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What a Safe Home Should Be Accomplishing [REPLAY] | Safe Home Series, Part 3
23 Plays2 hours ago
In this replay of our Trafficking Free America Podcast, we go deep into the real-world structure, phases, and outcomes of what a safe home should truly accomplish for survivors of human trafficking.
Host Jeremy Hicks sits down again with Brandy Cristafulli, founder of Life Recaptured, to talk about every step of the recovery journey—from intake to empowerment to independence. Brandy shares lessons learned, mistakes made, and the incredible power of consistent structure, compassionate boundaries, and trauma-informed care.
If you want to start, support, or understand what a quality survivor-centered safe home looks like, this is your blueprint.
🌐 Learn More
USIAHT: https://www.usiaht.org
Life Recaptured: https://www.liferecaptured.org
Become an Abolitionist: https://www.usiaht.org/give
⏱ Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome back: The most detailed episode yet
01:22 – Brandy’s journey of ongoing education and mistakes
02:12 – The hard truth: sometimes you must turn someone away
03:04 – What a safe home should be accomplishing at each phase
04:34 – Detox and assessment: when to say no
06:19 – Intake: learning family background, triggers, and trauma
08:14 – The cost of care: $225/hr for trauma-informed therapy
10:00 – Daily rhythm: structure, relationship, restoration
12:05 – From assessment to residential to empowerment
13:36 – How survivors reclaim power in the empowerment phase
14:19 – Independence: job, rent, responsibility, and tracking
15:18 – A restaurant and boutique run by survivors
17:14 – Dream boards, group service, and core values
19:08 – Why healing and discipline must happen together
21:01 – Real-world readiness: barcodes, brands, and resumes
23:45 – “I don’t have a dream”—restoring purpose with joy
25:02 – Themed dinners and community-based healing
26:14 – Why safe homes must be long-term investments
27:17 – No one “ages out”—phases guide the pace
28:59 – “One girl is worth it”—don’t measure success by numbers
29:55 – Exits: the hardest and most necessary part
32:01 – You can’t save them all—but you must protect the house
36:42 – Why training, not just heart, keeps survivors safe
🎯 What You’ll Learn
- How to set up four clear recovery phases in a safe home
- Why boundaries and structure matter more than emotion
- The emotional toll of running a home — and how to survive it
- What it means to graduate from a safe home (and when not to)
- How Christ-like love includes discipline, exits, and grace
- What it takes to build a community that restores lives
🎙 If this episode moved you, here’s how to take action:
✅ Start training with an organization like Selah Freedom
✅ Support a safe home financially or with your skills
✅ Share this episode with your network
✅ Pray for and support survivor leaders and caregivers
#SafeHomeSeries #TraffickingFreeAmerica #BrandyCristafulli #LifeRecaptured #USIAHT #EndHumanTrafficking #PodcastReplay #SurvivorCare #JeremyHicks #FaithInAction
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Transcript
Introduction to Safe Home Ministry
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to our third episode of this series that is helping guide you along your path to starting a safe home ministry or learning how to better support a safe home ministry. This episode is our longest, but most detailed segment.
00:00:25
Speaker
We provide a lot of text for your notes, but I encourage you to have a notepad ready and write down what speaks to you the most. What we're talking about today are the multiple phases that Brandy's home has developed for each woman's journey into recovery.
00:00:39
Speaker
She helps detail the goals and signs for each of these and phases and when you have a woman graduate to the next phase. Right now, this is being done all inside one home, but Brandy's desire for the future is to have three separate homes for these three phases.
00:00:56
Speaker
Maybe that's something to consider before beginning a safe home, to have more than one space for this.
Learning and Setting Boundaries in Recovery
00:01:02
Speaker
Or maybe you can help support a safe home to do just that. A few things I want to point out before we begin.
00:01:09
Speaker
Brandy is still in her journey of finding out better ways to provide a safe home. With the amount of training she had before officially starting the safe home to the continual education she still gets on a biweekly basis, she learns from the good and the bad of what occurs in the safe home.
00:01:26
Speaker
As she talks about things they're currently working toward or what helped them grow, write those down. There could be a safe home that needs that exact support from you right now. What a blessing it would be for you to approach them with an educated mindset on how to financially support them with what they've already been dreaming about doing.
00:01:47
Speaker
Lastly, we discuss one hardship that many forget about when beginning a ministry like this, and that's sometimes turning away a victim. Not every person is ready for recovery.
00:01:58
Speaker
While a great amount of patience is needed, boundaries must exist and be there. It does not mean you close the door forever, but you must consider the other women in the home who will need boundaries to work toward their recovery.
00:02:12
Speaker
Having someone in the home to possibly disrupt that cannot work. If you are seeking this ministry, do you have the strength to be patient and set boundaries such as these?
00:02:24
Speaker
I'm encouraged by your engagement thus far, and I look forward to you continuing this journey. Let us all work to begin and support safe homes across the country, beginning in our own state, county, or city.
00:02:40
Speaker
What we're going to be talking about in this segment is truly um what a safe home should be accomplishing to obviously help with trafficked victims. So what we want to do is start with kind of the beginning process. how you ah You mentioned in our last segment that you you kind of assess before they come on board, before they are allowed into the home.
00:03:04
Speaker
There's reasons for that and we're gonna kind of get into each step and the reasons for those steps. um and but But before we get into that, i have one last question ah around it all.
00:03:16
Speaker
Where and how did you learn these steps? Before we get into it how did you learn like what to do? Did you learn along the way? Did you learn beforehand? What'd you do? I learned along the way. Plus, the people who were mentoring me helped me to know, you know, which agencies to start with and how I should work with them because I didn't have a clue.
00:03:37
Speaker
So you began some stuff and obviously changed along the way. Do you believe that if even if someone was to follow your exact strategy, that they're probably gonna have to do the same thing?
00:03:48
Speaker
I think if they follow me, they'll they'll probably have a little bit more knowledge than I did because I think everybody that learns from somebody else brings a little bit more than what they have gotten before. And is you know most of it, I will tell you, or maybe half of it is experience.
00:04:05
Speaker
It's doing it plus the knowledge that you receive. So I learned a lot, Jeremy, through ah my failures and through my experience with with trafficking.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I just want to encourage everyone to like start off with what's been working, you know, and and before just assuming that it's not, right you know. um All right. So I want to start off with the assessments.
Detox and Intake Process
00:04:30
Speaker
um How do you assess and how do you decide who can come in and The first thing that we do is if they need to be detoxed, we want to get them detoxed because you can't get the information that you need to get from them if they're high and on drugs. um They don't really um share with you the things that you need to know.
00:04:52
Speaker
So they're usually working with someone if we if we come from an agent, but if we're rescuing somebody, we will bring them um to be tested and then if we feel that we need to take them somewhere else that we are not ready to take them because they need more detox, then we will take them somewhere else for a longer detox.
00:05:13
Speaker
They don't come in the house if they're still not. We did that once and it created such a problem. It was, she needed, they said probably months to detox and we did it in a week.
00:05:24
Speaker
And it didn't work out. After we detox, then we start the intake process. And that intake process lets us know what their real name is.
00:05:36
Speaker
It lets us know information about private information. They don't have to go into everything. But just things that lets us know where did that human trafficking start. um If it started with family, they're certainly not going to talk to family because as we integrate them back in to the real world, we're going to have to keep them away from the family who sold them.
00:05:59
Speaker
So that's one thing we need. We need to know what kind of drugs was she on? What kind of drugs does she need to be on according to our doctor? And most of the girls that come in here are not on hard drugs anymore because we help with natural meds. We also have things that we put in the room that help them to sleep, you know, sound machines.
00:06:21
Speaker
They're not allowed to smoke. um They're not allowed to have a lot of sugar except on the weekend. It triggers a lot of things. So that intake will tell us a lot about their life and what we're gonna be dealing with.
00:06:35
Speaker
Questions like, do you have an eating disorder? we We tried that once with a girl. It's more than just an eating disorder. um It disturbed the whole house because of the vomiting and ah the food, hiding the food, and just, it was a mess.
00:06:53
Speaker
So you want to look at the medical issues, the psychological issues, the criminal record. Because if their criminal record has been checked out and they've lied to us,
00:07:04
Speaker
And it's worse. We can't take the men. But if it's not, you know, that bad that we can work with them, we let them know we're not here to judge you. Jeremy, almost every girl that goes through trafficking is going to have a record.
00:07:18
Speaker
So we don't want them to think we're judging you on how many men you were with, forced to be with, what your family did to you. The people that should have cherished you hurt you.
00:07:29
Speaker
So from the beginning, we let them know, please don't think we're here to judge you.
Therapy and Daily Routine
00:07:34
Speaker
Honestly, we just want to help you. And we don't go into the depth of that trauma because that's when she gets with the trauma therapist and the counseling.
00:07:43
Speaker
And you have to be careful which counselors you get because even though you have wonderful counselors or Christian counselors or whatever, if they don't understand human trafficking,
00:07:56
Speaker
They don't help the girls. We had one counselor say to the girl, you could not have serviced that many people. And he made her feel like she was lying. So I said, we won't use them anymore.
00:08:07
Speaker
I interview them. I go in with them to see what they're like when they talk to my girls. And one of them that we use was recommended by one of our mentors who is wonderful, but it's $225 an hour.
00:08:23
Speaker
So when you have that many girls that need that at the beginning, multiply $225 once a week for all those girls. It's a lot of money, but it needs to be done. i mean I'm curious though, where are the assessments happening before they do come into this realm? Usually the assessment will take place over the phone.
00:08:43
Speaker
we're not If we can go see them at an attorney's office or if there's some way that we are physically able to do that, we will. But most of them it's done over the phone with two other people on my end and someone on their end where nothing is misunderstood.
00:09:00
Speaker
We might go over it three times where we call and do the same intake. And the reason we do that is to see if that information is true. And then we want them to say, ask us some questions.
00:09:12
Speaker
That's important. Don't just go ask them questions like you're the general. Say, is there anything that you would like to know? Sometimes they want us to send pictures. We do. Not of the outside, but of the inside.
00:09:25
Speaker
And then they'll ask us certain questions and we'll answer them. And then when we call back again, are you still feeling happy about coming? Or is there something you're interested? They have more concerns. How long Are you gonna make me stay there?
00:09:39
Speaker
We're not gonna make you stay here anytime. You wanna come, we wanna show you how much we care about helping you. So after we have that, we bring them in and my medical doctor who's retired, she starts talking with them about, do you have a problem sleeping?
00:09:56
Speaker
you know Are you having withdrawals on anything? And then she helps them every day for months to walk this journey that they're coming off of everything.
00:10:08
Speaker
Then we bring in someone who's gonna talk to them about food. We had that at the beginning and then we lost one of the girls and now we have a girl again. Dietitian is very important. Some of the girls come in with Lyme disease and different kinds of diseases where the food has to be different. Now, some people are thinking when I'm speaking, why don't you go to these places that give you food?
00:10:31
Speaker
We had them give us food. It was a lot of bread, it was a lot of meat. The girls had to be on specific kind of diets. So we had to go out and buy that food. So it's different.
00:10:43
Speaker
So you put them on of you know what they should eat, and then you have a time that they're sleeping, because they're used to sleeping through the day and working in the night.
00:10:54
Speaker
So now you're reversing. They've gotta be out of the room at a certain time. Their rooms have to be clean. They go in the kitchen, they cook together, they eat together because they're building relationships.
00:11:06
Speaker
They don't go back in the room until that evening around nine o'clock. They can have a backpack with what they need, their hygiene. If they were to need to go back in the room, that's okay, we can do that if they're sick.
00:11:20
Speaker
But you're teaching them how to become normal again. And you're taking what was normal to them and flipping it so it's hard. So after they sit at the table,
00:11:31
Speaker
Then you go into ah like a group of trump trauma therapy. You do it in a group. Then you have your curriculum that you work with. And then you will go on those days, there's some days we go to horse therapy.
00:11:44
Speaker
There are days we go to the gym, the gyms that work with us. We have a gym that will shut down so that we can go there. And so we work with those things. we have We grow things. We have artists that come in and we have education.
00:12:01
Speaker
And it's very light here because this is just the assessment. But when we see they're able, then they transition into the residential home.
Empowerment and Independence
00:12:10
Speaker
Now they're doing a lot more freedoms.
00:12:13
Speaker
They're starting to learn how to dress for a job. They're starting to learn to write a resume. They none have resumes, but they want to learn how to write a resume. You want to learn how to carry yourself with good manners and things like that. So the residential home opens up more education, more life skills for them.
00:12:34
Speaker
And they can actually go places in the van where hoping for a new van that we can take them in And we want to go places where we can ask the people if we could come in without being noted that we're a safe home, but bring a group in. Like a lot of times we'll take them on the beach to watch the turtles.
00:12:53
Speaker
They love that. They want to watch the rockets. They want to do things where they can feel the fresh air again. And so going from that residential home where they're doing good, now they've got a lot of their education, their life skills, learning how to dress, working with finances, they're going into the empowerment condo.
00:13:13
Speaker
Right there near my residential house, only the assessment house will stand alone. Those other three houses will be on the same properties. So in that empowerment house, now they're like living in a condo at college, but they're being overseen by advocates.
00:13:28
Speaker
They're just learning a little bit more independence. Cook for yourself. Show me how you're gonna dress. Luz, we're taking a trip today. did you This is so exciting. The clerk of the court said, we will help them by hiring them or letting them be an intern and come here with a briefcase, showing them how to dress and giving them the power to work with the courts.
00:13:51
Speaker
The very same people that before were putting them in jail want to help them now. So we're we're looking for that, ah for them to get more power when they're going out, how they carry themselves, teaching them how to look in someone's eyes.
00:14:07
Speaker
Because when they're trafficked, they never look up in someone's eyes. Never. Now they're going from empowerment to independence. Now, at the end of that, you can drive, but we're gonna track you.
00:14:19
Speaker
And the job that you're gonna go to, we're gonna know that you're going to that job. But now you're starting to make money. And so you can pay a little bit of rent and live there and show us how responsible you are. And at the end of that year and a half, if you go, i don't think i can I can face the world yet.
00:14:37
Speaker
We go, okay, let's look at this. Let's see what we need to do to change that. And we don't throw them out the door. Like, okay, it's time for you to age out. It's time you've been here for this long. You go, we hope you do well.
00:14:51
Speaker
Here's your little suitcase. I don't care, honestly, if you're with me four years, five years, six years, if you're feeling like you're healing those open wounds.
00:15:02
Speaker
Because once those get healed, and once you become empowered, you're gonna go out into the world and you're gonna scare them. You're gonna be so powerful. One girl went at restaurant. That's why we opened our restaurant. It doesn't mean we can run out, guys, and open everything they want. We don't have the money.
00:15:19
Speaker
A church owned that restaurant and let us take it, and then our survivor decorated it, and that was her dream, and she became the assistant manager. That was a gift to us that we still have.
00:15:33
Speaker
And then the boutique was our old fruit building that my family used to run fruit and my family agreed that I could use it because when you think of the money that we need to run this, we use some of those entities to hire these girls back in so we can watch them and help them learn how to work and take care of them and then they can move on.
00:15:57
Speaker
So, um, Right now, what you're building toward is those three homes. um you know This one will be the first stage. Then you're gonna have a second stage and that the condo's the third one.
00:16:11
Speaker
um Thinking about how you've done it in just one home, which is usually where most safe homes would start. um After the assessment, um And you had some, so some people would be in that second or third stage, but they would be in the same home. um So walk me through, you know, okay, they're here.
00:16:33
Speaker
What, what things are you doing in programs you're going through during their first phase? um Along with the other girls. okay Okay. And what are you trying to accomplish by doing that?
00:16:48
Speaker
Well, the first phase is to have that girl, like I said, to be able to think straight and be healthier and and and be ready to start the phases.
Community Engagement and Real-World Preparation
00:16:59
Speaker
So after she's gone through that assessment time, that phase then is to come in and sit down with my group and let's talk. what are what are our goals what do you think that you would like to do most of them go i don't know and then what you try to do is you do a dream board or you do something that helps them to recognize there is a dream for them and during that time that you're doing that second phase they're trying to work together we do some community services that we just started too the community services are going to be for the girls to go into the nursing homes
00:17:35
Speaker
and be able to give back love. It's really important for these girls to understand everything's not going to be put in their lap. A lot of them feel like when they come, you should make up for every year that things were subtracted from then. If you have the wrong advocates, that's what you'll end up doing. Buying gifts, going on trips, letting them sleep all day.
00:17:57
Speaker
No, they've got to show that they know how to cook the ones in there in the second phase to make those that came in just now feel good. You're going to work at that relationship.
00:18:08
Speaker
You go back to the core values and you go over all those core values. And as they are aggressive being, you know, going, moving forward, transitioning into the The second phase, they are becoming more independent even in this house.
00:18:25
Speaker
The third phase is like I told you, even though we only have one house, they're starting to have education. They're starting to have resume. Do you know how hard that is to do in one house? This is like a domino effect.
00:18:38
Speaker
You bring in the new ones and they want to know why those girls you You might have to take them out into the room that we have for art and go over resumes and go over dress codes.
00:18:50
Speaker
They want to know why they're not doing it, but they're not at that phase yet. But we do teach them from the beginning that they come in, there is a dress code. There is a certain dress code and they've got to be able throughout that day to do their chores.
00:19:04
Speaker
They've got to be able to do that day to do their walking, to start doing their exercising. If you don't get them exercising mentally, they're a mess.
Operational Challenges and Resource Management
00:19:11
Speaker
So you've got all those different levels that you're doing in one house and they may get triggered and go all the way back to the beginning.
00:19:20
Speaker
So those transitional phases I told you are happening right here. Instead of having a house, residential, and a condo and a condo, it's all right here.
00:19:31
Speaker
This is where we're doing it. Some may be taken to the schools. Others may be taken over there to the doctor to get their body in shape. Everything is going on in one house. You can do it. I'm doing it.
00:19:44
Speaker
But I can tell you, this is difficult. And then you're turning down people. because you don't have enough advocates or you don't have enough, you know, places to put them. So if you have your other houses, you can move those people on that are doing good and bring in your new ones and keep doing that process of transitioning.
00:20:05
Speaker
But if you don't have your homes ready, you better hope that you're You've got everything together because it's hard. You've got to have your advocates. Advocates are working with this one, my advocates over here are working with another girl.
00:20:20
Speaker
And at the same time, you're building relationships, even though they're not at the same phase. You're building relationships like the real world. It's going to happen. Everybody in the real world is not on the same page.
00:20:33
Speaker
Everybody in the real world doesn't have, this girl may get a little favor over here while this one's still working. And you have to teach them that. You have to teach them gratitude. That's huge for us. Gratitude for the little small thing that somebody does for you shows them that life is changing.
00:20:51
Speaker
I've got to be thankful. I know that now I'm not just someone like a cattle being... you know, cattle through. And you know that they have those barcodes now. Did you know that, Jeremy?
00:21:03
Speaker
Barcodes where they can just put the amount that owes it and just swipe it and sell them like they're cattle. We had girls that had brandings, but we have surgeons too that will take off those brandings for them, um those tattoos and things. They'll remove it.
00:21:20
Speaker
So the first phase seems to be primarily like... we're trying to get you out of this lifestyle that you've known and to more of a balanced, stable, um, lifestyle that is going to help shape them for societal society all around us. This is um what most people grew up with. They're not, they have not received.
00:21:44
Speaker
Um, and so you're trying to break old habits also naturally give them, you know, ah trauma therapy and whatnot, counseling. um that that That seems to be probably, i would guess, what most people think a safe home is.
00:21:58
Speaker
Yes. Right? That's what most people think a safe house is. I think what makes yours very unique is that second and third phase. So to after they are finally...
00:22:09
Speaker
When do you know that they're ready for that second phase and then what are they trying to accomplish during that second phase? Every phase is written out. The girls know what the phase is. We sit down, we go over it with them and we say this and this and this is what you need to accomplish to be able to go on to your third phase.
00:22:26
Speaker
And most of that, like I said, is just being able to work with the girls that are here after the assessment of getting healthy. getting where your mind is, where you're eating right. The second phase then is being ready to come out of just being alone, out of isolation, learning how to work together.
00:22:46
Speaker
And then the third phase goes into working with education. So we have someone that will work with them on the computer in that room and they have to stay there and work with them.
00:22:57
Speaker
The girls can't touch the computer. We don't have enough computers. We need more, but we don't have enough, so we we use that one. And so now they're into education. They may be looking for jobs in that third phase.
00:23:11
Speaker
um They come out with um the clothes that they get to pick, too. They get to go into um the boutique we have, and they can pick out clothes. And then the clerk of the courts are giving us what's called a closet room, and they do suits and brief briefcases.
00:23:28
Speaker
So once the girls are into that third phase, they get to go there and get their briefcase and get their clothes and work with the clerk of the court. Now, some of them don't want to because they don't trust law enforcement, but some of them want to go into law enforcement to stop what's happened to them.
00:23:45
Speaker
So that phase is resumes. The third phase is dress codes. It's being able to role play. We role play a lot. And the we role play to help them they're exiting the program, but they don't even know that role playing is that because it's teaching them life skills.
00:24:04
Speaker
Life skills of how to keep doing these step by step to be in becoming a new person to be able to go into the world and be able to function.
00:24:16
Speaker
So we take it slow, but those phases are needed. They're essential things that life skills require for people to have, but in the meantime we give them gifting like piano, drums, guitar, ballet.
00:24:31
Speaker
We do things that tries to help them find their inner giftings because they will all say, Jeremy, I don't know. I don't have a dream. I don't have a gift.
00:24:42
Speaker
They feel that because all that's left is just a shell. But we we tend to get it back. We cheer a lot. We get happy a lot when they do things.
00:24:52
Speaker
We do what's called a um it's it's a dinner once a month, and it's a theme dinner. Like we'll ask one of the girls, where's some place that you've always wanted to go? If she says Hawaii, we bring in someone that knows how to cook the dishes from Hawaii and they wear the leis.
00:25:09
Speaker
They decorate the table. They all cook together. And you sit down at the table and you talk about a dream. Would you like to go there one day? Why? And you start to open them up.
00:25:20
Speaker
Now, a lot of them that go into the third and fourth stages, they can volunteer to do things, but they have to have an advocate that's with them. And then, of course, at the fourth stage, that's the independence of going to a job, being able to get back on their feet again, and finances, how to work the finances.
00:25:39
Speaker
Someone oversees that the whole time. You don't just get your money because you work. We hadn't asked you for a penny, but now you can't spend it all. because we're going to work with you on a budget and we're going to work with you on how to get out and get you a home or get you a condo.
00:25:55
Speaker
We're hoping to get a piece of property that we could do tiny homes and as they graduate with us, um it might be four years or five years, can go in that tiny home and we can have someone that would live out on that piece of property and help us to get the girls to be safe and help them to go along life's journey.
Long-Term Recovery Process
00:26:14
Speaker
I think what you have kind of established is that you need to expect a long time. I feel that with most, not everybody's that way, but most are that way. Yeah, I mean, because in our last segment, we talked about someone who was being trafficked when she was seven. Now she sees you at 27. So it took 20 years to get her there. do You think it'll take, you you would think it took 20 years to get her out. Yes. um So why do you put a time limit? When I understand, out when I hear people say, well, the other people told us we'd be through in a year and a half, and I go, well, I can't speak for them.
00:26:51
Speaker
um I'm just going to say you're going to speak loud and clear to me. The phases are all written down. I can tell you they graduate when those phases are done if they feel like... They're ready to integrate.
00:27:02
Speaker
Just because the phases are done and time to graduate doesn't mean that they're ready. but They may say to us, is there some way I could work here? and b And we're okay with that as long as they go through all the training.
00:27:15
Speaker
We don't just throw them into it right away. But it's just real important to be sensitive to what they are feeling. The reality is...
00:27:29
Speaker
You started a terrible business. yeah I mean, yeah it's it is sacrificial, but both by money, ah time, and emotion.
00:27:40
Speaker
And if it's one person, that's okay. And it's okay that it takes this long. You're not trying to just get them in and get them out. I think many times when you have a safe home that is supported by the state, that's supported by these large organizations, um that they're trying to turn it into that. And it's important that our viewers understand that If you're going to support a safe home, um support the quality of that safe home and what they're doing.
00:28:09
Speaker
um You're not supporting to say, how what are our numbers? You're supporting to say, what are you doing? What are you trying to accomplish? And it's important that in this fight, we recognize that, that this is not a fight to win by numbers. Obviously we want to, but the only way we grow in numbers is have more safe homes, more support, so support.
00:28:29
Speaker
That's how we do that, not by making one safe home have more people it. Right. I mean, that encourages me to to know that you know that because we can't go forward without more safe homes, and this is tough.
00:28:42
Speaker
It is. And it's sometimes you're going to feel like throwing in the towel, and many times you're going to mess up. But if you keep trying to do better and you keep educating yourself more and more, but keep your heart, keep your heart there, you will do it. I have to just say, God has helped me do everything that I've done.
00:29:03
Speaker
And that's the way we've survived. there's one final question i have in this segment. And that's kind of a hard question, it's hard to subject, but it's an important one if you're running a safe home that I've, from everything you've told taught me, told me, is knowing how to do an exit.
00:29:23
Speaker
um You mentioned that the hard one of the hardest things to do, if probably the hardest thing to do is an exit. And when someone is is is not following following the rules, going toward their accomplishments, so and so forth.
00:29:38
Speaker
um So I know that you can't give too many specific examples, and but can you give us a generic idea of when when it's the right time to exit and then how your program works for your exit program?
00:29:55
Speaker
Okay, there's two different kinds of exiting, okay? There's the good kind of exiting when they're graduating. So like when they come in we start to talk about, we're so glad you're here to help you to be able to go back in the world. And we talk about it in a good way. We don't go, okay, well, you're going be here a year and a half and then you're going to leave.
00:30:15
Speaker
We do role-playing. And what we do is be able to act out things that shows them what it would be like to keep moving forward and how would they act in that? So if they're not ready, we can see that in role playing, but we're continuously, you know, talking about doing that exit for their dreams.
00:30:35
Speaker
So it's not an ugly word. It's something where We're trying to help them achieve that. That's what we do from the time they come in. The other exiting is when someone is not respecting our core values.
00:30:49
Speaker
They're not respecting the advocates. They're not respecting the other girls. We were bringing them in and giving them chance over a chance over chance because it wasn't being handled right. You need to Bring them in from the beginning.
00:31:05
Speaker
Talk to them. It doesn't change. You bring them in and write that up and talk to them again. how can we What do you feel is causing this problem? Is there something you know we could change?
00:31:17
Speaker
Or it might be a mental problem with um some things that they have going on. If it's mental health care, we can't do it. If we see that, um like one girl that we had almost smothered another girl because she felt like she was after her, we had to call and have her help.
00:31:39
Speaker
We to get help. We're not qualified to do that. So that when that comes when a girl's not wanting to really help herself. She wants to either run because she's scared or run because she's a manipulator and she wants to run the house or she wants to rebel against everything you're doing.
00:32:01
Speaker
And I had to learn this, Jeremy, because you wanna help everybody. So you think it's just a part of what they've been through and you must just be humble and keep dealing with it. But what happens when you have one house especially, it takes over and holds your house hostage and then you have a mess because you might have other girls leave because of that or other girls get sick.
00:32:23
Speaker
So now when that happens after the second time, we give a probation time. And if you cannot take ownership and change these things we've talked about, then we're going to have to exit you.
00:32:35
Speaker
And when we, they know that before they come in, we talk about it. We talk about if you cannot show the respect in the house, at some point we will have to ask you to leave.
00:32:46
Speaker
And so you, we we know, they know where we take them and there is no further contact with them. And all of our advocates have signed an NDA form, which means none of that should be talked about. There's no further contact. That's over.
00:33:03
Speaker
That's hard. Do you know how hard that is? To take a girl in and hope that you can change everything that's been bad to good. And now they're back out again, but they're angry. And they're angry at you.
00:33:14
Speaker
And they may not say good things about you, but you're going to have to deal with that. That's a part of having a safe home. And then you fill that spot again. And that's very sad and it's very hard.
00:33:26
Speaker
You will cry a lot if you're like me and you will feel like a failure at some point. And then you'll have to look at yourself too and say, was there anything that we could do different? Never just take that down as a rule and then go in there and go, we had to you know we had to exit her.
00:33:42
Speaker
Do you look at yourself? That's what we're having to do too. Look at ourselves. Let's see if there's something we needed to change. You're always going to be doing that on both sides.
00:33:54
Speaker
and And your response to that about the exit program, all I could think of what, of and and how you're saying it, is that's a Christ-like way to love.
00:34:04
Speaker
wait a lot
00:34:07
Speaker
Christ is there to be there for us. He's there for the suffering, when he talks about in Matthew. He's there when um we need him. and like he's He's there among those who are are poor, suffering, hurting, on and so forth, and that's what you're doing.
Support for Staff and Advocates
00:34:23
Speaker
You're sending yourself to come, those who are poor, those who are hurting.
00:34:27
Speaker
But if you're gonna hurt those who are hurting already,
00:34:32
Speaker
there there comes a point where you just, you cannot be associated in that sense. And just, Christ is here, ready, but there is a reason why he says, come to me.
00:34:44
Speaker
And wanna encourage you that while that's hard, and I'll be honest, I don't even i know if I would have the stomach to do it, which shows your strength. um I encourage you to to keep moving forward and doing what you're doing um because what you're doing by getting that, possibly that one girl that you don't want to exit out, and have have exit your program, you don't want it.
00:35:11
Speaker
You're doing everything you can to keep it from happening, but if you must, it's because you're protecting the others who did say, please, I'm coming into your care and I'll do this. And so thank you for being strong enough to do that.
00:35:24
Speaker
And thank you for sharing that strength with us and encouragement that there's, we need We do need to do that. There is a point of discipline. There is a point of, hey, this is the line.
00:35:38
Speaker
And um i appreciate that you do that. And I also appreciate that you make that the very last straw. Thank you. And I only could do that, Jeremy, because I was trained.
00:35:50
Speaker
Otherwise, if I had not been trained, I would have assumed that I was just, every time I was doing something wrong, and you know i would have to fix it, I would have to fix it. But having the training every twice a month and being able to take that to my mentors, I have two, one on each side, taking it and they go, no, that's not what you're supposed to do.
00:36:10
Speaker
Remember, you have your core values. Remember you have your intake and your exit? Let's go over it. Nope, you can't you can't do that. Had I not had the training, who knows how many girls would have been messed up because people get angry with you and people want to do everything from the heart.
00:36:31
Speaker
you You do have to do it from the heart, but you also, even Christ had boundaries, has commandments. And we have to have some boundaries. And that's got to be respected. that's It just has to be.
00:36:44
Speaker
And then we move on. And that goes for the advocates too. We don't just want, and it goes for me. It doesn't just mean that just because we're in a position of leadership that we can assume that we don't have things to change sometimes, we do.
00:36:59
Speaker
Or some of the people that work for me, if I see that that they're not understanding how we were trained, if you move from that, because you would rather have friendship, and that brings on, then I can't have you here.
00:37:13
Speaker
as much as I like you and love what you did, you can't be here because you're not helping. You're creating something as a friendship and then the others get jealous and they wanted that friendship and you become a paradise for them that all you do is put them back into isolation again.
00:37:30
Speaker
You may buy them gifts, you may take them on trips, which shouldn't happen, And then what you've done you've stopped the progress of what we needed to do to get them back into the real world again.
00:37:43
Speaker
that's going to close up this segment um and i of of what to accomplish for for your for your girls who come into the safe home and what you believe the most safe homes should be accomplishing.
00:37:57
Speaker
um At the end of the day safe homes need to be leading toward a restoration.
Building Networks and Raising Awareness
00:38:01
Speaker
Whether or not you're a safe home that goes to, like maybe you have a network, right? It's like that, that you're trying to build and like a three-tier safe home, which goes into the victim restoration of getting them out into the workforce and and getting them that lifestyle, that graduation.
00:38:19
Speaker
Some might be in the spot where they're just that assessment safe home, that judge just a Trump safe home. And then they network with another one. And we need that type of network happening. um But either way, you can kind of see the accomplishments going along the way. So thank you for what you're doing. And I'm excited about the next segment now to discuss how...
00:38:42
Speaker
It's very hard um for you to do what you do without support. There's the finances, there's the network, and then there's the awareness. And so we're gonna talk about those things and how, thats this is truly how I feel i where most of our viewers and listeners can truly make an impact right now, starting with Life Recaptured and starting with their sphere of influence.