Transcript:

00:00 Hello, this is Melissa Hale-Spencer, the editor of the Altamont and I'm really excited to have here today. Theresa Schillaci, and she is the person who is the coordinator for Albany County Safe Harbor. Welcome, Theresa. Thanks. Thanks very much for having me. I'd like to start by hearing a little bit

00:22 about yourself. I see there's an esquire after your name, so I know you're a lawyer, but if you could just kind of tell us who you are and how you got here to this position. Sure, sure. Thank you. Um, yeah, what a strange journey.

00:38 Ben. Um, I, I'm, I'm actually a retired state employee. I, um, I have a master's degree in criminal justice with a concentration in juvenile justice. Um, I worked for the division of the budget for about nine years. Went to law school, got my degree, and then for most of my seniors were mid career. Somebody who went back to law school. What made you decide to do that? I think it was something that I always wanted to do, um, and working for the division of the budget. Um, I was involved in a lot of, um, doing budgeting for a lot of law enforcement related agencies and that the desire to go to law school and never left me. Um, so I had the opportunity to pursue that dream and so I went to western New England in Springfield, Massachusetts. I did that. I did a commute probably as you were working as I was working.

01:35 Gosh. And there, there are, are other folks who do that as well, so we had a Carpool and um, I have some lifelong friends as a result of a that Carpool for all those years. So, um, once I, um, became an attorney, um, I, I went to, um, the, um, of the court administration as a, as a labor lawyer for a little while, um, but most of my career as an attorney was spent with the State Ethics Commission where we investigated a violations of the public officer's law, you know, state employees accepting gifts, contract fixing, that kind of thing. I loved that job and did it for over 20 years. Um, and then, um, I spent a small amount of time at the Public Service Commission as a director of internal audit and that's where I retired, so I had 32 years of state service and you didn't retire and sit back and run,

02:43 lax did for a whole year. Um, and after about a year I think

02:50 I felt like I wanted to do something completely different, um, and this opportunity came up. So. So tell us what is safe harbor? So, so safe harbor is a program that is, it is funded by the New York State Office of children and family services and the idea is to, um, provide a one stop shop, if you will, for um, youth who are victims of or at risk for trafficking, human trafficking. Um, the state provides seed money to each of the counties. Um, I think by 20, 20, all of the counties will have a safe harbor program of one kind or another. And the idea is to provide support, resources, services, um, to wraparound a youth should they find themselves in this situation or at risk for trafficking. So my job when I came on in Albany county was to basically set up the program. And when was that?

04:00 When did that program start again? It started four years ago. I came in about a year into the program and it was really, um, it was really floundering. We really didn't have anybody who was, who was leading the charge. So, um, so that's what I did. That's what I, I came on board to do was to start the program. And um, so, uh, we work out of the Children's advocacy center. Um, we take a multi, what is the location of that is, um, to 60 south Pearl Street. Okay. In Albany. Um, and we take a multidisciplinary approach. Once a youth is identified, we bring in folks from a bunch of disciplines from, from probation, from, um, the hospitals in the area we have on our team, um, Albany Med and St Peter's whatever this, this youth may need to get through the process. We also have funds available that are some that are supported through the state now and eventually the county to provide any kind of services that the youth may need that fall outside of what the county would normally provide.

05:13 So for example, we find that, um, equine therapy is something that works very well and, and youth are very responses where kids learn how to ride horses. I'll take care of horses. Just that idea of, of, of caring for something else. And um, it's just, it's just something that really works for them or art therapy, that kind of thing. Um, so we have the, we have the luxury of having those funds available to, to help kids kind of transition out of out of the life that they may have been leading to the life that they could have. Um, and, and these are, um, therapy tools that kind of help them through that process. Um, it, it, it's a very, um, it's a, it's a very interesting job. I personally know having lived here for in Albany County for 40 years or more. Um, didn't really think that that was a problem, that trafficking was a problem in, in, in, in the united

06:15 stakes, let alone Albany County, right? So often we think of it is in foreign countries are people coming here from foreign countries. And I saw a documentary by Rachel law, Rachel Lloyd, very young girls that they showed it Albany law school last year and still thinking of it maybe as a New York City. And then I started talking to people right here in Guilderland. Carol loll are our police chief because people said trafficking's happening across Gates Merle. And she said, you know, I can't say it's not, there's so much social media we'd have to check and we don't have the staff port. So if you could just kind of awaken our listeners to how it is here, how, how to kids in Albany County

07:01 get

07:02 into the situation. Yeah. So, so what happens a lot of, lot of

07:06 different ways. Um, basically the commercial sexual exploitation of children, um, it kids are on the Internet. You think about, think about a normal middle school youth, right? Normal middle school kid has the, that kind of regular eggs. Do you know, I need to fit in, I need to be with a click. I need to have the right clothes. Just that, that kind of growing pains. No one's paying attention to me. I want a boyfriend or a girlfriend, just that normal function. And then you layer on top of that. Any other dysfunction that might be going on in the family, whether it's substance abuse or do you know, absent parents, whatever it may be, laying those additional, um, conditions on top of the youth, it's already vulnerable, makes them even more so vulnerable. So they get on the Internet and they, they get into chat rooms and they talked to people that they don't know and strike up a friendship and they might be getting the attention that they're not getting anywhere else.

08:13 Somebody telling them they're beautiful, somebody telling them that they can give them everything they need. And, and very soon the youth this is pulled into that and they're, they're making bad decisions and they're running away and, and they're being promised the sun, the moon and the stars. And, and quickly they become involved in trafficking. It's that scenario, or it could be a situation where, um, maybe it's a, um, an lbgtq youth who's come out and their parents, their parents have thrown them out of the house. Um, so they're, so they're engaging in survival sex, they're couch surfing, they're doing whatever they need to do to have a over their head and food in their stomach. So, so even that is considered, um, survival sex is considered commercial sexual exploitation, even even though they're the ones that might be personally benefiting from it. Um, unfortunately you also have situations where parents are trafficking their youth.

09:16 They may be, they may be selling their youth to, for drug money or to pay the rent. I mean, it's unfortunate but that, but that does happen. So it can happen a lot of different ways. Go into the mall. Um, you know, the, the traffickers will, um, you know, pick the one kid who maybe isn't with anybody or seems kind of lonely or you know, they're, they're looking down, they seem despondent and, um, and they'll, they'll the friend them. And the grooming process will start. And this person will seem like a friend and, and um, they'll, they'll get pulled into the web. So it happens. It happens a lot of different ways. So it's important to get the word out about, about what this is. I've been trying to get into the schools within Albany county to talk about this issue that the middle schools in particular are middle school aged kids are particularly vulnerable.

10:19 Um, and with mixed success, you know, I've talked to school resource officers, I've talked to school nurses. Um, we actually have a, um, a video now that the at the, at the state is supporting the safe harbor economies to go out and show to folks specifically geared toward that middle age group. Kids are 12, 13, 10, 11, 12, 13. Yeah. And it's in kind of a cartoon format. Um, um, but it talks about, um, um, good, good, good relationships and, and talks about how there are bad people out there. They're wolves out there. It's sort of cast in the Little Red Riding Hood a format, um, and it's been difficult to get the schools to attention to mixed success. Why would that be? Why would schools resist that kind of thing that would actually protect their students to some extent. I, I can understand it. First of all, it's a difficult subject.

11:24 Um, the schools have a lot of demands on their, on their precious school day. And here's one more thing you want us to do. You know, so I, I get that. Um, a lot of them may, may just believed that it isn't an issue. So why take precious time from the school day to, to present a program like this, so that, so that, so they're, the reasons are varied. Um, but I'm, I'm, I'm still plugging away and I'm hoping that at some point we can show the video to a school and word will spread and uh, and um, you know, it'll snowball and we can, we can take it from there. But it's been difficult up until this point. Well, tell us about the numbers involved in Albany County men. How widespread is this? Is the perception that it's more of a city problem than a suburban problem and is that accurate or how, how did the demographics work on this?

12:28 Well, um, we always, um, tell folks, and I certainly do when I do presentations that the statistics are a little bit misleading and in part because, um, the information that, that I'm getting, um, has to do with youth who are coming into the child welfare system or, um, youth who may be showing up at service providers, you know, the St Anne's and the Parsons and ache equinox, different, different, um, um, service providers that provide, um, care and support to, to you. Um, but that's not the whole picture, right? There's a whole, there's a whole underbelly of activity out there that we're just not aware of. So, so the, the statistics that I have, um, tell part of the picture. So we know that over the last couple of years, approximately 90 youth have been identified as either at medium or high risk for trafficking. Um, we have four confirmed cases of trafficking in Albany County.

13:39 I'm in one of those instances. Um, the, the youth was 12 years old. Um, and to some extent a mostly females, mostly mostly female. Um, in, in Albany County, the average age is about 15. It's about 80 percent female, um, and that's, that's relatively consistent with, um, with the national statistics look like, but again, that's, I think that's a little bit skewed. I think that, um, there's probably more males out there than you realize. I think we know that, um, males are less likely to disclose. Um, I don't think we're always looking for males perhaps. Um, and in New York state, we've only recently in the last four or five years, begun really keeping track and screening youth for, um, for trafficking and for being at medium or high risk for trafficking. So I think as, as more counties come onto the safe harbor program and more counties are really keeping track of, of, of we're seeing those numbers are going to get better and better. Um, the, uh, I think the state numbers, the state numbers are, uh, around 2100 statewide that have been identified as it at medium or high risk for trafficking. And, and, uh, the, I think about 360. You have been identified as trafficking victims in your state. So, um, you know, and those numbers are going to, are going to grow as more counties come onto the safe harbor

15:26 because the safety net will get extended and extended and more people will be screening on you. So, well is there a prosecution component to this? In other words, in the cases, is pimp still a word that people use? Trafficker, I think you said, is there a component where if it isn't, like you said for instance the youth that are kicked out in couchsurfing and sort of on their own, but is there a sense that there are people that are actually, you called them wolves at one point, I think, um, you know, marketing these children. Is there an element that's like safe harbor works with police? Um,

16:09 I'm catching those people. How does that work? Well, we do in our most of multidisciplinary approach. We do work with local law enforcement. We work with the FBI, we work with homeland security. Um, you know, our job, our job is separate from the prosecution, but you know, we will certainly, when we have that information, we, we pass it on and you know, whatever happens beyond that will happen even as between, um, counties, sometimes safe harbor programs will share each with each other, you know, here's the, here's the latest thing that's going on, keep an eye out for this or keep an eye out for this youth. This youth is with this individual and they're coming to your county kind of thing. So, so the safe harbor counties do share that kind of information between us. Um, and, and all the safe harbor counties work with local law enforcement to, to, um, to share what information we have about traffickers and in some counties the safe harbor program has been integral in, in providing information that ultimately results in, in arrests and convictions of traffickers. So, you know, again, not, not really part of our job, but if we can supply that information to help law enforcement, you know, we do do that.

17:29 Well. Can you give us, obviously, I know you couldn't use names, but just like a sort of vignette or description of one of these children really they sound like children, um, who, who's coming to your safe harbor and um, I know you mentioned a variety of things with the art therapy and according to working with, but just kind

17:50 of if you can give us a portrait of an individual and how you get them extricated and feeling good enough about themselves that they don't fall back into that. Well, I'll give you sort of sort of a composite of a young girl who, who has a lot of dysfunction in her family. There's a number of children in her family. Um, not, not getting support, not getting glove, not getting attention. I'm having some learning disability issues as well. Um, she but friends, an individual who purports to care about her is her boyfriend. She would characterize it as her boyfriend, little bit older. Um, the, they. MMM hmm. Actually a lot older.

18:54 The boy begins to gain her trust, groom her. Um, it, it's a lot like, is that it's a lot like a, um, domestic violence kind of situation where there's, there's, there's this all to altering of providing love and support and then, and then unkind things, you know, in the end, the, the youth is always hoping for the, the, that, the, that, the support and the level will come again. Um, the, the, the young man begins to sell the girl. Um, she does it once, she does it twice. He says, if you love me, if you care about me, um, you know, we can do this together and you know, it'll benefit both of us. When she gets money for it, he gives her some of it or he'll give her, um, you know, he'll give her something of value that she wants a nice pair of sneakers or, you know, whatever jewelry.

19:57 So she's, she's benefiting from it. Um, and then for whatever reason, if the relationship sours, she goes off on her own and says, I can, I can do this myself. I don't need him. Picks up strangers on the street. A stranger takes her back to his apartment. Um, keeps her for a weekend. Um, she's reported missing. Um, the, the, she is ultimately found walking the street, the shuffled hungry and then she comes into the child welfare system at that point. Um, we try wrapping services around her. The problem is they've, they've suffered so much trauma, um, it's hard to gain their trust. So with, with a lot of, a lot of the safe harbor kids, they will be able to come into care and then leave and come into care and leave. Um, because they've been told not to trust authority. They've been told no one's going to help them.

21:05 Somebody is out there, they're out for something, they want something from you. And it takes a really long time to build that trust up. It's also difficult because you're trying to explain to them that the life that they've been living, you know, maybe doing two or three tricks the night for 12 or a 13 year old, that that life that they been living is, um, is something that they can transition away from, you know, somebody that age should be in middle school. Do you know, picking out a dress for the school dance and the bridge between the life that they've been living in the life that they could have seems insurmountable. What I'm doing now, this life that I'm leaving, that I'm living now sucks. It's horrible, but it's, it's comfortable to the extent that I know what it is that I don't know what it is that, that other, that other kind of life that can't be mine. And it takes a long time to, to really build up that trust, um, you know, tear down the walls, um, get through the trauma that they've experienced to let them know that there's really another way to live in it. And it just takes a lot of support, a lot of trauma informed care to, to, um, to help them through that transition. And that's what safe harbor helps to do. What

22:35 important work you do. Wow. So where physically is this child during this time? I mean in a foster home or what?

22:46 How in the system does that work? So they could be in foster care, they could be at home, depending on the nature of the trafficking at the, for example, the parents weren't involved, you know, it's possible that they could be at home living at home and getting services or guys like that. You also work with the parents to let them realize the needs of the child. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. We do work with the parents.

23:13 So are there things that the public perhaps our listeners could do to help this program or to, um, in any way support your work? Is there anything other than just the information to be on the lookout? Yeah, if you could let us know kind of to what the signs are. Yeah, I'm trying to picture it as a parent and because there is a natural tension I think in adolescent years that develops between parents and children as they're trying to define themselves and distance themselves and like, are there red flags are pointers that parents can look for to be aware when something like this

23:58 is

23:59 about to happen or occurring? Sure. They're actually a lot of red flags and there's actually,

24:06 um, um, different types of red flags. Um, we, we offered them to hospitals, for example, between, I've heard I've seen different statistics anywhere from 67 percent to 88 percent of individuals who, um, who in the process of being trafficked show up at a, at a emergency room or an urgent care. So there are, there are red flags for, for hospitals. Um, there are red flags for schools to be aware of. There are red flags in the hospitality industry, you know, the, the, the hotels and the motels, things that they should be looking for. Generally. I think, um, you know, somebody who I'm a youth in particular and that's where my focus is. Um, their frequent runaways. I'm probably 80 percent of, of the youth that we, that we encounter are runaways either run away from home or runaway from, um, a social welfare program that they're involved in.

25:05 Um, a disconnect from family and friends. Um, uh, having items of value that just show up with no real explanation for how they got them, you know, whether it's, you know, new sneakers or jewelry or whatever it might be, kind of a sort of red flag, um, signs of abuse or, or, or injuries that are untreated. No, no reason for or explanation for how they got them. Um, a, a disconnect, a disconnect from, um, for example, in school, maybe they stopped showing up at school or the grades, the grades significantly drop. Um, so there's, there's a lot of different kinds of science, you know, and again, now, now one particular sign might, might send up a red flag, but if you're looking at a pattern of behavior that, that, that changes, um, it, it might be, it might be a concern that might be something to look for.

26:08 Um, the, the safe harbor program has also has a, um, a website. Doesn't everybody have a website? Tell us what that website. So if you, if you just, it's, it's a, it's a very long unfriendly address. But if you just google safe harbor, Albany County, we will come right up around the. We're on the department for children and family services. You can family website a page within that. Um, and so there's information there that folks can go to. I provide training and public materials tend to anyone who asks for them. Um, one of the things that we recently started, um, January as human trafficking awareness month, um, is we've started soliciting, um, items, personal care items. A lot of times when youth run from traffickers, um, we provide them with what we call a gold bag, the go bag, and it's a, basically a backpack that has a, you know, toiletries and flip flops and close granola bars, water, what, whatever, whatever they need to kind of, that's, that's their own to make that, to make that break.

27:23 So there is a list on our website if things that folks could, could donate to the safe harbor program that we would love to have. So if someone wants to donate in there listening to this, they would just go to that page on the website and it would tell them how to do that right there for, for the things that, that we could really use. Yeah. Because listening to you, you just feel like you want to do something, you know, and it just, our time has gone so fast. Is there other, any closing thoughts you have? Sometimes I miss the most important thing to a person. But um, do you have any thoughts to leave us with? Well, I am going to be doing a presentation at the Guilderland public library this coming Monday. That's how I found you. It was in our library notes on January 20 at seven.

28:12 And do you have other um, scheduled, um, talks like that in the area and I think that's the last one for this month. Have scheduled appearances. But, but as I said, I'm always available to do an appearance appearances, talk to talk to PTA is I really want to get into those schools if, if folks are, are interested in having this kind of information presented to them. I am, um, and then again to reach you, they just go to that county page and there's contact information there. That's where I found you. Yes. Well, thank you theresa so much for sharing this really heart wrenching information and I wish you the best in your really worthwhile work. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to share it with you.