Enhanced Collaborative Model Task Force to Combat Human Trafficking Grantees Onboarding and Orientation

ERIN WIRSING: Good afternoon. Good morning, everyone. Hello to the fiscal year '23 Enhanced Collaborative Model Task Forces to Combat Human Trafficking. For those of you who are brand-new, we like to call you the ECMs because that's a mouthful. Congratulations on your new funding. We are so excited to both continue working with some of you and welcome the rest of you into the ECM fold. And welcome to today's webinar, part one of two. I am Erin Wirsing with Project Roadmap. I use she/her pronouns. 

We are funded by OVC with a cooperative agreement, similar to you guys, but our deliverables are focused on supporting you as ECM grantees to meet your deliverables. You're going to learn more about that on the 14th of December for part two. I have two colleagues on today, who probably won't get on camera, but Erin Albright and Drew Sorba are here with us doing behind-the-scenes stuff. You'll see Erin in the chat quite a bit, probably. As you can see on this slide, probably, this session is being recorded, and the recording and the slide deck will be shared with you all afterwards. So, if you're feeling like you can't keep up and there's too much being said, don't worry. It will come to you. If you have tech problems, you can reach out to Jameel, who has also put his information in the chat. Okay. 

How many of you all attended the session on the 14th? You can just say yes in the chat, if you want. That was focused on OVC as a whole, and you got an intro to JustGrants and performance measurements and a lot of other things. I'm told those slides in the recording are going to be sent out soon for your reference. For today's agenda, however, we're going to be focusing in on the ECM. You're going to get to know more about the HT Division, the specific grant managers that are assigned to your task forces, and the ECM model, along with some program requirements and expectations. I'm actually about to hand this whole thing off to OVC in a second. Next slide. 

Today, the hope is that you'll gain a better understanding of OVC's expectations of your award and how to best connect with your assigned OVC personnel. Speaking of funding expectations, Erin, can you put a link in the chat for the solicitation? We'd like for you, guys all to have your fiscal year '23 solicitation open today, so that when we're referencing things, you can take a look. Okay. Next slide. 

And last slide for me, you'll see on the screen, there's a map of the currently-funded ECM Task Forces. There are nearly 50 of you with active funding. That's—and then there's 10 task forces with fiscal year '23 funding, which is 20 grantees. Again, congratulations. Hopefully, this picture gives you a sense of the varying types of geographies covered by this funding. And again, don't forget, this slide deck will be shared with you afterwards. So, any links that are coming at you or that are on the slides, you don't have to worry about copying down yet. But, I know Erin will also be putting that in the chat for you in case you do want it all right today. And shout-out to Drew for manning the slide deck for us today, and I think that's enough for me. So I'm going to pass it off to Olga Santiago.

OLGA SANTIAGO: Thank you, Erin. And let me see if you can see me now, starting my camera. Hopefully, you can see me, and here.

ERIN WIRSING: We can see you.

OLGA SANTIAGO: Okay. Okay. Perfect. Hello, everyone. My name is Olga Santiago. I'm a Grant Manager at the Human Trafficking Division, and I'm going to be presenting the next couple of slides. So we're going to start with the Office of Victims of Crime (OVC) overview and our mission. So, OVC is committed to enhancing the nation's capacity to assist crime victims and to providing leadership in changing policies and practices to promote justice and healing for all victims of crimes. So basically, that's OVC's whole mission. So next slide. 

Okay. So, let's begin into the OVC Human Trafficking Divisions and Programs. So, to address the crime of human trafficking, the U.S. Congress passed the TVPA of 2000, or the Trafficking Victim Protection Act. And basically this is subject to the availability of appropriations. The Attorney General makes grants to states; Indian tribes; units of local government; and nonprofit, non-governmental victim services organizations to develop, expand, or strengthen victim services programs for victims of trafficking, including programs that provide housing to victims of trafficking. The '22 USC, that is the statutory authority, this statute also requires 25 percent matching funds for applicants. Only up to 5 percent of OVC anti-trafficking funding can be used for training and technical assistance, and only up to 3 percent of OVC anti-trafficking funding can be used for research and evaluation. So the human trafficking division mission is to enhance capacity to identify, assist, and provide services to all victims of human trafficking. 

The OVC Human Trafficking Division leads the nation in supporting victim-centered and trauma-informed programs, policies, and resources that promote justice, access, and empowerment. So the majority of OVC anti-trafficking funds support direct services to victims, multidisciplinary teams, statewide responses to child and youth trafficking, and TTA, that is also known as technical and training assistance. Technical and training assistance also known as the TTA. We oversee the largest amount of federal funding for anti-trafficking programs in the United States. And we have a quick question here for you guys. How many human trafficking awards does OVC manage? Put an answer in the chat just to see if you get near that number. Eighty? Okay. Twelve? How many human trafficking awards does OVC, the Office for Victims of Crime manage? Higher. Yeah. Sorry. You're right. It's higher. 200, 350? Okay. And we see the answer. We manage over 465 OVC human trafficking awards covering almost every state and territory. And thank you for participating on the chat. Next slide. 

Okay. Mandatory Program Requirements. So, it is important that these, applied across all human trafficking solicitations and award conditions, reiterate and reflect the commitment that OVC has to support victim-centered and trauma-informed programs, policies, and resources that promote justice, access, and empowerment. So, mandatory program requirements, let's start with the first one. Submit policies and procedures for review. This is going to be done post-award. The second one, ensure relevant staff participate in any grantee orientations and OVC-sponsored training and technical assistance. So, we saw a lot of people that participated in the—our first training. We really appreciate that. And if you are here, you are doing a great job. But this is part of what we are asking on the mandatory requirements, that you participate and attend in the webinars, and be sure—and we want to let you know that there's going to be more orientations and more training and technical assistance available to you through the ECM-specific providers and other OVC TTA providers. 

So, it's important that you get posted that we're going to be having more training and more information for you guys. The other point here is, describe ongoing efforts to enhance responses to labor trafficking, as part of routine programmatic report. And we want to highlight here that labor trafficking is also a priority for your investigation, your services, and prosecution. So, labor trafficking is also part of the human trafficking. And so, we want to make sure that you have that also as part of your, you know, mandatory program requirements. And provide all grant-funded staff at least one session of training related to diversity, equity, inclusion, or accessibility, and tied to program goals and objectives annually. We also call this the DEIA. So, when you see those letters, DEIA, we are referring to the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility trainings. If you want to have more information or you want to look at these requirements in more detail, you can look at those at page 11 or 12 of your solicitation. So, you see that square at the bottom that says page 11 and 12 solicitation? All this information is on the solicitation, so you can read it again. Next slide. 

Okay. We continue with mandatory program requirements. Ensure policies and procedures follow applicable federal and state law, protecting the civil rights of program participants and staff. And this is going to be done post-award. And ensure that any staff, partner staff, or service providers working with trafficking victims are adequately licensed and trained to work with such victims, including by accessing OVC-supported training and technical assistance. And also you can look at this information on page 11 and 12 of the solicitation. Next slide. 

So what is a cooperative agreement? Cooperative agreements require more oversight and your grant manager will work closely with you, and OVC will provide input and redirection to the project as needed. In consultation with you, that is the recipient, we'll monitor the project through ongoing contact with you. How are we going to be doing that? This contact may include a variety of methods, such as information requests related to performance, performance reports, both outputs and outcome, developmental project decision points, some changes in your project scope or personal, discussing changes to your approved budgets or coordination of related projects. Or if you have any questions regarding your grant, you can always ask. So—and we will be in close contact with you. Cooperative agreements work that way. We'll require—each requires a little bit more of oversight. Next slide. 

And your OVC grant manager, advisor, you all--we are also known as victim justice program specialist or grant monitors, it's all the same. We are all the same. We have, like, a lot of names. It's the same person. It's us. So, what do we do? We approve your progress report. We do—we approve also the modifications to your award. Modifications, you will submit those through JustGrants and those are called GAMs. We monitor grantee compliance with solicitation and completion of project deliverables. We also perform site visits, either in person or remotely. This year, we're going to be doing more in-person site visits. So, that's great, because we have been—for the past two or three years, we were doing a lot of remote. But we are able now to do a lot of in-person site visits, which we really enjoy. Discuss, review, and approve change to scope of work or use of grant funds for activities that were not included in your budget or program or project narrative. We also have subject matter expertise with cooperative agreements. 

Cooperative agreements requires more oversight, and we work closely with recipient on programmatic input development and review. We also want to highlight something. There is something that we call the program manager, and there's also the program lead. So we want to make sure that you understand the difference between those roles. The program lead for the ECM or the Enhanced Collaborative Model for human trafficking awards is Alissa Huntoon. And the program managers, you're going to see a picture later where you can see all the program managers for the ECM, but it's important that you know that difference between the program lead and the program manager. 

And on November 14th, there was a webinar, and we took time to jump into JustGrants to ensure we all knew who our assigned grant manager is. So hopefully, you know who's your grant manager. If you don't know that information, it's in JustGrants and you can look at it, okay? But I believe that most of the grant managers have already talked or sent an email or have some kind of communications with you, guys. Okay. 

Next slide. And here is the ECM Program Staff. So we have Alissa Huntoon, she is the Program Lead. She's a Senior Policy Advisor. Her email is there. The next person is me, Olga Santiago, and I'm a Victim Justice Program Specialist. My email address is also there. Natalia Aguirre is also part of our team. She's a Victim Justice Program Specialist. And we have Aaron Bryant. He's also a Victim Justice Program Specialist. And all our emails are right there. So, this is a beautiful, fantastic ECM Program Staff. Okay. We currently have four grant managers. There are three assigned to the fiscal year '23 grantees, so take a look at these faces and we will remind you in the next couple of slides who your grant manager is. So, next slide. 

Alissa Huntoon. Here is a little information about her. So she is the ECM Program Lead. Her favorite season is fall. The best way to reach her is by email or phone. She loves to work in the office. She's in the Eastern Time Zone. She has three fiscal year '23 ECMs. That is Arkansas, Treasure Valley, Kaw Valley, and Tarrant County. Her expertise is the national program and policy development specific to policy, community-based crime reduction initiative, police research partnership, and data-driven efforts. We have a question there. Can she fold a fitted sheet, yes or no? Let's see on the chat. And her information, her contact information is at the bottom, you see there, her email and phone number. Okay. Next slide. 

So—okay. Olga Santiago, that's me. My favorite season is winter, but in Puerto Rico, where I'm based right now. The best way to reach me is via email. I work remotely, fully remote. I'm in the Atlantic Time Zone. Assigned fiscal year '23 ECM is Riverside County, Palm Beach County, Plymouth County, and Westchester County. My expertise is in human trafficking, cooperative agreements, and grants management. And the question is, can I fold a fitted sheet? And my information is right on the bottom of my email, and my phone number, my cell phone. And there's a quote from Natalia, she believes, and she said that, "I'm pretty—she’s pretty sure that I have the Financial Guide memorized."  Okay. Next slide. 

So, we have Natalia Aguirre. Natalia, her favorite season is fall. The best way to reach her is via email. She loves working from home. She's in the Eastern Time Zone. She has two new fiscal year '23 ECM, Orange County and Wisconsin. And her expertise is in polyvictimization, family justice centers, and collaboratives. Can she fold a fitted sheet? Let's see the answers on the chat. And her contact information is on the bottom of the slide right there. Natalia Aguirre and the phone number. Next slide.

ERIN WIRSING: Hey, Olga, time check.

OLGA SANTIAGO: Okay. This is the last one. Yeah, I did good. Next slide. Okay. OVC Expectation of Grantees Generally. Okay. So the first thing is don't be afraid to ask questions. Questions are good. OVC and your TTA provider are here to help. And please do not guess. If you have a question or you're in doubt, please send us an email. Understand the requirements for your award through the solicitation. Read the solicitation, check the specific award conditions, they are on JustGrants, so you can search them. If you don't know how to look at them, let us know. We can show you how to get there and how to look at them. Be familiar with your project goals, objectives, activities, and application materials. 

Work with your grant manager to successfully administer the grant award. Know when to engage with OVC, this is a cooperative agreement, so make sure that you ask questions. And know how to navigate the different DOJ systems and locate existing supporting resources, guidance, and support. We have a lot of help out there. We have the frequently asked questions, JustGrants helpdesk, the PMT helpdesk. We have the TTA providers, so make sure that you—that you ask questions. And also, I talked about Alissa, that she's the program lead. She sends emails with very important information, I want to highlight that. Very important information that you should read. That email is sent to the grant award administrator, so make sure that the information that is on the system is correct, and that the person that is receiving those emails can actually forward that information to other staff members of the ECM. So those emails are gold, so you should read them, okay? So now, I'm going to leave you with Natalia.

ERIN WIRSING: Hey, Natalia, before you start talking, I think we need--we need each of you guys to say, at least in the chat, whether you can fold a fitted sheet or not, because everybody's really wondering.

NATALIA AGUIRRE: I was going to lead with that. I was like, "I bet everyone's dying to know if I can actually fold a fitted sheet."  I can. It took a lot of practice. So yes, it's one of my secret talents, y'all. Olga, did you want to answer?

OLGA SANTIAGO: Yes, actually I can. I can fold a fitted sheet, so.

NATALIA AGUIRRE: Yes. And she showed all of us. She demoed how to do it. So if you ever need tips or tricks, you can ask Olga as well. All right. I'm going to take us through the overview of the Enhanced Collaborative Model. So this is going to be the 30,000 foot level, and then we'll have Alissa who will dig a little bit deeper. So, Drew, if you want to go to the next slide, that'd be great. 

Okay. So as you all know, the task force model's really made up of two partners, a law enforcement agency and a victim service provider. Hopefully you all know that because you are here, you made it. And what we are going to be emphasizing throughout this webinar and through ongoing conversations is this co-leadership structure. And you can see how this has really upheld through the funding and the funding structure, since you all have two different awards, but really are moving towards the same goal in the same direction. And so I'm going to have a little question that I'm going to ask here for you to put in the chat, but there were three funding categories in the solicitation this year. Category one are the new task forces. And by new, we mean those that have not previously received ECM funding. 

Category two were task forces that previously did receive funding, so they're not new task forces. And then can anybody name what category three was? And that was a new category for us in the solicitation. Let's see. I'm taking a look. That's right. Yes. Very good. Everyone was reading that solicitation clearly. Statewide, correct. And we have one of those. I see them on the call. So, whoop-whoop, to the statewide folks. I know there's a lot of you who are doing that unofficially, but we only had one applicant for that. That was very exciting. Okay. Next slide. 

And so, this should hopefully look familiar, but the goal of the ECM Task Force is to support a sustainable, multidisciplinary co-leadership task force approach to improve and increase victim identification of all forms of human trafficking and provide victims with access to services and seek justice on their behalf. And when we're really thinking about ECMs, there are some core principles that you, again, will continue to hear throughout this call, but also reinforce through training and technical assistance, but this co-leadership structure and really identifying and providing services to all forms and all victims of trafficking. So, really thinking critical about who is being served right now, who may be missing, where the gaps are, what you all need to do to reach everyone in all forms, really being a data-driven task force and using data to inform not only your activities and your practices, but how you look at your work. And then victim-centered and trauma-informed practices. Next slide. 

And I know that those words can often sound like buzzwords. So we at OVC and with your training technical assistance provider, have been working really hard on thinking how to define that and what that looks like, not only in implementation, but in your day-to-day practice as a task force. So you can really find—you can find the definitions of that on page 10 and 11 of your solicitation. I would encourage you to take a look at that and help that guide your conversation as you're working through this and when you're getting your project up and going. If you also want some more information, you can check out the OVC model standards on that link there that I'll ask—oh, perfect. Erin already did that, I believe. She dropped into the chat, so if you want to go ahead and check that out. Again, victim-centered, trauma-informed, and survivor-informed, they're not just buzzwords that we're pushing, but really concepts that we want you to dig in and implement in your work. All right. We'll go to the next slide, please. 

Also, in your solicitation found on page nine, where these definitions or items, elements, if you will, of a high-functioning ECM Task Force, and you can kind of view these as the guiding goals or things you are aspiring to as a task force. And they help define what we believe a high functioning task force has in place. And so, I'm not going to read all of them out. And there's eight of them, so there'll be another slide where you'll see some, but I did want to kind of highlight some of these. And you'll see this reinforced through the objectives as well, but a high-functioning task force really does have a clear mission, actionable goals, and again, this idea of a balanced leadership structure, is survivor-informed and works to institutionalize and refine your task force functions through written protocols. And so you'll be hearing a lot about protocols, there's a lot that Alissa will also—resources to help you in those activities. And, if you can move to the next slide, Drew. Thank you. 

We're also really thinking about how high-functioning task forces engage in a diverse set of strategic approaches to increase identification of all victims and provide access to services. And then how you are leveraging these efforts and expertise of all of your task force members. And then again, emphasizing how you all are using data to better understand your community, identify potential vulnerabilities, informed task force efforts, and then assess your task force impact. And we know that ECMs are hard work and there's always a flux, and a start and a go, and a natural kind of ebb and flow through your process, so we don't expect everyone to be functioning, you know, at these levels from the get go, right? This is something that you're working towards that you'll get a lot of support around from your training and technical assistance provider. And these should really help guide your activities and your conversations as you do your work. So, we can go ahead and move to the next slide. 

And again, you'll see how the objectives of this program are really based on getting you to those elements of high-functioning ECMs, right? So, you'll see a lot of mirroring in the language here where, as part of your objectives for this award, we're really looking for you to either develop or sustain and strengthen your co-leadership structure. And again, we know that this is a challenge and can be difficult, but we have a lot of things in place that will help guide you. And a place to start that we would want to definitely refer you to if you have not already looked at, is the roadmap. And so be sure to refer to that as a resource, again, to help guide your conversations in the way that you're thinking about different structures and different areas of your work. And then developing and implementing or revising a written protocol to guide your task force functions. Really thinking through how you're identifying and serving all victims of human trafficking, implementing a victim-centered, trauma-informed, and collaborative approach. 

And then on the next slide, please, how you are executing a diverse set of approaches to improving victim identification that includes victim-centered and trauma-informed investigations and prosecutions, and how you're investigating, referring, and prosecuting both sex and labor trafficking cases. And then assisting victims of trafficking—labor and sex trafficking, and then collecting data, and ongoing assessment in your activities. And you can find all of those objectives listed out on page 11, 12, and 13 of the solicitation if you wanted to refer back to them. And then I will turn it over to Alissa.

ALISSA HUNTOON: All right. Thank you so much, Natalia. And thank you to Olga and Erin. We talked a little bit about roles, and you got to see a little bit about us and our background. And while I serve as sort of the "lead" for the ECM program, it's definitely just a part of a much larger team here at OVC that really supports this program, so you're meeting some of them today on the webinar as well as a ton of fantastic partners on the training and technical assistance side from the other national organizations, and you'll really get a chance to meet all of them on the 14th and hear more about all of their expertise and their resources, and they—how they have been involved with many of you for a long time and how they're moving forward with us in the future. And the reason why we're taking this time to kind of slow-walk you through the solicitation, if I will, is just to reinforce it. 

It really is an important document that really provides a structure around this program and because the way the funding works, some of you—the funding is for three years and some of you do have funding again, but maybe you didn't have funding for a year or two, or you had it several years ago. These solicitations always change a little bit or a lot, and so that's why it's important to understand kind of just what these expectations [are] under the solicitation to which you have funding. So, if it feels like we are slow-walking you through the solicitation, we are and that's intentional because we really want you to, hopefully, refer to that and also underscore how important that is for anyone that's working on your project, whether now or in the future as you grow and expand or staff come and go. So that's why I'm really excited to speak with you all today and talk about FY 2023. 

And now to dig a little bit deeper, we are going to just spend some time on a couple of those changes in the FY '23 solicitation that might look a little different to some of you than in the past. Also, just underscore deliverables, talk a little bit about some of those. And then some of the guidance that is in the ECM solicitation as well, because, again, that's going to shape our interactions with you and the conversations that we have with your TA partners and the training and some of the efforts that you go. And, again, we're talking specific to the funding that you have from OVC. So next slide, please. 

This has already been mentioned but, again, there is language in here about OVC's expectation around labor trafficking and putting some of that responsibility on you as the grantee, too, to be able to—even if that's not something that you're used to or have spent some time on or even feel that you have any expertise in, that you make that effort, right, to sort of learn some of that, bring in some consultants, go to some trainings, right? Thinking, what data do you have or not have, what partners do you have or don't have around helping you better understand what this is? Some of you may have been doing this for a long time, but some of you might not, so it really varies. And so, we just wanted to make sure we brought that out. And this also manifests itself in some of the deliverables, for Purpose Area 2 in particular. So, we'll talk about that. But—so, just expect that you might get some more questions from us about labor trafficking and how you are working on that in terms of an improved response overall as a task—ECM task force. 

Next slide. The other—oops. Can you go back? One. Yes. The other pieces that were kind of sprinkled throughout this solicitation, one here is the applicants who are a service provider and a law enforcement partner. And what we just wanted to highlight here is that there obviously are a variety of key criminal justice system and community-based system partners that are involved in your effort as well. They may or may not receive grant funding, right? This is a little bit of funding that obviously cannot fund all of your partners. But when it comes to sort of that core structure, leadership structure of the ECM, what we ask you to do here in this solicitation, your application was talk to us a little bit about kind of more of the three legs of that. So if you're a police department, who are you working with, you know, in your county attorney's office or your prosecution—city prosecutor's office, what does that look like at a state-wide level, right? That might look a little different depending upon if you're local or state-wide. 

If you're a district attorney's office and you got funding, so who do you—who are you working with around—for your local law enforcement partners in terms of investigating those cases and things like that? So—and this other bullet here talks about, so how those partners are going to be involved in the work and receive communications about the ECM Award and/or also take advantage of a lot of the training and technical assistance events that will be happening over the next three years. The other piece that we added was around that co-leadership, right? So, talking about who those partnerships are, what does co-leadership mean from the shared decision-making model? And we all know that, you know, we all are part of teams, right? We all are a part of different organizations, sometimes with different missions and things like that. So just inherent, I think, in doing multi-disciplinary approaches. There's just some tensions and some communication that needs to happen about kind of who's doing what and how those decisions are going to be made, and that's just not easy all the time. So that's kind of what we're just emphasizing here as this co-leadership model, which, you know, necessitates some way of figuring out how you're going to make that shared decision. Next slide. 

Again, universe—so these are the deliverables that, across the board, all three purpose areas will be expected to complete by the end of your award. Oftentimes, when we say deliverable, it's something—it can be something tangible, so a product or a document or something that you could turn in to OVC. Sometimes, it's non-tangible. More of an activity. So here, again, everybody is working on sort of developing the appropriate partnerships, right, that you need, developing together sort of joint outreach and developing trainings with shared messages. I wanted to put a pin in training and outreach because we're really going to get into that a little bit more in the 14th—on the 14th session. Talk a lot about some more resources there. And we will talk about those trainings that we ask all of you to budget for, the OJP-sponsored trainings. Again, you'll get to meet all these partners that have put on and will be putting on many more training opportunities for you to participate in. And I'm just going to take a couple—a minute or so or two to dig in on two of those deliverables in particular. So next slide, please. 

First one is a full-time Task Force Coordinator or Director. You know, that title, kind of up to you all. But this is really meant to be a full-time position. So not something that's sort of double duty, right? So a full-time position on top of somebody else's already full-time position. That's a lot. I'm sure some of us already carry, you know, some additional duties on top of our jobs. So this position really is a critical role in sort of helping all of these partners sort of navigate through some of this work, especially as it relates to this particular award and the deliverable and developing protocols, managing a process for partners—you know, for growth of your task force, and, again, how all these things fit together. So that is meant to be a full-time position. 

You all have flexibility in terms of how you wanted to fund that person and where that person would be, so I know there are many, many coordinators, directors on the call today that do an awesome job. And then task force protocol. Obviously, you all operate under policies and procedures and protocols through your own organizations. The ones that we're asking you to develop under this program are separate from those and are meant to govern the efforts of your task force as a whole as it says. Sometimes, that can be really helpful for sustainability. It can be really helpful when there's turnover. It can be really helpful to just have documented in place how you've all agreed to handle certain things, any of the myriad issues that you are working through with supporting trafficking victims and survivors and working through the cases. 

There's—I hear about all challenges all the time from all of you, but also hear about really great ways that you have navigated those and problem-solved, and then created a process that really facilitates all of these partners really working well together to achieve sort of not only the grant goals and objectives but your own local or state-wide objectives in terms of how you want to respond and how you want to support trafficking victims and survivors. And there are several resources that have been created in the last couple of years to help you do that, which are on the next slide. 

So one of those are sample checklists. That is, which you'll see in the IACP, they have probably seven or eight--they will correct me if I'm wrong on a variety of issues. These are just, again, checklists. They're prompts. They're questions. As a task force, have you thought about how you're going to handle X, Y, and Z? And do you have that documented in some way? So, again, it's just meant to be a prompt to help facilitate those conversations to get you thinking about what it is you all want to have sort of on paper and also the roadmap. And also the most recent resource are the three videos that talk about protocol developments. They are less than four minutes, right? Maybe three-ish minutes. Very consumable and I think are really on point about just the value of developing protocols and implementing protocols across the task force. So here is our next interactive question, in case anybody knows, where in the roadmap do we talk about protocols, in what area? There—oh, Emily. Look at that. With easily 20 exclamation marks. 

Yes, you can go to the next slide—or the answer. It's an internal foundation, operation, and collaboration. For those who haven't worked with the roadmap, some of the—I know there are some folks on here that have had funding from us in the past, but not for a couple of years, who had maybe seen the roadmaps but maybe haven't interacted with it. You'll see we use that a lot. Our key partners will use that a lot. You'll see in—just from that image, there's kind of a series of steps or stages that sort of most task forces kind of go through, and so you can kind of figure out where you fall on that. And so, here's just an example of protocols. It basically goes from, you know, you don't have any, right, to you have them in multiple areas, you use them, you revisit them, et cetera. So, again, the roadmap being another tool to help prompt conversations and facilitate discussions as a task force about how you handle, you know, a wide variety of issues. Next slide, please. 

Okay. So those were deliverables that everybody is working on. And then depending upon the purpose area to which you apply, there are some unique deliverables just to your area. So, if you're Purpose Area 1, one of your deliverables is a sustainability plan. Also, an MOU in the solicitation. It talked about, for Purpose Area 2, they were required to submit their MOU, but it's a good stating place to see kind of who should sign that, what should it outline generally, you know, sort of roles and expectations as well. And there is a timeline attached for some of these. So, make sure you take a look at that to see when some of these are due. And, again, we have lots of partners here to help support you in these who you'll meet on the 14th, and then also conducting community assessments. 

The Purpose Area 2, having had funding for a few years, three years, four years, and being engaged with our TTA partners, here, we're asking you to—sort of, where are you in terms of expanding your approaches, right? So how are you building upon the foundation that you had? You know, what are you learning in terms of additional approaches that you can use to help identify all victims, all forms, familial, labor trafficking, all genders, men, boys, et cetera? We're going to be asking you to—we could come back and ask you, you know, to explain to us, you know, how you're doing that. Also producing—this is a direct result of that increased expectation around labor trafficking is producing a summary report about your efforts. And I believe that's probably by the end of year two. I can't remember. So, again, there's timelines and it's listed in the solicitation. 

And then also this one provides peer support to newer task forces if requested. And that's what the green star means, so if requested, that is for task forces that have had funding for a while and have been doing a ton of work and are doing some things really, really well. You know, we want to be able to highlight that and share that and also be able for you to use your funding and these resources to help support you to do that. So, this—an example might be if OVC or one of our TA partners is putting on a webinar and we ask one of your task force members, or a couple of your task force members, if they can come on and do the webinar with us on whatever topic it is. Or, for example, I get asked to speak at conferences sometimes about the ECM program, and I am happy to do that, but I would also much rather have folks from ECM task forces themselves come and co-present with me and talk about their efforts. So maybe we would ask you, you know, to come and be a co-panelist on a presenter. 

So there's a wide variety of ways that—the key thing there is if requested. So, we want you to be prepared that that might come down the pike, that we might ask you to do that. But that isn't necessarily everyone is going to have to do that. So, we just want to be able to have that flexibility and also give you an opportunity to, you know, at a more—at a national level, talk about the work that you're doing more broadly. 

And then, again, here, this Purpose Area 3 was a new purpose area this first year. We tried acknowledging the difference that is needed for a statewide task force, right? Just from a purely even geographic area and the number of partners involved and the level of coordination, service provision, et cetera. We wanted to acknowledge that and also offer some more resources for a statewide level. So this is the first year we're doing it. Feedback is always welcome. If you have thoughts about the way that's structured here, if you're a—if this was the first time you ever had ECM funding, then you would be following Purpose Area 1 deliverables. But if you'd received ECM funding before it, then you'd be following Purpose Area 2 deliverables just as a statewide task force. And statewide task forces were asked to explain a little bit more, provide a little bit more information in their applications as well. Next slide.

ERIN WIRSING: Hey, Alissa. Time check, but I think you're okay.

ALISSA HUNTOON: Two minutes. Oh, okay. Yes. I know we've got 15 minutes and then time for questions. So, thank you, Erin. Another spotlight. We talk about proactive approach, and there's a definition of this in the solicitation just so folks can kind of see what we mean by that. And just at a pure baseline level, you know, it means not waiting—you know, what anything would mean for proactive, right? Not waiting for sort of a call to come in, but what any number of things you could do to be proactive in the community with partners, et cetera in your investigative approaches to help you better identify victims. So that's kind of what we mean by proactive. We talk about it. So, that diverse set of strategies that go beyond sort of what you traditionally know and have done and do and how can you build upon that skillset and that base [INDISTINCT] and how are you thinking about the impact of the current set of strategies and approaches that you're using now? Hopefully, these resources and these partnerships and this TA can help you think about, are we able to identify labor trafficking victims if we're using this particular approach? Are we able to provide services or support if we're focused, you know, on this particular approach or style? 

So, again, this is really meant to help you just kind of think through and build—use this time and resources to build upon your current sort of foundation and knowledge of what you’re doing. And so, we talk a little bit more about using some advanced investigative methods; criminal intelligence gathering; in-depth pre-planning; and collaboration from your service provider, partners, prosecution partners, and so many others that many of you already do and have. Public Health to Department of Labor to other code and regulatory organizations. So, many of you are doing this. But this is, at least, how we define it, if that's helpful. Next slide. 

There's also guidance in here about—again, I mentioned at the beginning, this is where OVCs funding comes into play in terms of supporting your efforts. And, obviously, OVC funding can't support every single thing that you do around your response to trafficking in your community where you are using OVC funds. This is where this guidance applies. And Olga mentioned, you know, the funding for this program comes from the TVA—TVPA, which is very much focused on victim identification, right? So, in our extension in supporting ECM task forces, it is in that vein of helping support increased victim identification of all forms. 

So here, that's that tie to victim identification is what you're going to hear in this guidance on use of funds, which, again, we'll get into on the 14th. And also you'll see through various training and technical assistance projects kind of the way we start to have conversations with you about what does this mean. And that first one, purchasers of commercial sex that fail to result in the identification of one or more actual victims of trafficking, so--sometimes it's referred to as demand or focus on buyers. You know, if you're posing, undercover, and soliciting somebody to buying, there's no actual victim in that potential scenario. So that's kind of an example of little things that we—outside the scope of your OVC funds. 

And the second one around is if your primary—you know, if your only way of identifying trafficking victims is to go out and arrest individuals who are engaged in commercial sex, if that's your only means, that is outside the scope, right, in saying—for identifying trafficking victims. So just want to call your attention to that because this is an area where we get a lot of questions as well and sort of start to work with you on—this is within the OVC funding narrow scope, and then there's the whole broader range of approaches and strategies that you can use. Next slide. 

I know you've all—there is an orientation session specific to performance reporting. All I wanted to note here—all that we wanted to note here—is that as, again, such a unique program, so as a joint task force, you each have a set of measures that are shared, right, so that you all will be reporting on it together and then you both have an additional set of measures that are unique to either your law enforcement policing side and your service provider side. And our point here is just that you should be talking, right? When you are putting in your performance measures, you should be talking to each other about those. Some of those will be different just inherently, right, but you should be having a conversation about those measures that you're reporting, information about them on the website, and you'll get some more information about that in the orientation that's upcoming. We might have it on a slide here. I'm not sure. Next slide. 

So what you're seeing here is, so November 14th is kind of the beginning, but there are a set of grantee, sort of foundational trainings that are required for anybody who's getting OVC human trafficking awards and they are all available online. So, from this website, what will be added here is either the ability to watch the recording or register for the live session when it's available. So, this is part of those mandatory program requirements that we talked about, which is participating in grantee orientation sessions. Basically, kind of what this is currently doing is it's kind of taking the place of when we used to have all grantees come together in-person and sort of do a lot of this over the course of two days. We just haven't been able to do that for a couple years, so this is another way to give you this information, but also in sort of smaller chunks. Hopefully, more consumable. So just be aware of that. And you will all be getting information about it, the points of contact that are in JustGrants. You might be getting reminders from your grant managers or your TTA providers. But just so you have it here as well. Next slide. 

All right. Eight minutes. So we wanted to allow some time for questions. I did want to caveat it with if you have a very specific question about your award and something going on there, you know, I would just maybe recommend you save that and reach out to your specific grant manager with that. But if you have a question that's more broad or general that, you know, would impact anyone, maybe you don't know what that—maybe you don't know if it impacts everyone or not, and that's fine too. But I just wanted to put that out there. And I think you can either—Erin Wirsing, correct me if I'm wrong. Come off mute and ask the question and/or some folks might have been paying attention to—if any questions were popping up in the chat.

ERIN WIRSING: There weren't any questions in the chat yet, so feel free to put questions in the chat. And if you want to—if you'd rather unmute, that's completely fine, but I'm going to ask you to find that toolbar again, click on the Reactions section, and raise your hand so we can call on you. I'll put you in order.

ALISSA HUNTOON: Yes.

ERIN WIRSING: Okay.

ALISSA HUNTOON: Alison, I see your question. Yeah, that's specific. So, for—if you have an award and you're waiting to find out about an extension, you should contact your grant manager. Yeah, because that's not—I would--that's very individual, so I wouldn't know for everyone.

ALISON BOAK: Okay. Thank you.

ALISSA HUNTOON: Yeah. Fair question. And I will not make us wait here painfully, but I'll—if nobody has any questions, but I will give it another minute or so. And, Erin Wirsing, I wasn't sure if there's anything also you wanted to add in terms of a wrap-up or a reminder.

ERIN WIRSING: I was--yeah. Well, Drew, can you go to the next slide? I think, while we're waiting to see if any other questions come in, we'll put the QR code for the survey about today's training and I think Erin's going to put the link in the chat as well.

ALISSA HUNTOON: I do see—I see a question about budget clearances. Yes. Of course, you know, the timeframe for a budget clearance, it just really varies. It's hard to say because oftentimes it's just a matter of back and forth between OVC, the grant manager, the grantee, how quickly on either side we get back to each other, have the opportunity to review. We try to move those as quickly as possible on our side when we get them because we know that's really critical. So, unfortunately, there's no, like, “it's a 14-day.” Like, there's just no specific timeframe. There are budgets that have absolutely been cleared for FY '23. So, they're getting cleared. It's just a matter of how many questions or issues or changes, and the back and forth that happens. Also, I will say—oh, Fred, were you just about ready to come off—okay. Always appreciate everyone's feedback about the program. There are ways and opportunities where we can try to improve and make it better. 

There are ways and areas that are not in our control, things that we can't change, but that we feel important to hear from you about those. What Olga mentioned, what I try to do is send out quarterly email updates. So just as the lead, these are just general, sometimes important policy updates, reminders, TTA events, sort of any number of things. So, I try to do that on a quarterly basis just to keep in touch with you and to remind you about things, share resources and helpful information. So, that's what Olga was referencing before and how you might hear from me. All right. So, anyone? Thank you all. So really excited. Thanks, again, for your interest in this program. Really looking forward to working with you all over the next few years.

ERIN WIRSING: Yes. Thank you guys so much for…

ALISSA HUNTOON: All right. See you on the--yeah.

ERIN WIRSING: …being here today. We'll see you…

ALISSA HUNTOON: Bye, guys.

ERIN WIRSING: We'll see you in two weeks. You have another webinar in between there for the PMTs, so don't forget about that. But thanks for being here today. And we will be in touch with you. We've had a couple people ask. I want to remind you that we will be sending you the slide deck and the recording as soon as that's ready to be sent out, hopefully in the next couple of days. So, be looking out for that. And we will see you, same group, in two weeks, on the 14th. Thanks, everybody.