Freedom Pathways: Serving & Supporting Survivors of CSEC in Contra Costa

MISSSEY provides intervention and prevention services to prevent girls and gender-expansive youth from entering circumstances of sexual exploitation/sex trafficking, supports young people who are being sexually exploited, and partners with them to exit exploitive situations. MISSSEY is also a nationally-recognized leader in the human trafficking field, developing and delivering trainings and technical assistance about commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) to cities, schools, service agencies, and individuals. For this project, MISSSEY will expand from its home base in Alameda County to open a satellite site in Contra Costa County, and partner with Contra Costa-based service providers to better serve trafficked girls in that county who are age 18 and younger. The project will particularly serve the Contra Costa County cities of Richmond and Antioch. MISSSEY will rent space from a youth service nonprofit partner RYSE Center to operate a Drop-In Center, where MISSSEY’s Case Management Team will serve 40-50 girls and gender-expansive youth per year who are vulnerable to or victimized by sex trafficking. MISSSEY’s team will provide intensive case management to 25-30 youth per year, including weekly contact, clinical services, life coaching, and referring them to wraparound services provided by partner agencies; and will operate street and school-based outreach to identify 100 trafficked youth per year. 
 
MISSSEY will also provide CSEC-prevention workshops that will engage 250 girls per year at two high schools and three middle schools in the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), to help them build knowledge and skill to avoid exploitation. Through this project MISSEY will also train 125 WCCUSD faculty and staff per year, and 200 staff per year at eight service provider partner agencies, to recognize, support, and refer CSE children and youth to MISSSEY for services.