Rethink Resources

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to present a staff training on working with youth in the sex trade for St. Rose Youth and Family Center here in Milwaukee. St. Rose offers a lot of programs including therapeutic day education and residential programs for girls ages 12-18.

I’ve noticed how, even when presenting similar information, training and workshops will end up being more about one subject or another. For example youth will sometimes focus on the homeless/runaway aspect of the experience or the focus will be on sexual reputations. Or adults will focus on older men dating younger girls or why youth will exploit other youth (and how to stop it). I’m still sharing similar basic information; but experiences of participants and thoughts of the day will take the conversation different places.

I like that. I like to follow where the conversation goes. You can learn a lot by letting go and seeing where the thoughts take you. Sometimes I’m just remembering certain parts of the conversation - like it strikes a chord in me and I remember something more or in a different way.

Either way I think the theme of nonconsent came up a number of times during the training at St. Rose. We talked about how having no safe place to live leads to girls being in situations out of their control. Staff brought up how people lie to youth and don’t give them the whole story when trying to recruit teens into the sex trade. This leads to youth feeling like they are making decisions, but actually its nonconsensual because you don’t have the whole picture (like you don’t know where the pictures will be, or they said you wouldn’t have to have sex).

I think sometimes youth workers in an effort to support teens’ decision-making don’t remember nonconsensual realities. So for example if a teen keeps having sexually transmitted infections, instead of pressing the youth on why they aren’t remembering to use a condom, you might consider how nonconsensual sex is a part of it.

Here’s a really good issue brief on nonconsensual sex among youth and how “youth programs need to consider patterns of coerced sex when addressing reproductive health, HIV prevention, and other needs”

More trainings and workshops by me coming up soon. I’ll share ideas and results here.