Social Work Practice With Survivors of Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation

As awareness and identification of sex trafficking and exploitation have grown, so has the need for improved social work responses. In this volume, expert practitioners, survivors, and researchers model the best practices for working with this population, using case examples and illustrative guides. Chapters cover the common challenges of working with trafficked and exploited people and how to overcome them, including topics like runaway youth, trauma-bonds, system-level challenges, and resource scarcity.

Intended as a teaching tool for students or a supplementary manual for organizations, this book emphasizes interventions and treatments, working with specific populations, programmatic design recommendations, preventative work, and outreach interventions. Researchers, students, and practitioners will find a comprehensive guide to the emerging field of practice with sex trafficking and exploitation survivors.

Andrea J. Nichols is professor of sociology at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park and lecturer and anti-trafficking initiative coordinator at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Sex Trafficking in the United States: Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice (Columbia, 2016); coauthor of Human Trafficking in the Midwest: A Case Study of St. Louis and the Bi-State Area (2015); and coeditor of Broadening the Scope of Human Trafficking Research: A Reader (2016).

Tonya Edmond is associate professor of social work and associate dean for diversity, inclusion, and equity at the Brown School of Social Work and a faculty fellow in the Office of the Provost at Washington University in St. Louis.

Erin C. Heil is associate professor of criminal justice studies at Southeastern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is the author of Sex Slaves and Serfs: The Dynamics of Human Trafficking in a Small Florida Town (2012); coauthor of Human Trafficking in the Midwest: A Case Study of St. Louis and the Bi-State Area (2015); and coeditor of Broadening the Scope of Human Trafficking Research: A Reader (2016).