Please refer to the solicitation your award was funded under for program-specific requirements.
Human trafficking is a crime that impacts not only the victim, but also the victim’s family. Providers must work with each client to understand his or her individual situation and develop appropriate goals regarding family members. Grant funds for services are intended primarily to support the cost of direct services for victims of human trafficking. Where the services for family members are directly related to promoting justice and healing for trafficking survivors, they are potentially allowable.
Every effort must be made to refer family members to other free and low-cost services, and to assist them in accessing federal, state, or local programs for which they may be eligible, including Medicaid, TANF, subsidized or transitional housing programs, schools, and workforce development and employment programs. Please contact your grant manager with specific questions related to using grant-funding for services for family members.
Per OVC’s human trafficking victim assistance performance measures, the definition of an eligible family member is: A related family member of the principal individual that receives services under the given grant. These individuals are not counted as the principal individual clients for the purpose of reports, and services incurred will be counted separately. For minors, eligible family members may include parents, spouse, children, and unmarried siblings under 21. For adults, eligible family members include spouse and children.
Grantees that serve all human trafficking victims within a geographic service area may also serve victims from outside of that area, with written approval from the OVC grant manager, if the grantee determines that it has the capacity to serve the victim and no other OVC-funded grantee is available to serve the victim. Grantees planning to permanently expand their service area must submit a Grant Award Modification (GAM) for a change in project scope.
Yes. As long as the client is a victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons who currently resides in the United States, they are eligible to receive services.
Grantees are able to serve all human trafficking victims, regardless of when the client experienced trafficking, subject to the specific parameters detailed in their award solicitation.
Yes. Clients are never required to self-identify as a victim and services should not be contingent upon self-identification. If the grantee determines, in good faith, that the client is a victim of human trafficking, services may be provided.
Grantee program staff should record the date(s) when the eligibility requirement is met on the intake form, case management system, or the equivalent. This documentation should be maintained in the case file to demonstrate the completion and outcome of screening for OVC program eligibility for each client served. Specific details of the person’s human trafficking experience are not necessary and generally should not be kept in the file maintained by the case manager or other staff.
Grantees should have policies and procedures in place to ensure that staff working directly with clients receive adequate training, support, and supervision. OVC requires that key staff, including case managers, must have prior victim service experience or be under the direct supervision of a senior case manager or project director with such experience. OVC recommends that case managers receive clinical supervision from a licensed social worker.
Grantees should note that the OVC award condition that states that the project director and/or any other key program personnel designated in the application shall be replaced only for compelling reasons. Successors to key personnel must be approved by OJP, and such approval is contingent upon submission of appropriate information, including, but not limited to, a resume. Changes in program personnel, other than key personnel, require only notification to OJP and submission of resumes, unless otherwise designated in the award document.
Any human trafficking grantee (and any subrecipient thereof) may not permit any grant staff to interact with any minor in the course of activities under the award, unless the recipient or subrecipient first has made a written determination of the suitability of that individual to interact with participating minors, based on current and appropriate information.
Yes. Relevant grant-funded staff are required to participate in grantee orientations and OVC-sponsored training and technical assistance. OVC records and posts important orientation materials on its foundational trainings page so that grant staff can rewatch as needed or share with new staff. These trainings address a wide range of topics, including administrative supports and civil rights regulations, and a checklist can also be downloaded from this site to help staff record and report on training attendance. OVC’s website features links to resources and other training and technical assistance. OVC recommends that new staff and community partners take the Understanding Human Trafficking training for a foundational training on responding to human trafficking.
Please refer to award documents for any additional mandatory program training requirements.
Please refer to the solicitation an award was funded under for program-specific requirements.
For most OVC Human Trafficking programs funded under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), the purpose of the funding is to support victim service programs: therefore, applicants should not propose primary prevention activities under this program. Primary prevention activities are any activities designed to protect individuals prior to victimization (i.e., stopping victimization before it occurs). Examples of primary prevention activities may include activities focused on the perpetrator of a crime, or that are focused primarily on crime prevention. Training and outreach conducted using OVC anti-trafficking funding should have the primary purpose of identification and referral of victims, but prevention may be an ancillary outcome of the program. Activities focused on preventing the revictimization of trafficking survivors are allowable.
One exception to the paragraph above is OVC’s Preventing Trafficking of Girls Program, which is funded under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 and does support prevention and early intervention programming for girls who are at risk of, or are victims of, sex trafficking.
OVC is committed to an approach to human trafficking that is trauma-informed, victim- centered, survivor informed, culturally responsive; and evidence-based. Definitions of these concepts are available in the glossary of OVC’s Model Standards for Serving Victims and Survivors of Crime.
In line with these concepts and to enhance survivors’ access to victim services, starting in FY 2022, OVC anti-trafficking programs selected for award will be required to attest that they engage in practices that remove barriers to receiving services and support survivor autonomy. Such practices will reduce requirements to engage in services, promote survivors’ choice within service delivery, and protect victim privacy and confidentiality.
Funded programs will demonstrate their commitment to this approach by maintaining the following. (Note: Many of these requirements are mandated by federal civil rights laws, while others reflect OVC’s policy direction to recipients to enhance access to services and promote survivor autonomy.)
- Procedures or policies that provide all survivors access to safe shelter, advocacy services, counseling, and other assistance without exclusions based on actual or perceived sex, age, immigration status, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, mental health condition, physical health condition, criminal record, involvement in commercial sex, income or lack of income, or the age and/or sex of their children. For those programs that by their design target a particular population (e.g., youth, gender specific) there should be procedures or policies in place to ensure access to comparable, qualified services for other survivors seeking support.
- Procedures or policies that protect the confidentiality of information and/or privacy of persons receiving services.
- Procedures or policies that do not require victims to take certain actions (e.g., receive counseling, report to law enforcement, commit to sobriety) to be eligible for, or to receive services. For youth serving programs with justifiable mandatory requirements, a shared decision making model should be used to provide minors with agency in determining a course of action.
- Project designs, products, services, and/or budgets that consider the unique needs of individuals with disabilities, with limited English proficiency, or who are Deaf or hard of hearing, including accessibility for such individuals.