Local work t stop human exploitation coordinated through DA’s Office

Courtesy of Marin County

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the North Bay region and San Francisco are among the top sex trafficking areas in the United States. As the co-chair organization of the Marin County Coalition to End Human Trafficking (MCCEHT), the Marin County District Attorney’s Office is addressing the problem and working with partnering nonprofits and agencies to increase public awareness, prosecute those who commit the crimes, and put a halt to all types of slavery.

On Jan. 11, the Marin County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to proclaim the month of January as National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Jan. 11 happened to be Human Trafficking Awareness Day as well. Video of the presentation is on the County website (skip ahead to agenda item #4, Consent Calendar A).

The DA’s staff has worked closely with key stakeholders to make sure the red-flag warnings of human trafficking are widely known, even using advertisements at bus stops to urge people to speak up and report potential exploitation.

According to District Attorney Lori Frugoli, community education is paramount in the work of the coalition. Student, parent, and teacher education is also something that MCCEHT strongly supports through the PROTECT program, coordinated with the Marin County Office of Education (MCOE). MCCEHT member Marlene Capra has worked with MCOE and the 3 Strands Global Foundation to keep efforts to stop human trafficking in the spotlight and teach residents and school educators about the realities of human trafficking.

A new nonprofit created by Capra arose from her community work. SpeakSAFE, with SAFE meaning Save Adolescents from Exploitation, assists with local fundraising for educational efforts and has provided online learning opportunities during the pandemic.

“With our coalition, the DA’s Office [has] been extremely supportive and helpful in partnering on our work and connecting us with law enforcement, service providers and community members,” Capra said. “It really is all hands on deck, and their involvement has been pivotal. Our work has always been a priority with them in supporting our youth.”

Frugoli said human trafficking is difficult to detect and rarely reported. Many victims are moved from county to county or state to state, making the trafficker harder to follow and the victim feel isolated and unfamiliar with surroundings.

“Many victims are reluctant to report the crime as they are genuinely in fear for their life or that of their family,” Frugoli said. “Our coalition’s mission is to develop our regional collaborative approach to end all forms of human trafficking. We’ve focused our efforts on education and outreach advocacy. We have turned several cases over to state and federal authorities because the conduct occurred over multiple jurisdictions.”

Cecilia Zamora, Executive Director of the Latino Council and Co-Chair of MCCEHT, emphasized the need to have the coalition’s work be grounded in multicultural best practices, ensuring that the messaging and resources are shared with our thriving Latino communities across the county.

“We do this,” she said, “by successfully utilizing our nonprofit members as partners in the education and outreach to their own constituents.”

The Human Trafficking Prevention Education and Training Act (AB 1227) became California law in 2017 and provides a basis for localized anti-trafficking work. The MCCEHT Steering Committee meets monthly. MCCEHT’s quarterly online meeting on Jan. 19 will feature guest speaker Antonia Lavine of the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking and County Supervisor Judy Arnold. The videoconference begins at 11 a.m., Spanish translation will be provided. Participation details are on the MCCEHT website.

Learn more about local anti-trafficking efforts via the PROTECT website or call the DA’s Office at (415) 473-6450.

By Matthew Artz

Refusing to let Kaiser pay lip service to racial justice while failing to provide culturally responsive health care for communities of color, mental health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente’s Richmond and Oakland offices held a one-day strike on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Nearly 100 psychologists, social workers, addiction counselors and marriage and family therapists picketed outside Kaiser’s Oakland Medical Center at 3600 Broadway and marched through Downtown Oakland, chanting “Therapist! Power!” on their way to a rally outside Kaiser’s corporate headquarters in the Ordway Building at 1 Kaiser Plaza.

“This is my ‘bus boycott.’ This is my ‘sitting at the lunch counter’… This is what MLK would have done,” Sabrina Chaumette, a social worker, who is one of only five Black clinicians on Kaiser’s adult team in Oakland, told colleagues and allies during the rally.

Speaking on the picket line, Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Alameda, told the striking clinicians, “When you have people and workers here who want the dignity of celebrating the most sacred and important day in our country… I say, ‘be anti-racist, Kaiser.’”

Clinicians in Oakland and Richmond voted nearly unanimously to strike after Kaiser executives broke their promise to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a paid holiday in 2022.

In response, Kaiser CEO Greg Adams announced that Kaiser will treat the King holiday as a paid holiday for all Kaiser employees in 2023, but Kaiser executives have still refused to work with clinicians to address structural racism within the HMO, which has resulted in the departure of clinicians of color, further depriving patients of culturally competent care.

Kaiser has rejected proposals aimed at improving recruitment of therapists of color and bilingual therapists, as well as addressing structural racism within the organization.

“Kaiser pays a lot of lip service to racial justice, but when it comes to taking action, it’s always ‘wait till next year,’” said Chaumette, whose schedule is so overbooked that new patients must wait four months for an appointment. “If Kaiser can’t even keep its promise about honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, how can we trust that it will ever take action to address structural racism in its ranks?”

Besides Bonta, participating elected officials included Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley and Oakland City Council members Sheng Thao, Nikki Fortunato-Bas and Dan Kalb.

According to a 2019 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Black adults in the U.S are significantly more likely than their white counterparts to report persistent symptoms of emotional distress, such as sadness, hopelessness and feeling like everything is an effort. Despite the need for mental health care, the same report found only one in three Black adults receives it.

At Kaiser, a recent survey of more than 1,500 Kaiser employees represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers found that 62% of non-white workers reported experiencing racism on the job and 37% of all workers surveyed reported witnessing racism toward their patients.

Additionally, 41% of all respondents reported having patients who struggled to access or maintain treatment because they could not be seen by a culturally competent provider.

“We are living in a time of reckoning, a time when people of color are no longer content with the status quo,” said Jessica Dominguez, the founder and lead clinician at Kaiser Permanente’s La Clínica. “Because (the) status quo has never included people of color. Status quo is white supremacy.”

In response to claims from Kaiser that the clinicians were “weaponizing” the King holiday because they’re bargaining for a new contract, Dominguez said that “structural racism is baked into the Kaiser system.

“People of color don’t stop being people of color when negotiations are done,” Dominguez said. “Racism within the Kaiser system does not end when we ratify a contract. These issues are deeply embedded in this system and will not simply go away. And it is not enough to denounce racism. We must be anti-racist… We will not give up and we will not give in because mental health is a social justice issue.”

Matthew Artz works for the National Union of Healthcare Workers, a member-led movement representing 15,000 healthcare workers, including more than 4,000 Kaiser mental health clinicians in California and Hawaii.

From the Mayor’s Office of Communication

Mayor London N. Breed announced a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a collaboration between San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) and the American Library Association aimed at improving and expanding library services for incarcerated individuals both locally and nationally.

“For many who are incarcerated, access to information and resources through the library is a lifeline and critical to their rehabilitation process,” said Breed on Thursday. “I want to thank The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for recognizing the pioneering work of this collaboration between San Francisco Public Library and the American Library Association, which will improve access to resources for incarcerated individuals nationwide.”

Co-led by SFPL’s Jail and Reentry Services team and the American Library Association (ALA), the Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People initiative includes a comprehensive survey of existing models for library services to people in jails and prisons and a revision of outdated standards in collaboration with formerly incarcerated people and librarians.

Additionally, the project will involve the development of an interactive map that can be used to locate library services for incarcerated individuals nationwide and create a year-long virtual training series led by SFPL staff and other experts in the field.

Lastly, the project will pilot digital literacy trainings to support people in the process of reentry. The project will create three new positions at SFPL, an administrative position for grant fund distribution, a research analyst, and a librarian to provide support for the Jail and Reentry Services team.

“Little information is publicly available about the types of library services available to incarcerated people,” said City Librarian Michael Lambert. “This project will allow us to see where library services exist, where they can be better supported, and to provide that support through collaborations and training that will ultimately increase the amount of library services inside of jails, juvenile detention centers and prisons.

“Our justice-involved patrons deserve more equitable access to the full spectrum of library programs and collections,” Lambert said.

This project will have national visibility and share models for providing resources to people in jails and prisons across the country. To do this, SFPL will convene librarians and library staff providing services to the incarcerated population for a half-day meeting prior to the ALA 2022 conference in Wash., D.C.

Additionally, at the conference, ALA will host a hearing on the standards for library services in jails and prisons.

“Low literacy and limited access to information-rich networks continue to be chief contributors to the prison pipeline,” noted Tracie D. Hall, executive director of the American Library Association. “Research shows that increasing the literacy rates and strengthening the library and information access opportunities for detained and formerly detained individuals often correlates to successful rehabilitation and reentry.

“This grant will allow us to address some of the gaping information access needs of incarcerated people by identifying and improving existing services and growing new access points for library and information services. As a nationwide advocacy body, the American Library Association can help create standards and programming that hold weight with prison and jail administrations and influence library policy to better serve this community,” Hall said.

“For those who are incarcerated, access to literature can be the difference between rehabilitation or rearrest,” said San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto. “The Sheriff’s Office welcomes all programs that encourage education and support for opportunities upon release.”

Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People will begin in the coming months pending Board of Supervisors approval. Mayor Breed will work with the Board of Supervisors to approve an Accept and Expend Ordinance to receive the funds.

The motion is expected to be heard at the Budget and Finance Committee in the coming months. Once the Ordinance passes, the Library can proceed with hiring staff to fulfill the roles outlined in the grant, which are additive to the Annual Salary Ordinance.