

Let's see if that's a strange saying. Sounds weird. Yeah, it sounds very weird. But I get it. But at the time, I knew what to expect. He wasn't as violent as the other ones around. He didn't, allow us to do a lot of drugs because we couldn't make money. And so in my mind, that was better than what I saw.

So the thought of being sold to another pimp terrified me I think more than ending up in a dumpster. So in that moment, it was fear. And I reached out to a family physician. I had her cell phone number. So I text or I called her cause we didn't have text messaging back then. I don't think so. I called her from the strip club and said, I can't do this anymore.

And she had no idea about the trafficking, but she knew about my addiction. So she was like, Of course, honey, lay low. Let me get in contact with your parents. We'll get you into treatment. 

[00:19:16] Mark: Katie, would the, is the pimp supply you with the drugs? Is that where, or did you get them on your own? 

[00:19:23] Katie: He gave us marijuana and alcohol.

He was not a big fan of other drugs. I was already addicted to other things when I met them. And that was one of the things that, They used to get me to go with them was like you can't do any of that stuff and in my mind That was my way of getting away from the craziness that I was in 

Yeah, 

[00:19:43] Katie: so when he found out later after I had been left alone that I was back doing some of that stuff He wasn't concerned about my health.

He was concerned about Me spending quote unquote his money and then also just not being able to make money for him Because 

[00:19:58] Mark: you were strung out. 

[00:19:59] Katie: You Yeah. 

[00:20:01] Arnold: Okay. When you formed Healing Action, I'm looking at your mission and your vision and values and many times people don't put a lot of stock, they go, yeah we got our mission.

Yeah, we have our vision and your values though, I want to read these because I think they're very specific and they underline or they, let me back up, they undergird the services that you offer. 

[00:20:24] Katie: Absolutely. 

[00:20:25] Arnold: And one is collaboration. 

Self determination. We believe members are the experts of their own lives.

They have the power to define their needs and make the right choices for their care and future. Being. Authenticity. We prioritize realism, directness, and truthfulness. And then transparency. We do what we say and explain our decisions. Why those values and Speak a little bit more about the ones that just pop up to you to me.

It was self determination and authenticity. 

[00:20:56] Katie: Absolutely Yeah, our values are extremely important we do incorporate them into everything that we do at healing action that goes from our performance reviews We incorporate how? what we do You know, we evaluate staff on how well they embody those values.

We go through them at pretty much every staff meeting, at least one of them. That's how we get our feedback from staff is how are we doing on collaboration? How are we doing on authenticity? And I'm a firm believer in values driving our actions. And. I think the biggest some of the biggest ones for me are the ones that you hit on too, self determination our clients in particular because of the nature of the crime that's been perpetrated against them They have had their choices taken away Pretty much their whole life whether that's from abusive parents whether that's from pimps or abuse, additional abusers and in particular with human trafficking they take your choices away on purpose and they use tactics like manipulation of if you do X, Y, and Z task, I'm going to give you food.

If you do, and this is where I not necessarily the self determination, but also the kind of realism aspect, authenticity. We do what we say because pimps use that type of emotional manipulation all the time. They use their place, their position of power all the time. Because. I can take your housing away.

I can take your food away. And so as an organization, we have to be extremely careful of not replicating those abusive tactics. And so thinking about self determination for our clients, even if they are making quote unquote choices that we don't necessarily agree with that's their right. to make those choices and we'll provide information.

We'll say, Hey, there might be some consequences to this, but they get to make those choices. And the difference too is we then don't use that to manipulate them later and say if you would have done this we support them even through those consequences. 

[00:23:05] Arnold: Yeah. And you're helping them just gain some of self respect and self direction for who they are as an individual.

[00:23:12] Katie: Yeah. It's 

[00:23:15] Arnold: Wow, we're talking to Katie Rogue, she's founder and executive director of Healing Action. She's going to be speaking on a panel on human trafficking and that's going to take place during the National Crime Victims Awareness Week. That event will take place at the International Institute of St.

Louis on April the 25th from 5 o'clock to 745. You can get in touch with the International Institute, iistl. org, call them up to find out a little bit more about that information along on the panel. We'll be a film director and an individual from the FBI. So we're going to come back. We will get into the specifics of what Healing Action offers to those individuals who are coming out of sex trafficking and sex exploitation.

This is Arnold Strick with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune. We'll be right back.

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[00:27:07] Arnold: Welcome back to St. Louis in tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston. We're talking to Katie Rhodes. She's founder and executive director of Healing Action. And before the break, we were talking about what Healing Action we were going to do. What is Healing Action actually accomplishing with books?

[00:27:25] Katie: Absolutely. 

[00:27:27] Arnold: What do you do? What are your services? 

[00:27:28] Katie: Oh goodness. What do we do? 

[00:27:33] Arnold: I've got this listing here from the website. 

[00:27:35] Katie: Yeah, it's, I'm going to try this without a lot. without a lot of social work ease, right? We do we help people on their journey, whether, that's the basic answer and I'll give you a little more specifics, but whether somebody is actively being trafficked, actively engaged in sex work, folks are still able to come to us, right?

And services look a little bit different depending on who the person is. We tailor services for the individual. Folks who are still being trafficked, we work with them on, sometimes it looks like secret meetings. Sometimes it looks like, helping them safety plan around like how to get to safety.

How can you leave that situation? We're not an organization that goes in and quote unquote, like rescues people that is extremely dangerous and can actually cause the victims to be harmed. And so we don't want to do anything that's gonna, add additional harm onto the folks. We do what we can to work with them, work with law enforcement to help them get out.

And then we do crisis intervention. What are your immediate needs? Do you need medical care? Do you need psychiatric care? Do you need a place to stay and help them find those basic needs as well? We do operate a drop in center for our current members. Unfortunately, we're not big enough to have kind of a drop in center for the community, but for our current members where they can come and get some food, they can do laundry if they're currently homeless and they're struggling, they can come and sleep during the day at our office.

We actually find that For us, that's really important. It tells us that folks feel safe enough to sleep in our office. People don't sleep if they don't feel safe. And so to me that says a lot about our environment is so some of our folks could come in and take a nap and feel safe to do that. We also help them get into treatment.

We do education services, help them like get into school. We support them. them through therapy. We also have a peer specialist on staff who's also a survivor. And so the peer specialist works with them on, navigating this crazy nonprofit world. So that like me, a lot of the folks we serve are not fond of social workers or they're scared of social workers or because, historically we've used social work to wield some power, right?

And we're going to kick you out of housing if you don't do X, Y, and Z. We're going to, take your kids away if you don't do X, Y, and Z. And so it takes a lot to build that relationship and our peer services help us do that because it's one survivor working with another survivor. That 

[00:30:08] Arnold: to me, Mark, would be it's credibility.

Yeah. Absolutely. And, when you can say, I've been there, I know exactly what you're going through. It's not the exact thing, but yeah, that, I'm sure it probably drops a little guard on people. Absolutely. I think so. It's gotta help. 

[00:30:23] Katie: Absolutely. We also host the Coalition Against Trafficking and Exploitation, so that's a program under Healing Action.

It's a statewide coalition of service providers and legislators and law enforcement that's working to address the systemic issues of human trafficking, change some policy things like getting access to health care. A lot of our folks don't qualify for things like Medicaid or Medicare.

And so they just don't have access to health care, which is if you can think about the physical trauma that they've experienced as well, they really do need, it 

[00:30:55] Mark: seems to me like human trafficking has been like a hush thing, never really talked about until maybe the last 10 years. Is that about accurate?

Yeah, human 

[00:31:04] Katie: trafficking wasn't a term, actually. Folks never talked about it. I don't think it 

[00:31:10] Mark: was like point. Yeah. You're a streetwalker and you got a pimp and that. Correct. Yeah. But not really what is going on. 

[00:31:17] Katie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Was the 

[00:31:19] Arnold: coalition against trafficking 

[00:31:22] Katie: An exploitation. 

[00:31:23] Arnold: Was that something another vision that you had or is that some of the board members or some of the people who you work with?

[00:31:29] Katie: It it was started by a smaller group when another coalition folded Kate started. We call it Kate. Kate started. And it bounced around from a couple agencies but where it was housed It wasn't the primary population they served, so it didn't get a lot of resources and attention.

And then it was due to close again, and we just couldn't have that because there would have been no trafficking coalition in the state. And so we went ahead, agreed to take it over. Doing a coalition was actually my original vision before Healing Action opened. I would have, I wanted to actually bring together services, not just.

But then when we found out there wasn't any services to bring together, that's when we started healing action as a direct service agency. So when that came back around that we could, take over the coalition and we could do some more work together. macro work. I, we absolutely jumped on it because we believe, again, that's collaboration, right?

One of our values. We not one agency can do this work and not one agency can be an expert on everything. And so having we, a community that actually supports survivors is, I think, what's going to change the needle for us here in Missouri. 

[00:32:46] Arnold: And that, that word is mentioned a lot. I caught that a lot in your website.

Making a common experience you're building that community, you even do, you'll pick people up, transportation, because that's a basic thing to be able to get from point A to point B, and if people don't have access to that, 

[00:33:06] Katie: yeah our case managers are in the field. field. We, we don't do Hey, I'm going to give you some resources now you can call them.

We take them to the appointments. Yeah, we take them to appointments because they have trauma symptoms no matter where they go. We've had clients have full blown panic attacks trying to go to a doctor's appointment. Because just interacting with people or interacting with the medical community or any community really can be very triggering for them.

So it helps to have that extra clinical support there with them to guide them through that. 

[00:33:35] Arnold: I want to give the website for Healing Action. It's healingaction.org. Healingaction.org. And is it how did you pronounce that, Mocate? 

[00:33:45] Katie: Mocate, yes, M O C A T E dot org. 

[00:33:48] Arnold: M O C And Katie's going to be on the expert panel along with two other individuals for the National Crime Victims Awareness Week event and that's at the International Institute of St.

Louis April the 25th from 5 o'clock to 745. If you need more information you can go to iistl. org or call 314 773 9090. A question that popped up as you were talking about the coalition. Do you think government, state government needs to do, local government needs to do to assist individuals who are going through a recovery process and to prevent people from getting sucked into the exploitation and trafficking?

[00:34:34] Katie: Oh, goodness. Um, I think there's several answers to that. I, the, thinking about going back to prevent. trafficking is that

it depends on your views on government's role, which I won't get into too much, but that's why I'm struggling to answer. Cause again, I think it depends on your views of the government's role. My view is that I think government should take care of its people because that, yeah. And I think what you said at the intake of this is something along the lines of supporting one is supporting all.

I can't remember. Everybody 

[00:35:14] Mark: matters or nobody matters. 

[00:35:16] Katie: Correct. And I firmly believe that, right? Everybody matters or nobody matters. And that means from our corporations all the way down to folks on the street. And I think that if we lift up the folks on the street, we lift up the whole population. So that does inform my thinking around what government.

Could do and a big part of that is our child protective system. And unfortunately, our System is our caseworkers are extremely overworked. They have way too many kiddos on their case work caseload. They have dwindling budgets for the department and so if unfortunately there's a strong link between kiddos who are on the streets or kiddos who have been through trafficking and the child welfare system And it doesn't mean it's a cause and effect thing It just means that we need to do a better job in order to care for our little ones and keep Families healthy families and their lives and that comes with money and government institutions supporting that So I think that's the long term answer I think giving access to health care Oregon is non profits we are in a poverty cycle ourselves.

We're chasing money constantly. And so a lot of our energy goes into chasing that next dollar, that next money so that we could provide the direct services. And yeah. So again, I think that we could do less of that and use our tax dollars for lifting up The whole community is my take on that 

[00:36:52] Arnold: and what can individuals who they're listening to this show right now And they go hey, I would like to help and I'm not necessarily talking monetarily but monetary, you know There's a lot of things you have on the website that people can volunteer for but what are some things that you know?

Individuals can assist. 

[00:37:08] Katie: Yeah. I really think it starts at home. I think that one of the biggest resiliency facts are factors for avoiding sexual abuse later in life and then also human trafficking or sex, sexual assault. trafficking is having at least one truly safe adult in your life that's, or in a kid's life, where that kid can be truly themselves, ask the hard questions, share their thoughts and their feelings and what they're going through without judgment.

Now, when I say without judgment, I don't mean with support as in condoning certain behaviors. I just mean Without judgment, without kind of manipulation or you're going to be a horrible kid if you think these things type of thing. So one truly emotional supportive person in their life. And so it starts with parents being willing to talk to their kids.

We also, I don't know what happened between the nineties and now I know when I was in the nineties, we used to say, how come adults don't talk to us about these things? But now I'm that age where, you know, if I had kids, I could be the person not talking to my kids about those things.

It's almost like when we grow up, we forget that we were teenagers. So being willing, yeah. Being willing to talk. Talk about sex with kids, about healthy relationships. We have victims who have been victimized from the time they were toddlers. We, there's victims as early as middle school that they're getting introduced to these things.

And so if we're at home going my kid's not old enough to talk about this stuff, but yet they're learning, oh no, yeah, they're talking about it. You want to be the place that your kids are getting information from. 

[00:38:49] Arnold: So you have a healing night out, you have young professionals, volunteer Facebook fundraisers, in kind donations, corporate matches, and a newsletter.

[00:38:59] Katie: Yeah, I took it to another direction, but yes. No, you're good. There's a lot of ways you can get involved with healing action, so we do. We're actually going to be at Rose Day in, in May. Oh, my advancement director is going to kill me. May 9th. I think it is. Is this 

[00:39:12] Arnold: a healing night out? 

[00:39:13] Katie: Nope. That is Rose Day she's going to hear this and point her finger at me.

We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, we'll put it in there. And then of course, Healing Action Night Out at the end of, or in September that's going to be a fun night of just hearing about the great work that Healing Action has done. You can also, like you mentioned, join our Young Professionals Board.

You can also join our regular board and You, we do trainings as well. The coalition does trainings across the state. So if you want to learn more information, you can go onto their website and find out what trainings are coming up in your areas. 

[00:39:49] Arnold: This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St.

Louis in Tune. We've been talking to Katie Rhoades. She is the founder and executive director of Healing Action. I'm going to give you a real pointed question here. 

[00:39:59] Katie: Absolutely. 

[00:40:01] Arnold: Somebody's listening. 

Who's involved? 

Okay. What do you tell them? 

[00:40:07] Katie: Oh, you can get out. It's that simple.

Katie, you don't 

[00:40:11] Arnold: know my situation. 

[00:40:12] Katie: Correct. I might not but I also have felt the same way. And we have an organization full of peer support providers and other clients or members who have said the same thing. And there, there is a way out. It's hard. There's plenty of times that you want to go back because it's familiar.

But it's worth it in the end. I didn't think I was going to live past my mid twenties. I really didn't. I had friends who we talked about what are we going to do before we die at 25, wow. And so it was a very real desperate place with no hope and there absolutely is hope and there is life beyond that world.

[00:40:55] Arnold: Okay. Now I'm going to, it's very similar. I want you to talk to yourself when you were 18, okay? Talk to yourself when you were 18 and it's, and, or maybe when you were having that conversation about what are we going to do before we die? Now, Katie, talk to. 

[00:41:12] Katie: Talk to Katie. 

[00:41:13] Arnold: Talk to Katie Beck. 

[00:41:14] Katie: Oh, goodness. Oh, goodness.

I have two things happening in my head right now. I think one is that I was hard headed as all get out. And there's a part of me that wants to say to myself hey, you

What are you doing? Come on over here. You don't need to go down this road. There, you don't have to live like this. And then I think the other part of my head is I would just give myself a hug and tell her that that people do love her and that she's not worthless, I think is probably the softer and the one that my therapist would approve of.

And that 

[00:41:47] Arnold: She has value. 

[00:41:48] Katie: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I firmly believe that every human being has value on this planet. And even if I want to yell at them in traffic, I still view that every human being has value. 

[00:42:00] Arnold: Somebody's listening and they, maybe they want to get in touch with Healing Action, that you've touched them.

How do they get in touch with Healing Action? 

[00:42:06] Katie: Yeah, you can shoot us an email at info, I N F O, at healingaction.org. You can also give us a call at 314 833 4515 and you can connect with a person there. 

[00:42:20] Arnold: And if you go to the website, folks, and if you're somebody who is maybe involved in a situation, there is an escape.

On there. So people can't see exactly what you were looking at prior to that. 

[00:42:31] Katie: Absolutely, and it won't go back to It won't go back to it either. So if you click out of it, it's going to go to a completely random website 

[00:42:40] Arnold: It does mine went to the weather channel. 

[00:42:42] Katie: Yes Now I will say this we are we I just want to put this out there we are working on a fix clear once you get through that scary situation that you might have just been in That you could have just been in, in order to hit escape make sure that you check the, you clear the browsing data.

Because it will show up on your browser. So we are working to fix that. Ah. 

[00:43:04] Arnold: So Katie is going to be at the National Crime Victims Awareness Week expert panel on April the 25th at 5 o'clock. At the International Institute of St. Louis, you can call 314 773 9090 or email info at iistl. org to get more information.

Katie, I really appreciate you. Coming on here and talking about your story and talking about healing action and the great work that you guys are doing 

[00:43:33] Katie: Absolutely, and I just want to do one last plug quickly for my staff. Absolutely. We have an amazing dedicated staff that put their goodness. Now I'm going to tear up put their whole heart and soul into serving survivors.

And they really do show up with that passion and embody our values. And this organization would not exist without our staff. And they have amazing relationships with our clients. I'm very proud of our staff and They probably get sick of me putting that out there but I am they're amazing and they really do care about the folks that we serve and our community.

That 

[00:44:09] Mark: means so much. . Yeah. It really does. They're 

[00:44:11] Katie: absolutely amazing. Like they carry the organization. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:44:14] Mark: They're not just showing up to work. 

[00:44:16] Katie: Correct. Yep. They're showing 

[00:44:17] Arnold: up to help. Yeah. That makes a big difference. That's great. That's important to do. And Healing Action staff, you should never be upset about that.

No. Frankly. That the person who's leading the organization and leading the charge gives you kudos because Absolutely. You do go through a lot and it's always nice to be recognized like that. Oh yeah. 

[00:44:35] Katie: Yeah. And they advocate for our clients and that's the best thing that our clients could have.

[00:44:41] Arnold: Yeah, we've got a little brief PSA we want to play for you. Okay. 

[00:44:45] Katie: When I think about life before trafficking and exploitation or what led me that direction there isn't a clearly defined. On one hand, I was a varsity athlete. I was involved in the marketing club. I did photography.

But on the other hand, I barely graduated with a 1. 8 GPA. I was pretty heavy into drugs and alcohol by that point. And I was dealing with undiagnosed PTSD from previous assaults. I spent a lot of my adolescence going in and out of depression and dealing with suicidal ideations suicide attempts.

And, I think I look back on that time and I was definitely primed and ready for somebody to swoop in and offer me a different way of life. I got into the sex trade because I was Sleeping in my car and I didn't have a place to go and I didn't have a support network stripping, didn't stay stripping.

Spent quite a bit of time surviving and just trying to figure out how to survive from one day to the next. I met a woman who was from a different state. And she looked like she had her crap together was the short answer. And she offered me a way out of the situation that I was in.

I met her boyfriend shortly after, and within a few days we went to California. They try to get you to go with them quickly because the longer time that you have to really think about the situation, the more likely you are to walk away from it. And so if they could get me out of my comfort zone, if they could get me into a different state I was less likely to leave.

And that's exactly what happened when I got out of the life. I did not know what future held for me. I didn't know really what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to help women who have been through what I had been through. We had to start from scratch. There was very few services available for folks who were coming off the streets and who were coming out of the life of prostitution and trafficking.

They needed a place that was safe, that they were not judged based on their life. And that they were viewed as victims of a crime, but also as capable individuals who can do something different and who do not need to stay where they're at. And I didn't know what that would look like, but I knew that it needed to start with survivors helping survivors.

We currently have about 11 full time staff. We've served over 200 individuals since we opened in November of 2015, and we're currently serving about 70 to 80 folks a week. We have not been able to grow the way that we have grown and to serve the folks that we serve without your help and without the help of our community.

And we cannot continue to provide services and offer hope and healing to survivors without your help. We need you and people like you to continue to support healing action. Join us so that we can ensure that survivors can continue to heal and rebuild their lives. 

[00:48:21] Arnold: That's great, Katie. You're doing a great job.

Unbelievable kinds of work, and thank you for the work that you're doing and the work that you will continue to do. And I want to encourage people to go to the event. It's on April 25th at 5 o'clock at the International Institute. Katie will be here along with two other individuals speaking about Human trafficking and you can go to Healing Action.

org. That's Katie's group that she is executive director of and that she founded again. Thanks for coming in today. 

[00:48:52] Katie: Absolutely. I appreciate it. 

[00:48:54] Arnold: Thank you, Mark. I think we're going to not do our other normal things just because this has been a real Sensitive topic, and we don't want to minimize the importance of it.

And so I think we'll just close the show out. That's all for this hour. We thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows at stlintune.com. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow.

I want to thank Bob Berthisell for our music. Co host Mark Langston and we thank you for being a part of our community of curious minds. St. Louis in Tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the U. S. Radio Network. Remember to keep seeking, keep learning. Walk worthy and let your light shine for St.Louis in Tune. I'm Arnold Stricker.