What an amazing time I had at GRIT 2026! Where to even begin...
As I looked around the conference room on the morning of the first day, little did I know that I would meet and be surrounded by so many wonderful people and speakers who would drive and motivate me with collaboration towards solutions...which is what is so desperately needed as we reach out to our communities on this critical issue that affects everyone across the globe. I want to thank Frontier Ambulance and UprisingWyo for the support, and for providing me the opportunity to attend.
So many classes, breakout sessions, skills labs...you can visit the GRIT website (on Facebook: GRITWYO) for a complete listing, but perhaps the most compelling 'you had to be there' part of the conference (at least for me) was the Mock Operation, comprised of an actual trafficking case for all of us to solve, from beginning to end. As a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) leader, each person on my team had such a wealth of education, training, and education in their fields. I had law enforcement officers, detectives, victim advocates, nurses, public health specialists, attorneys, counselors, therapists, and even survivors of trafficking. It was truly humbling and gratifying to see my team bring so many levels of expertise and experiences to the table, and collaborate in a way that I had always envisioned for MMIP! It inspired me to make a goal to collaborate, form, and instigate an interagency team to establish and/or improve protocols with our first (and second) responders, and implement an effective tribal and community network. It is doable, it just needs doing!
Trauma Response: Support is critical for victim survivors!
Centered around real-life experiences of the victims, GRIT taught me that tribal and community support and effective resources are absolutely essential to providing pathways towards healing for survivors of abuse and exploitation. Sure, we can zero in on the bottlenecks and do the 'blame game', putting a tunnel-vision focus as to why or where the systems break or fail; however, the solution always remains the same: It starts with us. As an individual, as parents, as a family, as a caregiver, as a neighborhood/subdivision, as a business owner, as a group/organization, as a first responder, as a commissioner, mayor, or council, as members of a tribe and community...communication, collaboration, responsibility, accountability...all words that should resonate within us.
I heard a radio program recently, where the speaker figuratively divided the word 'responsibility' in two words: Response-Ability. Each of us have the ability to respond to the trafficking crises; it's just a matter of how we decide we do it, and the willingness to actually do it. It can be as simple as calling a tip line (see/know something, say something), using your gut when something doesn't feel right. In the Mock Operation, it was a hotel clerk who observed and suspected that something wasn't right and called it in. (The MMIP Wind River website has an entire page of reporting and tip lines.)
Did you know that 36% of trafficking is familial? 27% are romantic partners, 14% are friends of family, 14% are employers, and only 9% are strangers. It should be disturbing for us to see that family/friends of family make up 50%...half...of the pie!
A Call for Collaboration
This month of April, the focus has been on Child Abuse and Sexual Assault. Campaigns have been posted and shared on our Facebook page. We already have the 'response-ability' to prevent MMIP from ever happening in the first place, first by holding ourselves and each other accountable for what is happening right under our noses, in our homes, schools, churches, businesses, etc. It starts with us.
So if we are to even make a dent in MMIP, we need to have the 'response-ability' to do our part. The Northern Arapaho Tribe recently posted a list on their Facebook page of individuals "whose 'whereabouts are unknown". Read that list! Save it, print it out. Raise your children and youth in a loving, caring environment. Don't ever give them a reason to run away. Don't ever give them a reason to consider suicide. Don't ever give them a reason to feel like they are trapped or neglected.
If you feel the call to collaborate on solutions, please email me at mmipwindriver@gmail.com. I would love to have you on the A-Team! We'll be holding another presentation on trafficking very soon, so stay tuned! I'm excited to continue the discussions and take those boots-on-the-ground next steps towards real change and transformation that will make an impact and send a message to traffickers:
"Not here. Not my town. Not my tribe."
