During the conference, health care professionals, students and community partners will become familiar with the various types of human trafficking: sex, labor and organ trafficking. Human trafficking, the illegal trading of human beings for commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor and organ trade, is one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises worldwide. Nurses and other health care providers are often the first and/or only professionals able to interact with trafficking victims. On Thursday, October 26, at Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing (4483 Duncan Avenue), nurses and other health care professionals, along with community partners, from across the region will participate in continuing education training to increase awareness of human trafficking and hone their ability to identify and appropriately care for human trafficking victims.
Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing is hosting the third annual Traffic School for Health Care Professionals: Identification and Response to Victims of Human Trafficking conference. The conference is in collaboration with the The Human Trafficking Collaborative Network, supported by the Washington University Institute for Public Health in collaboration with Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Medicine and Goldfarb. The HTCN is an informal network of researchers, students and community partners with a common interest in improving understanding of human trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable populations.
Although human trafficking is often thought of as an issue in other countries, it's a growing problem in the U.S., affecting nearly every region. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents and foreign-nationals are at risk of being trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor or organ trade each year, according to the Polaris Project, one of the largest anti-trafficking organizations in the U.S.
Health care providers may encounter human trafficking victims in a variety of health care settings, such as emergency rooms, community healthcare centers, public health departments, family planning clinics, and HIV/AIDS or STD clinics. Therefore, a human trafficking victim's most promising lifeline could be a health care provider—if that provider knows what to look for.
The conference’s keynote speaker is Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH, Executive Director of the Health, Education, Advocacy and Linkage (HEAL) Network and is an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with appointments at Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Additional speakers include local experts on EMS, adult and pediatric traffic victim care, in collaboration with law enforcement, will discuss and describe evidence-based response and safe care and discharge planning.
The afternoon session will provide simulations of trafficking patient encounters that will enable the participant to acquire clinical knowledge, skills and attitudes that have been developed by HEAL’s collaborative workgroup on competencies necessary to providing care that is patient focused on achieving safe and quality of life outcome.
To register for the conference, visit http://gson-ne.ws/5L
###
About Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing
With a legacy beginning in 1902, Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing is an independent single-purpose college with a strong tradition of educating health care professionals in St. Louis. It is located on the campus of Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis and is affiliated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital, with a site at Missouri Baptist Medical Center.
Goldfarb School of Nursing has nationally recognized educational facilities with state-of-the-art classrooms, lecture halls and sophisticated Clinical Simulation Institute labs with patient simulation mannequins and exam rooms that provide high-tech, advanced nursing care experiences. The school is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) and is approved by the Missouri State Board of Nursing and Higher Education Commission.
Media Contact:
Angela Trower
314.286.0377
Angela.Trower@bjc.org
