The Professional Counselor | Volume 13, Issue 4 397 really important for them, too.” She explained that this was particularly important because many of the women she worked with had a violent criminal history. Many company insurances refused to hire women with criminal records, preventing their clients from a second chance at improving their lives. However, John learned to support clients with resources. “I don’t think it’s sufficient to just say ‘Here you go, here’s the resource guide. They have lots of options in there. Good luck.’ . . . Our job doesn’t end with giving the resources,” he explained. An important point to make is that although some counselors spoke about collaborating with social workers, it seemed that most believe their work resembled “a little more of that, like, case management–type stuff to make sure that they have the resources if and when they want out,” added Cassandra. Kimberly elaborated, “You’re the one that’s helping to get them to [a] place where they can have a relatively stable life . . . but without the resources that come alongside that, they’re gonna go nowhere, [they’re] going to hit a wall every time.” Discussion We sought to understand counselors’ experiences working with sex trafficking survivors through a phenomenological analysis. The participants in our study needed to understand and address the different aspects of trauma. Because of clients’ traumatic experiences that resulted in psychological injuries (Cole et al., 2016; Grosso et al., 2018; Lutnik, 2016; Muftić & Finn, 2013; O’Brien et al., 2017), counselors benefited from respecting the process of healing, addressing stages of change, and building a safe and trusting relationship. Counselors overall possessed knowledge of the development of posttrauma responses over time. They knew what to look for and how to best treat traumatic symptoms that permeated all aspects of their client’s lives, particularly sex trafficking survivors’ ability to trust others. Counselors believed that having a trauma-informed approach could reduce instances of re-victimization. Counselors also recognized the importance of self-awareness such as assessment of personal trauma, self-care, restorative practice, and biases regarding how youth are trafficked and by whom. Yet, our findings demonstrate that working with sex trafficking survivors requires additional competencies as illustrated in previous research (Interiano-Shiverdecker et al., 2023). The participants discussed the need to become educated in recognizing the signs of sex trafficking, vulnerable populations, and the processes by which traffickers force people into sex trafficking to obtain a deeper understanding of the client’s worldview and provide appropriate support (Interiano-Shiverdecker et al., 2023). Participants addressed components—namely force, fraud, coercion, exploitation, power, grooming, and solicitation—commonly used in sex trafficking literature (Bruhns et al., 2018). When asked about the nature of their work, their focus naturally divided into sections that focused on assessing risk and safety planning, processing trauma, and helping the client re-establish their life and their identity. Our findings align with CACREP (2015) recommendations for clinical crisis skills and knowledge while also elucidating their application to sex trafficking survivors. Participants learned to assess for specific sex trafficking signs (e.g., phone usage, boyfriends and their ages, sexual behaviors) and to ask questions that differentiated sex trafficking from other forms of abuse. Counselors must also understand the differences between sex work (i.e., the voluntary exchange of sexual services for compensation) and sex trafficking (i.e., subjection to the exchange of sexual services due to force, fraud, or coercion or from any person under the age of 18). As Ana shared, most counselors felt that the notion to detect was on their end “because I don’t always think it’s the responsibility of the client to be able to say ‘Hey, I’ve been trafficked.’” Thus, participants indicated that possessing these competencies could help increase the identification of sex trafficking. As such, some counselors may
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDU5MTM1