The Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) was awarded a FY 24 Improving Outcomes grant for the Illinois Human Trafficking Collaborative Systems Change Initiative. Illinois has identified key barriers, including gaps in identifying and responding to youth victims of sex and labor trafficking; absence of a coordinated statewide plan; insufficient human trafficking screening protocols amongst state agencies; lack of human trafficking training for stakeholders and multidisciplinary partners; a low number of trafficking investigations and prosecutions; and deficient standards for data collection across multidisciplinary partners that trafficking victims.

This project aims to improve outcomes for child and youth victims of trafficking by creating and implementing a statewide response to addressing these barriers in victim identification, service coordination, investigations, and prosecutions. Key activities will include strategic planning, enhanced collaboration and training, an emphasis on victim identification, and addressing low identification of labor trafficking. The FY 24 grant has six key goals: 1) develop and implement a strategic plan for a multidisciplinary trauma-informed statewide response to child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking in Illinois; 2) develop protocols and procedures among multidisciplinary actors to coordinate victim-centered, trauma-informed service provision for child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking that is developmentally and age-appropriate, culturally specific, which protects the privacy and confidentiality of victims; 3) identify greatest challenges and fill gaps to ensure a coordinated response to identify and provide services to child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking; 4) identify, create and implement screening tool(s) for multidisciplinary actors to identify child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking; 5) develop training program standards and an implementation strategy that is trauma-informed to ensure statewide multidisciplinary actors recognize and respond to sex and labor trafficking indicators effectively; and 6) develop a robust data collection and information sharing system to track the statewide coordinated response to child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking that ensures victim confidentiality.