The Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Justice, was awarded FY17, FY20, and FY22 Improving Outcomes grants. Colorado identified a need to create consistent, sustainable multi-disciplinary team (MDT) norms and expectations across the state. Through grant funding, Colorado is addressing this gap by developing and implementing a comprehensive, collaborative, jurisdiction-wide approach to preventing and reducing the impact of child and youth trafficking and supporting and sustaining MDT responses across the state.

In FY17, Colorado’s objectives were to: (1) enhance and evaluate existing coordinated efforts; (2) support creation of new collaborations, including local survivors, in parts of Colorado that do not currently have active anti-trafficking collaborations; (3) review, modify, and expand state- and local-level policies and procedures; (4) conduct ongoing evaluation of the project; (5) ensure that promising and best practices are used throughout the project; (6) use existing coalitions and task forces; (7) engage survivors throughout the project; (8) conduct an awareness campaign; (9) expand the state Human Trafficking Task Group and continue collaboration with the Colorado Human Trafficking Coalition; (10) develop a network of community-based navigators; (11) support and enhance statewide anti-trafficking trainings; (12) document existing services for youth who have experienced trafficking; and (13) implement victim service standards. The project hired five regional human trafficking specialists in regions that had the largest gaps of services and anti-trafficking collaboration.

For the FY22 grant, The Colorado Department of Public Safety manages the “Connecting Colorado: Building Effective Anti-Trafficking Systems Program.” Colorado is developing an MDT Toolkit to support the development and enhancement of MDTs in the state. This toolkit will be developed through the convening of an MDT working group comprised of experts in anti-human trafficking from Colorado and reviewed by a Survivor Leader Advisory Board, who will also review with additional resources developed through the grant program. This program includes evaluation by the Colorado State University Social Work Research Center.