Gracehaven Community Engagement, Direct Care, and Education Expansion Program

Gracehaven, Inc. is a faith-based, non-profit organization committed to serving victims of child sex trafficking in Ohio since 2008. Gracehaven provides comprehensive and holistic services to victims as well as training and support services to the broader community. Specifically, this includes specialized comprehensive case management and intensive therapy, prevention education for youth, recognition and intervention training for adults and professionals, and a residential group home campus located in Central Ohio. The campus provides 24/7 care for female victims within multiple group houses located on site. Gracehaven’s community-based case management and prevention services represent the majority of its work, and the services are currently offered through four offices located in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Southeast Ohio. Gracehaven accepts referrals from every corner of Ohio, and they include victims from urban, rural, and suburban settings.

By its nature, Gracehaven programming offers a more viable and effective alternative to committing youth to facilities or placements that, studies show, ultimately create more harm than good. In effect, everything Gracehaven does has the goal of combatting and eliminating the criminalization of youth who have been sexually trafficked and/or exploited. Funding for this project will strengthen and expand Gracehaven’s work throughout Ohio as it hires four more staff members, broadens its network, increases its referrals for its specialized case management work, intervenes earlier in the youth-detention process, and increases professional educational experiences for Gracehaven staff and the general sex-trafficking education for the public.