Our thanks to the media organizations who covered our Human Trafficking 101 seminar this past Monday.

Here’s a round-up of those reports, with an excerpt from each and a link to the whole article or story:

The Herald-Star: Seminar educates on recognizing, addressing human trafficking in health care

STEUBENVILLE — A seminar hosted by Trinity Health System invited community health care workers to learn about human trafficking and how they can intervene to bring about a positive outcome.

Entitled Human Trafficking 101 with an Appalachian and Healthcare Focus, Monday’s seminar dove into the realities of human trafficking — particularly as it’s seen in Appalachian Ohio — and how health care workers should proceed if a suspected case of human trafficking falls into their purview.

Taking place at Trinity Medical Center West, the seminar was presented in partnership with Eyes Up Appalachia, an anti-human trafficking initiative serving 32 Appalachian Ohio counties, and Forensic Nursing Network, a nonprofit providing mentorship and education for nurses in the field of forensics.

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WTOV: Trinity Medical seminar highlights human trafficking facts in Appalachia

“We are here providing education on human trafficking, a lot of different aspects of that,” said Heather Wilde, Forensic Nursing Network’s education director. “I’m doing a lot of the healthcare response of people that are being trafficked that are coming into the hospitals and urgent cares and what we can do to help those folks.”

The event covered many different angles to trafficking and how situations can differ from case to case. The goal of raising awareness and helping those who need it most was part of the educational angle of the seminar.

“To really open the eyes and partner with the community to get as many resources involved as we can,” said Wendy Ralston, director of Behavior Health Services. “With different domestic violence shelters, pediatric centers and what not, and really our own healthcare awareness with human trafficking and what they really entail.”

“Often, people think human trafficking is labor, so they’re here to pick to matters or whatever the labor issue may be or it’s internationals,” Trinity Health System mission leader Liz Schriner said. “What we know in our area, Jefferson County, is that a lot of the human trafficking is family. So, it’s family members, it is folks who are really struggling to get by who begin that way and then it moves into trafficking.”

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WTRF: Local hospital hosts human trafficking information seminar

A disturbing statistic places the State of Ohio in the forefront of a national human trafficking epidemic.

In fact… Ohio ranks fifth nationwide for human trafficking activity.

And numbers show, it’s not just big cities that are affected.

Monday, Trinity Health System hosted a seminar with the specific purpose of helping healthcare workers recognize the signs of human trafficking and what to do once they are identified.

The seminar was a partnership between the anti-trafficking organization Eyes Up Appalachia and the Forensic Nursing Network.

One of the stats you will see out there is, of those that were actively trafficked, about 88 % of those were were in front of a medical care giver at some point during that active trafficking. So our goal is to try to help everybody learn how to identify it and what to do next to take action. — Christi Bartman, Founder, Eyes Up Appalachia