Created Gainesville Donor Booklet

OUR MISSION

Created Gainesville is committed to reaching and restoring lives impacted by sex trafficking and sexual exploitation.

OUR VISION

We seek to end sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in our community by reclaiming lives, extending hope in darkness, empowering the next generation, and writing a new narrative.

We believe our part in the global effort to end sex trafficking begins in our local communities.

OUR APPROACH

Restoration Reclaiming lives Outreach

Extending hope in darkness

Prevention Empowering the next generation

Awareness

Writing a new narrative

SEX TRAFFICKING is happening in our COMMUNITY

88% of reported cases of sex trafficking happen online, making them difficult to spot in public.

95% of reported cases involve someone a child or young adult knows and trusts, such as a family member.

FLORIDA ranks the 3rd highest for reported human trafficking cases in the U.S.

AT LEAST

78% of reported sex trafficking cases are women.

15-16 YEARS

is the average age for a first trafficking encounter among the women Created serves.

Polaris Project provides annual updates to national data around Human Trafficking.

Many factors can create vulnerability for a youth to be at greater risk (i.e. childhood sexual abuse, poverty, family dysfunction or abuse, substance use, running away from home, societal rejection.) However, traffickers are masters of manipulation and disguise as they work to earn trust and access to a young person and break down boundaries that lead to grooming and ultimately trafficking.

Isolation, fear, violence, increased drug use, and complete dependence on trafficker/s are common tactics used to keep victims stuck and hopeless of a way out.

PREVENTION & EARLY INTERVENTION

Created Gainesville aims to empower the next generation to better understand the risk factors and signs of sex trafficking, to speak up if they see or experience something that seems “off,” and to join the fight against the trafficking of people.

Our hope is that with the information we provide, fewer local youth become victims of this pervasive crime and, if a young person has already been a victim, that we can point them to resources for early intervention and community support. We currently serve as a consultant for youth and families who are in need of services and programs for the complex trauma associated with sex trafficking.

Unfortunately, the signs of sex trafficking of youth are often missed multiple times throughout a victim’s experience of being trafficked, leading to a deeper level of shame and normalization of what has been done to harm, abuse, and exploit.

Many (not all) young people who go unidentified will eventually become caught in cycles of incarceration, mental health facilities/hospitals, homelessness, and continued trafficking, making it extremely difficult to reclaim their life and escape.

THE CYCLE OF INCARCERATION, HOMELESSNESS, HOSPITALS, AND TRAFFICKING

OUTREACH

It’s not enough to merely invite survivors from a distance to trust, to hope, and to consider the option of reclaiming their life through comprehensive care and support. This is why we consistently go to the places where sex trafficking and sexual exploitation are most prevalent in our community.

We aim to reduce revictimization and recidivism by advocating for alternative options to incarceration. Our staff appears in court with survivors in order to offer support and to present alternative program options whenever possible.

We have been met with openness and gratitude by our local justice system when we are able to offer a different course of action than what has been taken in the past – a course that deeply considers trauma and its impact on all aspects of life.

STRIP CLUB

We visit women working in the strip club to establish trust and relationship. Strip clubs are often a gateway for trafficking and more extreme forms of exploitation, violence, and abuse. Not every woman working in the strip club is a victim of sex trafficking; however, many identify the harm they are experiencing and see themselves eventually getting out of the commercial sex industry and pursuing higher education, entrepreneurial endeavors, and employment that is safe and life-giving.

We go out to the streets at night to meet women where they are at and offer needed support, supplies, prayer, and information about our programs. We offer every woman we meet with a “love bag” that includes toiletries, a small gift, and our contact card in case she decides to reach back out at a later time for support.

We offer a weekly Celebrate Recovery class at the Alachua County Jail. We aim to provide assistance for each woman who participates by together formulating a safe and supportive exit plan upon release from jail. The rate of childhood sexual trauma for those who are incarcerated and who identify with being trafficked and/or involved in prostitution is nearly 100%. We believe there is a better context for healing to take place, and we aim to assist women in finding suitable and sustainable opportunities which have the capacity to dramatically change their future.

Complex trauma of sex trafficking requires a comprehensive, sustainable approach to care, which is why our programs are designed to be 18-24 months, with 4 intentional and strategic phases. Every survivor is unique, so the journey towards healing will be equally unique. This is why we offer multiple models of care along with optional aftercare. We also put a high value around collaboration with outside agencies and organizations for the important work of each survivor developing a support network that will long outlive her direct participation in our programs.

OUR PROGRAM OPTIONS stabilization rehabilitation

development empowered living

RESIDENTIAL CARE

At our safe home, survivors journey through 4 phases of care.

Survivors also have the support of caring staff 24 hours a day, as well as opportunities to participate in a multitude of therapeutic contexts. Our multi-disciplinary approach to care is what makes us different from shelters, half-way houses, and drug treatment facilities.

Survivors receive the following opportunities at no cost to them:

• Case Management

• Basic Needs (food, clothing, hygiene products, bedding, etc.)

• Mentorship/Sponsorship

• Medical Care

• Dental Care

• Counseling Care with LMHCs

• Sobriety Support

• Education/Internships/ Apprenticeship/Volunteering

• Job Readiness Skills

• Life Skill Development

• Financial Literacy

• Wellness Coaching

• Art/Animal Therapy

• Legal Support

• Support Group Participation

• Recreational Development (new coping skills)

• Spiritual Growth

Our non-residential program, Created Care, is best for those who already have safe housing, have done some previous program work, or for some reason cannot commit to long-term residential care.

CREATED CARE

Survivors receive the following opportunities at no cost to them:

• Case Management

• Basic Needs (clothing, hygiene products, backpacks with school supplies, limited household goods)

• Mentorship

• Weekly Group Meetings

• Sobriety Support

• Medical Care

• Dental Care

• Counseling Care with LMCHs

• Education Scholarships

• Emergency Relief Support

• Job Readiness Skills

• Life Skill Development

• Legal Support

• Spiritual Growth

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

This element of our programs is intended to be the bookends AND the in between for survivors who have done long-term care. Not everyone is ready to jump into long-term care as the starting point, so we offer a beginning step to participation that doesn’t require the same level of commitment as Residential and Created Care.

Community Participants have access to staff for support and advocacy as well as a sounding board for upcoming decisions. Community Participants are invited to participate in our weekly group meetings that we call Oasis, where we share dinner and a time of community building. We also encourage Community Participation for our graduates as a way to serve as a Peer Leader and to remain connected to the support of community for the long journey ahead.

Healing is rarely, if ever, a one-and-done process. It is common for survivors to desire support for years or a lifetime after completing long-term care. Graduates who remain plugged in are the truest and purest gifts to those survivors in our programs who are new and don’t know yet if they have what it takes to do the difficult healing and life-reclaiming work that’s ahead.

Graduates are the most powerful voice in every room where we gather in community. They embody every ounce of our core values as they pass along the gifts they have received through long-term care and community:

SURVIVOR

Created Gainesville believed in and loved me before I could believe in and love myself.

Residential

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Housing/Utilities/Food

Trauma

Medical

Sobriety Care/Support

Survivor Supplies

Personal Development

Trauma

Medical

Personal

A survivor was at the hospital where she was receiving treatment for being beaten by her trafficker, and a caring nurse had called Created to see if they could help. One of the Created staff sat on the side of her hospital bed, held her hand, and worked through some options for her to get the help she needed. Later, she responded with this testimony:

“The day I will never forget is the day I met Created. I remember the look in their eyes.

It wasn’t judgment. It wasn’t disgust. It wasn’t blame.

It was love!

I knew at that moment that someone cared.

Someone cared whether I lived or died.

Someone cared enough to let me know that I matter.”

WHERE CREATED IS HEADED

We believe the best is yet to come in the area of survivor services and accessibility for survivors to get the help they need in North Central Florida. The Tim Tebow Foundation, who has joined the movement in anti-trafficking work, stated in 2021, “Right now, there are only enough safe beds to serve 10 percent of trafficking victims here in the U.S.”

Created Gainesville believes that our community can lead the way in changing this statistic and combating its implications, which we see every day. We are aiming to multiply our beds over the course of the next 3-5 years and plan to add additional homes to our program, so that whenever we get a call from a survivor, Law Enforcement, or a Service Provider seeking a safe home with comprehensive care, we are better equipped to keep saying “yes!”