Link to Recording: (Recording No Longer Available)
Harm reduction is a framework and a set of strategies used to meet the needs of youth and young people engaging in or experiencing unsafe behaviors and circumstances including commercial sexual exploitation. This presentation will review the philosophy of harm reduction and why it is an effective strategy for youth-serving professionals when working with sexually exploited youth. Five high risk behaviors or experiences with be discussed (active exploitation, substance, misuse, violent relationships, leaving care without permission, and dangerous cell phone/social media use). Practice applications of harm reduction will be reviewed through lecture, reflection, and discussion.
Objectives
1. Participants will be able to list three reasons why harm reduction is applicable to sexually exploited youth and young people.
2. Participants will reflect on and analyze 5 philosophies of harm reduction from the literature.
3. Participants will evaluate 2-3 applications of harm reduction in their own work with sexually exploited youth.
Presenters:
Dr. Brandi D. Liles is a licensed clinical psychologist at the CAARE Center in the Pediatric Department of the UC Davis Children’s Hospital. Over the course of her career, Dr. Liles has developed an expertise inworking with children, youth, young adults and their families who have experienced trauma and maltreatment including commercial child sexual exploitation. She has worked extensively with socially, culturally and economically diverse and disadvantaged children and families. In addition to providing evidence-based assessment and treatment to clients, she provides training and consultation for students, interns, community providers, and child welfare and juvenile justice system partners in a variety of topics related to trauma-responsive care.
Dr. Dawn Blacker is a clinical psychologist and Co-Interim Director of Mental Health Services at the UC Davis CAARE Center as well as the Training Director of the APA-Accredited Psychology Internship in the Department of Pediatrics, University of California Davis Children’s Hospital. Over the past 23 years, Dr. Blacker’s primary clinical and research interests have focused on issues of abuse/neglect and trauma within the family context as well as issues related to training clinicians in evidenced based practices. As a senior psychologist, Dr. Blacker provides individual therapy services such as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Trauma Focused Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy as well as Evaluation services for clients with very diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds. As the Training Director of the CAARE Center, Dr. Blacker spends much of her time providing training and consultation to early career staff through the APA accredited Psychology Internship. She is also a trainer of Parent Child Interaction Therapy and has trained over 50 plus clinicians in PCIT. Dr. Blacker is also involved in the training of professionals including clinicians on providing services for sexually exploited youth. She oversees 4 contracts with Sacramento County (Probation; Child Protective Services; Behavioral Health; Public Defenders’ Office) that provide training and services for sexually exploited youth and their caregivers. Dr. Blacker has also co-developed a web course on sexual exploitation as well as a Caregiver Skills Group curriculum for caregivers caring for youth with a history of sexual exploitation. Dr. Blacker is also Co- Chair of the NCTSN Child Trafficking Workgroup.