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Episode 6 - Helping Survivors of Sex Trafficking, with Simply Healthcare Florida
147 Plays1 year ago
Host Erin Collins & cohost Dr. Philip Toal discuss the physical impact of trafficking and trauma to the brain and the road to recovery. Followed by a conversation with Holly Prince, CEO of Simply Healthcare Florida, and Samantha Ferrin, Sr. Government Director with Elevance Health, about how they are working to help survivors of trafficking.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Background
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome back to another podcast by the Florida Alliance to End Team and Trafficking. I'm Erin Collins and have the privilege of serving as its executive director. Joining me as my co-host on this episode is Florida Alliance board member and healthcare professional, Dr. Phil Tull.
00:00:22
Speaker
Dr. Toll, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you, Erin. It's really nice to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. Dr. Toll, can you tell our audience about your education and background and your current health care role? Sure. I'm a licensed mental health counselor here in the state of Florida. I have a master's degree in clinical psychology from the University of Central Florida and a doctorate in clinical sexology from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.
Understanding Trauma in Human Trafficking
00:00:47
Speaker
I currently work part time for Aspire Health Partners,
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm the senior clinical advisor for the company, specifically looking at areas of advanced clinical training and consultation on
00:00:59
Speaker
particularly difficult cases with an area of emphasis on human trafficking. Now, we are very fortunate at the Florida Alliance to have your expertise sharing information and knowledge on this important topic. In previous discussions, you focused really on the brain trauma that individuals who have gone through exploitive situations like human trafficking. Can you share a little bit more about how exploitive situations in human trafficking can actually
00:01:28
Speaker
physically impact our brains. Absolutely. And any of us that experience a trauma of any kind would experience changes in the brain.
00:01:37
Speaker
For example, if you come across an automobile accident on I-4 or 95 or 75, that is a difficult situation, may result in fatalities, it may be a pretty gruesome scene, we would experience trauma. And there's certainly many other forms of trauma in our life experience. When we take a look at trauma, the brain changes with trauma, and there are three particular areas that change.
00:02:00
Speaker
The first one is that, and everyone's probably familiar with that fight, flight, or freeze experience. And that's the amygdala, the middle of the brain.
00:02:09
Speaker
that controls that experience when we're faced with potentially life-threatening danger. That can be real danger. For instance, you're standing at the ATM and someone comes up behind you with a gun and threatening to hurt you or kill you if you don't take out money. Or it can be a perceived life-threatening experience. That which we may tell ourselves is life-threatening, which can be any number of situations creating stress and anxiety. The second area of the brain that's specifically impacted is
00:02:38
Speaker
that which is related to the, it's the midbrain, emotional regulation. So what that really means is that the emotional reaction to the situation is incongruent. Normally, hopefully most of the time, that is equal. So if it's a situation like, say, for instance, you're in an elevator and the elevator gets stuck, you might have some anxiety about how long is it going to take to be rescued.
00:03:02
Speaker
with trauma in that area of the brain that changes, then the emotional reaction is not equal or congruent with the experience. So one may be overreacting, and I can give an example in a moment. And the third area of the brain, which is the frontal cortex or the prefrontal lobe, areas that are responsible for what we call the executive functions, reason, decision making, impulse control, judgment, and mood.
00:03:29
Speaker
So those three areas of the brain actually change. So it's a neurological change that occurs with trauma. And so when we talk about human trafficking survivors in particular, so all of us experience those changes with trauma. The difference and the significant difference with human trafficking survivors is the repetitive nature of those traumas. So when you think in terms of each and every individual that's violating the survivor, so for instance, if you had five Johns a night, that would be,
00:03:59
Speaker
generally an individual trauma. You take a look at, and five is a conservative number as we talk about often, more like 10 or more. And so each of those could be seen as a trauma. So these cumulative traumas over time become very, very significant and an overwhelming level of trauma that none of us, unless we're a survivor ourselves, really can understand because in a general human experience, we don't have that many traumas.
00:04:26
Speaker
But with a survivor, it's multiple ongoing and can be for, as we all know, in the human trafficking field, an extensive period of time. Two to three years for out of the experience of the trafficking or the trauma for the brain to heal. So when we're taking a look at survivors and we're wondering why it's so difficult perhaps to engage them in services,
00:04:50
Speaker
to help them move along that journey, what I like to call the journey to wholeness, the restoration of a normal quote unquote life, how difficult it is because the brain changed. So we talk about that fight or flight and freeze everywhere they look, they perceive life threatening danger.
00:05:09
Speaker
So, for instance, in the unit that Aspire runs, we may ask them to make their bed or keep their room clean. And that can be experienced as a life-threatening trauma.
00:05:21
Speaker
Sounds simple, sounds easy, and yet that brain shifts that focus because of the changes neurologically that make it a life-threatening event. Asking them to go to the medication room for medications can result in some pushback and some arguing and some explosive reactions because the brain changed. Everywhere they look, even in simple, common experiences of life, it's deemed to be life-threatening on the part of the survivor because of that brain change.
00:05:50
Speaker
The same kind of reaction asks you to make your bed and there's this explosive reaction that seems like life is coming to an end, the world is falling apart because the brain shifted and changed and that emotional regulation is no longer present.
00:06:04
Speaker
And then finally, asking them to make easy decisions to engage in activities that most of us can engage in fairly routinely if we have not experienced the trauma become very, very difficult for them. And so when you're attempting to engage the human trafficking survivor and services, they're unable to filter and to create an integration of what's going on in the real world versus what's going on as a direct result of those neurological changes.
Pandemic's Impact on Mental Health
00:06:30
Speaker
It's so interesting to hear you discuss and outline how situations, in this case, as it relates to human trafficking, a survivor's brain is impacted neurologically, and again, for those repeated situations and incidents over time, and then how
00:06:52
Speaker
that continuum of care can change also depending upon that individual's circumstance. Setting aside human trafficking, the last few years have increased vulnerabilities
00:07:07
Speaker
and individuals that might have more risk factors based on maybe their own isolation when there were stay at home orders in our state and others, being isolated from school or the workplace, your social safety net, family people that we rely on. If it's not an immediate family member, all those other individuals that really people can go to for support,
00:07:35
Speaker
in times of challenge or frustration. Can you talk a little bit about how individuals, I guess generally, you know, with our coping skills, you know, we are even the most introverted of people, you know, still need other human beings to interact with, but there is that interaction that is lost when again, other factors accumulate in a vulnerable situation. And I'm
00:08:02
Speaker
thinking particularly of our youngest of individuals in our communities, our young students, our young adolescents, that it's an interesting kind of new time right now where they're clinging for attention, for support, that longing. And a lot of young people, because it's so easy to do so, have kind of clung to their social media devices.
00:08:28
Speaker
and the connections through the relationships through these apps. And as we know, unfortunately, not everyone has the best of intentions. So can you talk a little bit about just general coping and support skills that we as individuals need, but then also for adolescents and for minors during their
00:08:51
Speaker
you know, growing up period, if you will, that young pre-teen, teen years, how support and having trusted adults and figures in their lives are so important. Absolutely. And probably in my philosophy is that in no time in human history have we experienced, you know, a worldwide trauma and
00:09:13
Speaker
struggle with stress, anxiety, and depression as a direct result of the pandemic. And I believe that we have not yet seen, and it may be a very long time before we see the really long-term impact of a worldwide pandemic. And the difference between this experience and not in the Holocaust and
00:09:33
Speaker
world war two and those kinds of things swine flu and not to downplay the stressors that those people experience during that period of time but no time in the history of mankind has every single human being on the planet experienced
00:09:47
Speaker
the trauma, the question. During the pandemic, in the very beginning of the pandemic, if we recall, there were no answers. We had no idea how this virus may have been transmitted. We have no idea how long it would last. We had no idea what was gonna be the impact, short-term or long-term. Many, many people died from COVID. And so that was frightening. Never in the history of humankind has there been a complete shutdown
00:10:15
Speaker
where you were told to stay at home and to be safe and to protect yourself. In addition to those who had to be in the workplace, i.e. hospital, medical providers, first responders, grocery stores, that put out there a fear factor that was, I don't know what's coming, and human beings don't respond well to fear. We often can create greater fear than is real, but with the pandemic, the fears were real. Long before we had a
00:10:46
Speaker
immunization. It's like, how sick were you going to get? Where are you going to get sick? I mean, if you remember early on with the arrows in the grocery store to go down this aisle and turn that way and six feet of distancing, don't come in without a mask. I remember, you know, having a mask in the car and getting out of the car without my mask and going, oh my gosh, I forgot my mask. I got to go back to the car and get my mask. That in and of itself created anxiety. Or you bumped into someone because you're going the wrong way down the aisle in the grocery store. All of those things.
00:11:14
Speaker
And the difference here is that, to your point, Aaron, where we reach out to people for supports, and all of those coping mechanisms that we typically have in place in our lives, going to church, going to school, going to movies, going to the theater, going out to dinner, were not available to us.
00:11:32
Speaker
a huge vacuum of resources that were abruptly taken away from us. Because the shutdown, if you recall, was like quick. It's like, you know, today, you know, these things are closed, you can't go there, etc. And so we didn't have time to prepare a strategy to help ourselves cope in those isolated situations.
00:11:52
Speaker
The elderly and young people probably suffered the most. The elderly because many of them are isolated already. So if they live alone because they're widowed or divorced and going out into the world was the place that they received that support, that was taken away.
00:12:08
Speaker
young children from a developmental standpoint, you know, when we remember, even when we say young people, we talk about the human brain really not completing its development, used to say age 24, 25, now research that's probably age 28. And so
00:12:25
Speaker
The brain's not fully developed anyway and now we're placing upon that brain and that individuals need to cope and to deal with stress effectively when they don't have the capability neurologically anyway, so relying on others. So even their parents in their own home who were in their
00:12:43
Speaker
COVID bubble didn't have the skill set because we were facing something that we had never seen before and it was an unknown. It was really incumbent and I did a number of podcasts and kinds of things to help people develop some strategies which were to really move within the context of their bubble to find situations and circumstances that would help them to manage their stress effectively.
00:13:10
Speaker
Part of it also and there's always a silver lining you know to every such a difficult situation you know the ability for telehealth services for telecommunications social media that really expanded
00:13:23
Speaker
our worlds from an isolated bubble to say we could still have some of that human contact. Outside your bubble, you didn't have the physical contact. There were so many people, and you probably heard these stories over and over again, like grandparents not able to visit a newborn baby that typically grandma or granddad would have been there to assist in the process. That couldn't happen. I had friends who didn't see a grandchild for two years.
00:13:49
Speaker
You know, didn't lay eyes on the grandchild other than through, you know, telehealth services or teleservices, but couldn't hold the baby, couldn't be present. Even some dads who couldn't be in the hospital when the delivery of the baby occurred. So those separations that are a normal part of our life experience were taken away and again very abruptly.
00:14:07
Speaker
Imagine, and I have stories from clients and some from friends whose loved ones were ill and dying, unrelated to COVID, but who couldn't be in the hospital when the loved one was dying. There couldn't be funerals. There couldn't be weddings. There couldn't be baptisms. So all of those circumstances. So how does one wrap around, even the best of us with the best skills, how did we wrap ourselves around the ability to manage the stress? So for youth, the importance was having those strong, significant,
00:14:37
Speaker
safety net within that family system. And yet, when they're lacking the skills because it was an unknown and unusual, it became very, very difficult and really required a tremendous amount of effort on the part of parents and others to really continue to support. So, you know, how do you support someone when you don't know the answers?
00:15:01
Speaker
And so you want to be reassuring, you want to be supportive and loving and compassionate, and they were, but their own fear of the unknown. And so a very difficult situation that requires superhuman efforts to really come up with what's going to work. And because we're individuals, some of those strategies are very different from person to person. And how do you discover?
00:15:26
Speaker
If you lack those skill sets to begin with, you've probably found yourself in a much more difficult situation because you may never have had to exercise those before. And the lives of children, the majority of children who have a safe environment, who have intact families, whether their parents are still married, but they're co-parenting in effective ways, they didn't have that. And so it became very, very difficult. And again, I think we're going to see long-term ramifications of that.
00:15:56
Speaker
We don't even realize what those are going to be. Wow. Well, Dr. Tolle, you personally gave me a lot of things to think about. But thank you so much for your insight on just important, again, skills, coping, and just trauma in general. And obviously, with regards to adolescents,
00:16:17
Speaker
didn't realize that the human brain is still forming and changing all the way up into your 20s. In this podcast episode, we'll hear from Holly Prince, the CEO of Simply Healthcare Plans, along with Samantha Farron, the Senior Government Relations Director of Simply's parent company, Elevance Health. Let's take a listen to this recent interview.
Simply Healthcare's Role and Mission
00:16:40
Speaker
Today, we're joined by Holly Prince, President of Simply Healthcare, along with Samantha Farren, Senior Government Relations Director of Elevance Health. Ladies, thanks for joining me. Hi, Erin. Thank you so much. We're so happy to be with you today. Thank you, Erin. Really appreciate it. Looking forward to the conversation.
00:16:57
Speaker
Holly, you are the own president of Simply Healthcare. How long have you been serving in that role? And how did you get to the role that you have today? I have been CEO of Simply since February of 2020, right ahead of the pandemic. I came in right at that time, which was incredibly challenging, but was a bootstrap learning experience, obviously, in the CEO role. But I have been with a company
00:17:25
Speaker
Since 2010, I was one of the first employees of Simply Healthcare plans as the CFO. I'm an accountant by training and have been in various roles in the company from my background in finance through operations and eventually to
00:17:45
Speaker
to the privilege of leading the company. In the way, way back, before I was a CFO, before I was a CEO, simply, I started my career out of college or my life out of college, I should say, as a Peace Corps volunteer.
00:17:59
Speaker
And that's where, that is where my passion for being part of the community and helping people really blossomed. And I've been proud to be able to continue that through work like what we do here at Simply.
00:18:15
Speaker
Wow, that definitely servant leadership. Holly, can you tell us more about your role as president with Simply Healthcare and what is Simply Healthcare? Yeah, thank you so much. I'm the CEO and president of Simply Healthcare Plans. And to start with your second question, Simply is a Medicaid and Medicare and Florida Healthy Kids HMO.
00:18:34
Speaker
here in the state of Florida. We are part of the elements, larger portfolio of companies, which is a national insurance company. And I say insurance and we'll get into that conversation later, but a company that really, it's a healthcare company, a trusted partner for the journey of people throughout their life to achieve healthcare. And that's really gonna be foundational for what we're talking about today. But getting back to what is simply healthcare plans, again, we are Medicare and Medicaid.
00:19:03
Speaker
HMO, privileged to serve 900,000 members across all of our different lines of business here in the state of Florida. And my role as the president is to first and foremost ensure that we deliver quality health care to our members. And that's through our network of providers,
00:19:21
Speaker
through our many employees throughout the state of Florida and all of that keeping our member in focus. Wow, that's a lot of different members and you touch a lot of different areas. And again, as you mentioned, we'll delve into that a little bit more. Samantha, tell us about your role. And again, as Holly touched on, the relationships, excuse me, with Elavant. Super excited to be here with Holly. So I lead the government relations team for Florida on behalf of Elavant's health.
00:19:48
Speaker
What that means is that Holly and I get to work very closely on a daily basis. Simply Healthcare plans here in Florida is a very big part of who we are as a company. We have been in Florida for many, many years. And as she mentioned, Elevance Health really is working on focusing and transforming what a traditional health benefit organization has looked like in the past.
00:20:18
Speaker
and really want to transform that into being a lifetime trusted health partner, which is our goal. And Holly works very closely with us on achieving that goal for the members that we serve here in Florida. Samantha, can you tell us how long you've been with Elevance and what brought you to your current role today? Sure. Thank you. I have been with Elevance Health since September of 2022.
00:20:44
Speaker
So still fairly new to the company, but really we hit the ground running as soon as I had the opportunity to join in the fall. Previous to that, I've worked in and around Florida government and politics for well over a decade in a variety of roles, mostly with the state in various capacities.
00:21:07
Speaker
I've worked in the Attorney General's office. I had the privilege of working for two House speakers in the Florida House of Representatives. Then I jumped out and was able to serve for a handful of years in various roles with the executive branch, within agencies, leading legislative affairs, was Chief of Staff and Interim Secretary of the Florida Lottery as well. I'm just super excited to now be here with
00:21:35
Speaker
simply in elevance health. So Holly, if people are not familiar with Medicaid and all the different things along with health care and insurance, can you tell us who's eligible for a plan with simply and you mentioned Florida Healthy Kids. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
00:21:56
Speaker
Sure, of course. To start with Medicaid, Medicaid is a program for assistance for needy children and families and is an important part of healthcare in the state of Florida and really focuses on primarily moms and babies, but also disabled adults as well. We have also a long-term care component in there
00:22:20
Speaker
for members who meet Medicaid income eligibility criteria, who meet nursing home placement criteria, but really want to stay in their home. And we're really proud of that component of the Medicaid program. The Medicare program is primarily for elderly individuals. That's a federal program that we participate as a Medicare Advantage program. If folks can go into a traditional Medicare with the government program, or they can choose a Medicare HMO,
00:22:49
Speaker
which offers more benefits and add-ons to enhance the health for those members. Our Florida Healthy Kids program is for folks who don't quite meet the income criteria. They're quite a little bit above the income criteria for Medicaid programs.
00:23:04
Speaker
but still largely need help. A lot of those get assistance with their premiums for that health insurance. It's a very robust health insurance program. And members can get assistance if they meet that income threshold that's not quite at the Medicaid criteria, but lower than a certain threshold that they need assistance. Or people can choose to buy full pay insurance with Florida Healthy Kids, so they don't have other option. And that's a really great program
00:23:33
Speaker
for children, it's for children only. Let me state that, so it's Florida Healthy Kids, right? For kids who need insurance, again, kind of in that zone of not qualifying for Medicaid or want to just full pay because they don't have access through jobs or whatnot as well.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's a wonderful refresher. Again, we hear these terms a lot and it's always important to kind of level set and remind ourselves of those definitions. And so we're all on the same page. I know that simply healthcare serves individuals statewide through various regions. Can you talk about a little bit more maybe about the benefits that individuals through simply receive through their various plans?
00:24:17
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. For the Medicaid program, it is a full comprehensive suite of insurance, just like any insurance plan that would cover medically necessary health services in the program. But we also, as a Medicaid health plan, are able to offer additional what we call enhanced benefits that can be
00:24:41
Speaker
For example, we have a benefit if someone needs a one-time assistance with housing for members who qualify for that. There can be payments for that. There are enhanced benefits around vision and dental benefits. We have a DULA program that is a fantastic enhanced benefit that is not necessarily part of a traditional health insurance program.
00:25:03
Speaker
but we found that it's really tremendously beneficial and are able to offer that because it has proven health outcomes. Any of the benefits that we offer obviously have to have a tie back into the whole health and the health outcomes of the member. We have many of those. I think we have over, Sam, I think it's 50 enhanced benefits that lay on top of the traditional
00:25:25
Speaker
the traditional Medicaid. And don't quote me on that, but it's in that neighborhood of enhanced benefits. We have enhanced therapy benefits. There's a multitude of supportive services that really are aimed at getting at the health and the whole health of members. Wow. Now, again, you serve individuals statewide. How many employees does Simply Healthcare have in the state of Florida? We have about 1,300
00:25:54
Speaker
employees that support the organization.
00:25:58
Speaker
through direct employees of Simply and then also employees of Elevance who are dedicated 100% to the service of our members here in the state of Florida. And I will say that we also have as a company Elevance 6,000 employees in the state of Florida who support Medicare, other Medicare lines of business, who support other businesses that happen to live in
Training and Awareness in Healthcare
00:26:23
Speaker
the state of Florida. So we do have a
00:26:25
Speaker
very broad footprint, both in our business, which is simply healthcare and in the business of elevance as a whole of employees supporting that broader book of business. Well, thank you for sharing everything and more about, you know, simply and elevance and telling our audience about the breadth and depth of your employee base. I think it's so important and we're grateful for companies like yours who are proactive
00:26:55
Speaker
in training their employees about the signs and indicators of potential human trafficking. As you outlined, your employees are everywhere throughout the state, various counties, every county. So as we know, human trafficking unfortunately happens in every zip code throughout our state and nationally and globally.
00:27:15
Speaker
So it's so important that folks that are working in the community, engaging with the public, know what to spot, where to report it and what to do. Why has it been so important for you to train your employees on these potential signs and indicators of human trafficking?
00:27:34
Speaker
Well, as we talked about, our mission is as a company, and we know that it is the most effective way to deliver health care, is to look at the whole health of an individual. And part of that, we know that a person who has experienced trauma, and I can't hardly think of a worse traumatic event for somebody more so than human trafficking,
00:28:05
Speaker
We know the effects that that has on the person's health and their health outcomes. We see that. We know that our population is vulnerable and they are, well, as you alluded to, anybody could become a victim of human trafficking.
00:28:21
Speaker
We know our Medicaid population is particularly vulnerable to that condition. And, you know, as a company, we started thinking about, you know, how do we have at every touch point, at every touch point in our company, everybody who is member and public facing have the right tools, the right training.
00:28:41
Speaker
to recognize those signs. And starting with our case managers, we provide them as just part of our, our case managers are the field-based folks who are out there serving our members. So it started with those folks who for many years have been getting abuse, neglect, and exploitation training. But as we started thinking about it and seeing traumatic events, not just human trafficking, but traumatic events with our members,
00:29:09
Speaker
We said, well, there's somebody on the phone. There's somebody in our call center who's talking to these people who might, there might be a sign. And if they are trained to pick it up, they should know. They should be trained to recognize those signs. There could be, you know, it's a provider relations person in a provider's office who's talking to a provider or a member.
00:29:29
Speaker
So we decided to take it to another level, not just say our frontline case manager folks, but anybody, it started with the thought process of anybody who's member facing should be trained to recognize the signs of trauma. And then we were so, from our first awareness training, we were so blown away by the power of that and the positive response that folks had to say, this really will help us
00:29:57
Speaker
help our members. It helps us be more empathetic. It helps us listen. It helps us understand. It helps us recognize, as you said, the signs. We broaden it to the decision to become a trauma-informed care organization on the whole, you know, the entire organization offering training to everybody in our entire organization, whether you process a claim, whether you're talking to providers, whether you're talking to members. And I'm proud to say that we have
00:30:25
Speaker
About a dozen of our leaders who are subject matter experts have gone through a 20 hour course on recognizing trauma. And we have 90% of our employees who have completed a certificate course in recognizing the signs of trauma.
00:30:44
Speaker
So I'm very proud of that and have some great examples of how that's directly benefited our members. I did also want to set to know, and I think you know that we're committed to joining the 100% Club. So the 100% Club is a partnership between businesses, organizations throughout the state and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Florida Alliance to End Team and Trafficking.
00:31:09
Speaker
and is a challenge to those businesses to train 100% of their employees. The Attorney General's office recognizes that these organizations are taking proactive steps, which is so important to train their employees on the signs, the quick references, what to do if they suspect alleged human trafficking and exploitation, and where to report it. And for more information, if people want to get involved and learn more about the initiative, they can visit YouCanStopHT.com.
00:31:38
Speaker
And we are so, so very pleased that you all have produced that and are offering that, that challenge. We are also committed to delivering that training to 100% of our police as well. And I want to say that I applaud, you know, you and simply healthcare for proactively
00:31:58
Speaker
training your employees regardless of their job description. I think a lot of times we rely on law enforcement service providers to keep our community safe and to know the signs and the indicators and what to do because I think we as you know just human beings sometimes we don't want to get involved. We downplay maybe something we saw with our own two eyes
00:32:24
Speaker
out in the community, running errands. And people don't want to get involved if they don't know for sure in their gut that something's going on because no one wants to be wrong. And what if I make a false allegation and someone gets in trouble, but it's so important to think of the other side of that coin and think
00:32:43
Speaker
What if something is going on or about to happen? And, you know, a training that I took took, you know, a little over an hour or for the individuals who are who received that trauma informed training, which again, so important. And again, applaud those efforts that you could.
00:33:02
Speaker
save a life. I mean, it's a small, small investment. And to your point, Holly, it takes everyone. If you're processing paperwork in HR or accounting or billing, or you're those frontline case managers,
00:33:19
Speaker
Everyone has the opportunity to say something and can't rely on the tireless effort of law enforcement and our service providers who are unrelenting in their efforts to prevent and stop and unfortunately react when this is going on.
00:33:35
Speaker
I want to bring in Samantha. I've read a lot of different articles recently about the work that Simply and Elevance has done specifically in the state of Florida in rural communities. As we know, Florida is a very diverse state.
00:33:50
Speaker
People don't always come to the state for the theme parks. Sometimes they're going to, you know, small beach and fishing communities, bed and breakfast. There's a lot of different ways that people can enjoy, you know, our state.
00:34:05
Speaker
But with that comes, you know, finite resources. And so I've been so impressed by the outreach that you have done, especially post hurricanes and storms over the last year. Can you talk a little bit about why that's important? And then also because of the training that your employees have received, you know, being out in the community, how that's helped them interact with, you know, potential members and just general outreach that you all are doing.
00:34:31
Speaker
Absolutely. Thank you so much for asking about our rural communities to your point. They are such an incredible bedrock of who we are in the state. And a lot of our members that we serve from a simply perspective are in some of our more rural areas. As you know, when the
00:34:52
Speaker
Hurricane Ian came through. It devastated Southwest Florida. Very proud of Holly's leadership and our elevance health leadership in immediately coming to action and very quickly were able to donate a million dollars to Florida's Hurricane Disaster Recovery Fund. We're very proud of that effort. But we also recognized that there was gonna be a lot of work and assistance needed on the ground
00:35:22
Speaker
And so we prided ourselves in recognizing that we had to be adaptable to the needs of the people at the time. And we recognized and tried to go in eyes wide open that the needs in the morning on a Monday may be very different than the needs in the afternoon on Monday.
00:35:39
Speaker
One of the things that we were able to do with providers in the Southwest Florida community was we heard the tales of our healthcare workers who wanted to get to work and they wanted to be there serving their communities. And one of the challenges that we were hearing is that the employees just didn't have gas in their cars to get back and forth from their homes and back to the hospitals.
00:36:02
Speaker
to get to work. And so through Holly's leadership, we were able to send fuel trucks into Lee County and provided, I believe it was over 600 cars over two days, two different fuel drops of gas in those healthcare workers' cars so they could then go back and continue to serve their community. One of the other things that we were able to do, recognizing that some of the impact in the rural communities
00:36:30
Speaker
It was much easier for us to go to them than maybe it was for them to get access to a lot of the resources that were available in the community. So we actually working through our, our elevance health sister company up in Georgia, they sent down their RV that they have. And we did what we called simply mobile healthcare units. And we went to four different areas over the course of four days and brought the needs to the community.
00:36:58
Speaker
We did everything from hot meals to wellness checks. We had some mental and behavioral health services available as well as hygiene kits.
00:37:11
Speaker
and really just tried to be adaptable to the needs of those community members at that moment in time. Wow, there's so much to touch on from what you said and getting back to some of the anecdotes and the stories that Holly alluded to.
00:37:29
Speaker
You know, just want to state and and I think we know this because of training we received, you know, through different organizations, but but simply an elevance because of the members it serves are at that elevated vulnerability.
00:37:46
Speaker
So not only do we have individuals who might have a family member or children, minors who are part of Florida Healthy Kids or the child welfare system, there's also individuals who are challenged with finding affordable housing or maybe in and out of homelessness. Obviously there are other issues related to attending school
00:38:14
Speaker
And so your employees are really reaching so many different types of individuals who have elevated risk factors. And again, being proactive, taking training, offering it, and taking that pledge, as you mentioned, Holly, to committing to
00:38:35
Speaker
training 100% employees is so important. As with a lot of different companies around the state, you know, they have employees that live everywhere in the communities and they see things and so to give them the tools and the resources is so important that hopefully we can
00:38:51
Speaker
you know, end, you know, this horrific exploitation and these crimes, you know, sooner than later. I do want to ask you, Holly, and you mentioned it, what's been the feedback from your employees after taking this training? One of the stories that they shared with you. It is just, it has been an overwhelmingly positive response in terms of a personal
00:39:13
Speaker
journey of growth for people, for our employees, as well as a response of saying, hey, this really helps me frame how important my job is and these touch points that I have in the community and to be aware, to have the tools, to be educated, to be part of the solution because it is, as you said, a horrific scourge on our society.
00:39:36
Speaker
It had, you know, people have resoundingly responded, you know, so positively and they've, they've brought forward, you know, many, many stories that have been heart, incredibly, um, hard to hear, but, um, but also heartwarming. We had one of our case managers who didn't go through the training who had a member, actual national member of simply healthcare plans, who she found out was living
00:40:07
Speaker
with non-family members and a boyfriend. And when she started probing and recognizing those signs, realized that she was a victim of forced labor and forced sex trafficking and was able to get her out of the home.
00:40:23
Speaker
get her into first a residential treatment program for 30 days, and then a partial hospitalization program for another 30 days. And then the member is stable now, still residing in a facility for her own safety, is on track to, has a job, has a part-time job now, is broken that cycle, is on track to actually, and is talking and excited about going to college.
00:40:50
Speaker
You know, and that is, that is the type of thing where real, you know, those, those stories, um, you know, are, are just so heartwarming to hear. Even though I said, as I said, very hard that people, we know that people and many people that we, you know, don't know that many of these people are in the shadows, but you know, they're bringing forward those stories and they're raising their hands to say, what else can I do?
00:41:12
Speaker
You mentioned how homelessness is really a condition that co-occurs often with victims in this situation.
Collaborations and Community Support
00:41:22
Speaker
And that, I'm very proud of one of our community partnerships with Camilla's House to provide grants that as an organization, we don't medicate, plan, we don't, and are not able to directly provide housing, but we can fund through grants our community partners. And so one of our grants that we started a couple of years ago,
00:41:40
Speaker
with Camilla's house is to provide housing, shelter, food, and immediate needs for folks. And a lot of it is targeted. It is generally for homelessness, but a lot of it is targeted to victims of sexual violence and sex trafficking and human trafficking.
00:42:01
Speaker
not only with that program so there's a grant component that is very very important and as good stewards and good corporate citizens you know we feel that it is really important for us to give back to the communities we serve but it goes beyond and with our employees I'm so proud of them they they said it's you know that's not enough and they started working with Camilla's house and said what can we do
00:42:23
Speaker
particularly with these women who have been victimized. And they started these programs, so we recruited volunteers to lead education programs at Camillus House for resiliency, self-reliance, Healthcare 101, money management, because we know that that can be a tool that perpetrators use is financial constraints. So teaching these women who had been victims, and it was all
00:42:50
Speaker
a series of our own employees who said, we want to take this a step beyond just donating the money. We want to be part of the solution in the community. And we've benefited 20 women. We've had 20 women go through those programs and the stories that our employees
00:43:08
Speaker
say you know tell about that and how gratified they were to be you know as like I said their personal journey it was incredible because they really saw the need and you know were able to help me you know help those help those women in their journey right to to get out of that cycle and um so very proud of them and most of them didn't
00:43:32
Speaker
have any health literacy, they were, that was one of the eye-openers that our employees said, you know, almost none of them had access to basic health care. Out of the women that we served in those programs, and we did that health care one-on-one that I talked about, almost invariably, none of them had had access to basic health care, which then, you know, was startling, right? But, you know, teaching them how and what is out there and how to access those benefits is,
00:44:03
Speaker
is putting this on the right road. I feel like some of the things that you mentioned, Holly, you were reading from my notes or singing from my song sheet because it's so refreshing that everything that you all are doing and working with other organizations where you don't serve the immediate member.
00:44:23
Speaker
collaboration is key. I will say it over and over again, because we can't be everything to everyone given certain organizations, but we need to rely and work hand in hand with different folks who can fulfill those needs for the members and the community.
00:44:43
Speaker
And I think it's so important. I feel also that you all could teach like a master class on really delving in to the community and being proactive because there's a lot of great companies in Florida and we have been so privileged to receive
00:45:03
Speaker
applications to join the 100% Club from big fortune 500 companies all the way down to tax collectors offices with 50 people because they know the importance of getting educated and getting trained. And if we could all do that,
00:45:22
Speaker
imagine the world a year from now or five years from now, taking those small steps. And again, it's just educating ourselves to one, know that the issue is out there and taking a training that is fact-based and not, you know, surrounding myths and kind of misconceptions about this topic, which, you know, sometimes there can be a lot. And then just sharing that with our networks and you all are definitely doing that and putting
00:45:51
Speaker
you know, truth to power, as they say, and rather just talking about it, doing something which I think is so important. Thank you, Holly, for sharing the partnerships that you have around the state. You mentioned specifically Camilla's House down in Miami. Can you tell us a little bit more about what they do? Yeah, Camilla's House is a not-for-profit organization that operates in South Florida. They have physical locations in South Florida in the most vulnerable communities to provide housing, food,
00:46:20
Speaker
care to homeless folks and marginalized folks in South Florida. Just a great organization that we've been privileged to work with for many years. Thank you. And I think it's also
00:46:31
Speaker
important to know and remind individuals, if they suspect someone is a victim of human trafficking, they are seeing potential signs or indicators about exploitation, you know, commercial sexual exploitation or labor trafficking, that it's so important to make a call to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which is 888-373-7888, or text BEFREE to 233-733-888.
00:47:01
Speaker
it's always important to let someone know if you suspect something is going on and folks that are in law enforcement want individuals to make the call. If you think someone is in immediate danger, obviously please reach out to 911 or your local law enforcement agency. There are so many different resources around the state. Holly mentioned one, Camilla's house, serving Miami, but there are other organizations, Voices for Florida,
00:47:30
Speaker
one more child. There are a lot of great organizations in different regions throughout the state, but you need to make the tip or make the call to report alleged exploitation because law enforcement doesn't know to investigate if they don't know that these situations have been identified or potentially identified. So I did want to mention that and thank you for sharing more Holly about your partnerships.
00:47:54
Speaker
Samantha, Holly touched on it, but I want to ask you about why collaborations with different companies and service providers around the state is so important for you all. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said, we individually can't be all things to all people and combating this horrendous issue of human trafficking is a joint and collaborative effort.
00:48:19
Speaker
We've done various partnerships with local law enforcement in the Miami area, recognizing that oftentimes, as you said, they are that first line of defense for these victims. And we recognize that collaboration and those efforts and those training and awareness tools and resources. Everybody has a different piece of this puzzle, and it truly is gonna take all of us to work towards the ultimate solution
00:48:49
Speaker
on this. I think, you know, excited for what 2023 has to offer, obviously, as Holly mentioned, committed to joining the 100% Club. But we're committed to continuing to partner with various organizations across the state as we have historically, because, you know, it truly is a collaborative effort. Everybody brings a unique piece of the solution to the table.
00:49:17
Speaker
And having everybody that's willing to participate is really just going to move the ball forward. So really grateful for for you, Aaron, and this organization for the Attorney General's leadership on this continued leadership for your board. Just truly grateful to
00:49:34
Speaker
be in a state that is focusing on being the solution for this. Thank you, and we are excited as well. Holly, what would you tell one of your peers who is a CEO or president leading a company in Florida about joining the 100% Club and taking human trafficking awareness training? As we know, there are a lot of different requirements for new employees
00:49:58
Speaker
entering a different organization in the workforce. So sometimes, you know, we hear, oh, it's another thing that's added to the plate. And it's, you know, detracting from, you know, maybe whatever that individual's job description or work kind of getting, you know, ramped up and started. What would you tell them to encourage them to take the commitment and get their employees trained? Well, first off, you know, and have them talk to one of our employees who has touched one of these individual lives. You know, that is incredibly powerful. And we do as an industry
00:50:28
Speaker
We touch millions of lives of Floridians and we have a opportunity to be part of the solution, the solution that your whole entire alliance is working on.
00:50:42
Speaker
And to not take advantage of that would be a shame because it is a commitment of time, but I would say the returns in terms of impacting individual lives and ending this terrible, I don't know what to call it, pandemic or this just horrific situation of human trafficking, the power to make a difference is incredible.
00:51:12
Speaker
I would say that and talk to you, listen to your podcast about how this is impacting Floridians, how we are. Florida is, I think, the third, this is the third largest state or we have the third, the disprivilege of being third in rankings of human trafficking in the entire United States. It is just a scourge on our society and it is within our power to be part of the solution.
00:51:41
Speaker
And I would definitely encourage my fellow CEAs to take advantage of that training and be a part of the solution.
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for that. And unfortunately, as you mentioned, Florida is ranked third for the number of calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. And we are known for a lot of wonderful things on the other side of the coin. Our leadership in the state for over a decade now, after first introducing legislation related to human trafficking in 2012 with Florida Safe Harbor Law,
00:52:11
Speaker
has done tremendous and made a lot of strides, but there's a lot of work to be done, especially, you know, where we can play a role with that prevention and increasing awareness and training. So I want to thank you Holly Prince with Simply Healthcare and Samantha Farron with Elavance for joining us on the podcast today.
00:52:34
Speaker
listening to Holly and to Samantha about everything Simply is doing in the state of Florida, I found it the most profound and really impactful that Simply is really a great corporate steward.
00:52:50
Speaker
And what I mean by that is collaborating with area service providers to not only train their employees, but to train the community at large, and really doing that in a variety of different ways.
Role of Healthcare in Combating Trafficking
00:53:05
Speaker
Dr. Toll, how important do you think it is for managed healthcare plans like Simply and others
00:53:13
Speaker
to educate their workforce. They are meeting with potential clients and members to help them gain access to healthcare. If it was easy as signing on the dotted line, they wouldn't have maybe seen some things or potential signs and indicators as Holly outlined with some of her employees.
00:53:37
Speaker
How important do you think that these managed plans, these healthcare plans that partner with the actual providing physicians play in the role in preventing human trafficking? Extremely important. We can't emphasize that enough. Healthcare and managed care and our insurers all play a vital role in helping us to manage our lives comprehensively or holistically.
00:54:08
Speaker
It's essential that this education, so everybody understands what is human trafficking, what does it look like, who might be the potential victims, if you will, of human trafficking, which everyone's a potential victim, regardless of your
00:54:24
Speaker
you know background and the vulnerabilities which we can talk about in a moment but you know takes a village it takes a village to raise a child it takes a village and partners who truly understand what human trafficking looks like in the impact. Each and every one of those circumstances from a health care perspective are opportunities to recognize someone who may be.
00:54:47
Speaker
being trafficked. And that may be the one contact that that survivor has with someone from the outside who might be an opportunity for rescue and relief from the experience. And so being able to see it and understand it and recognize this can be someone who's being trafficked. So
00:55:07
Speaker
that opportunity to educate. We talk a lot about educating ER physicians and nurses and other ER staff to recognize this is what it looks like. We did this decades ago with domestic violence where we posted things in the bathroom so that we were able to isolate
00:55:22
Speaker
you know, the domestic violence victim, she could see here's an opportunity for resources. Fortunately, we are here, at least here in the state of Florida, I was over actually in a health care center, visiting a friend who had broken her hip, and they have something posted on human trafficking, the signs and symptoms in a health care setting that is typically for seniors.
00:55:42
Speaker
So those opportunities that spread the word and educate all of us on this, you know, if something doesn't look right, it probably isn't right. And so, but recognizing and seeing what it might be kind of.
00:55:54
Speaker
that gives us the pathway to reach out to others who can be helpful. I mean, we know that our survivors often are very physically and we know emotionally sick individuals. I mean, they haven't in the active phase of trafficking, they don't get health care. So what so it may occur in an emergency situation where they end up in the ER or a center care or something like that, that
00:56:18
Speaker
brings them to the forefront of the healthcare provider to say, oops, this one looks like it could be potential vulnerability in trafficking and then stepping in and assisting. Well, and it's always a good reminder to discuss some of the potential signs and indicators of exploitation in human trafficking. Do you just want to share some of those or you think are maybe key, maybe physical or behavioral, maybe potential indicators that our audience and others can be on the lookout for?
00:56:47
Speaker
Clearly, just like with domestic violence, the perpetrator of human trafficking is not letting the survivor out of his or her sight. They're clinging. When emergency room professionals or other healthcare professionals attempt to interview the individual, the perpetrator of the trafficking is not leaving the room. They're answering for the survivor. He or she is not allowed to speak for themselves. Tremendous withdrawal, difficulty in making eye contact.
00:57:16
Speaker
from a physical standpoint, you know, unexplained bruises and injuries that again, he or she is not allowed to elaborate on. Things like levels of intensity, that emotional regulation where there's an extreme reaction to a situation that most of us would see as fairly benign.
00:57:36
Speaker
in a common, you know, I'm asking a common assessment question and I get this reaction that's incredibly extreme. That's going to suggest that there's something more going on than what, you know, in a sense meets the eye. There's, you know, it's like, what's happening? In addition to that, the clothing may, you know, they may, you know, the clothing may not be clean. They're, you know, they're,
00:57:59
Speaker
They may be unkempt from the perspective of not having an opportunity to shower. Typically, that would be out of the ordinary for most people coming into that kind of setting. The vulnerabilities are for an incomplete social history or psychosocial history that they can't answer the questions.
00:58:19
Speaker
not willingness to give a complete address. If you go into the emergency room, if it's not an extreme emergency, they're doing some of that registration piece of your demographics, et cetera, and they can't give those answers because they may not know them because they don't have an address. Some of the kinds of things that get picked up in school settings with youth is that multiple children have the same address.
00:58:42
Speaker
with a caretaker who's not a parent or a relative. And so that's often a cue that there's something going on. There's multiple people being trafficked. So it's that struggle in that engagement. And what's so important when we think in terms of treatment for survivors, there's two necessary ingredients, building of trust and the installation of hope. So when we talk about our partners, it's essential
00:59:08
Speaker
that they not re-traumatize the survivor. So we think in terms of those assessment questions, the information, we're just trying to do our jobs. You walked into the ER, you walked into the health care center, you walked into whatever school setting, etc. You know, being cognizant of the kind of reaction you're getting from the survivor or the individual that you think
00:59:28
Speaker
or it is a survivor that we want to uncover. We need to really be cautious about how we, and that's what's important with the field, how those providing care and support address the survivor. Least of all, do no harm, you know, we cannot re-traumatize these survivors because those are the kinds of things. And yet it's a struggle. There are so few people who are really well trained in human trafficking that we inadvertently do things that might work in another population.
00:59:56
Speaker
My friends is the substance use disorder population sometimes that harder approach more direct approach is not gonna work with our survivors. That's not gonna allow them to engage in services until open up and talk about the other element of that is.
01:00:13
Speaker
that sense of shame and guilt that comes along with being a survivor. So understanding that element on why an individual may be reluctant to share more information about the experience. I've had clients actually say to me, I want the help and the assistance, but I don't want to put pain on the provider, the healthcare provider, because my experience is so heinous. I don't want to cause you pain in hearing my story.
01:00:40
Speaker
so they hesitate to share information. So understanding that and particularly in that assessment piece and then engaging them to enter into services is really important.
01:00:52
Speaker
Well, and to add to that, and Holly outlined it, the collaborations with service providers that are doing some of the work that you outline and assessing the situation with survivors, because again, we know that every circumstance and situation is different, therefore,
01:01:12
Speaker
the care will be very different. But as Holly outlined, you know, simply has partnered with service providers like Camillus House down in Miami to, you know, again, train their employees, but also to provide awareness and resources
01:01:29
Speaker
should they encounter and identify a potential victim at that time that might come into their community health centers or their offices. And so that's why it's so important to know who those service providers and those individuals are. I think sometimes it's always easy for us to remember our first responders who are there to come in once a report or a tip
01:01:58
Speaker
has been called or texted in, and then law enforcement does their investigatory, their work, and that's a huge part of the identification, obviously, of an individual in a potentially exploitive situation. But the long-term
01:02:19
Speaker
sustainable efforts are really undertaken by these service providers. And every case is different. And as we've mentioned before, sometimes these individuals
01:02:36
Speaker
or do not identify as a victim. And it takes a long period of time and proper care to be able and counseling, you know, from, you know, educated and trauma informed individuals. And that can, you know, set a whole nother instance of, you know, longer term delay for addressing what
01:02:57
Speaker
occurred to them, but it all starts with training and that increased awareness. So I really, really like what both Holly and Samantha said, that there are some people that want to help but don't know how, but taking the Florida Alliance's one-hour training
01:03:16
Speaker
is such a huge key in prevention, and it's something that everyone can do, whether you take the training, the hour-long training in one sitting, you take it over a few lunch periods, over a week, but that learning the facts, you know, dispelling myths, which our training does, so that you can be properly informed, regardless of your roles and your responsibilities with an organization, but then to take that, to share with your networks, and that preventative piece is so important.
01:03:46
Speaker
and that early detection or as early as possible, the detection. And I'd like to remind people who, you may not have the whole,
01:03:54
Speaker
puzzle, you may have a piece of the puzzle and you may think it doesn't matter. It's not important. It really isn't suggestive of human trafficking, but providing that piece of the puzzle, particularly to law enforcement who most likely have other pieces of the puzzle, often they're tracking potential traffickers, but they're attempting to gather enough data and then boom, your piece of the puzzle may be the last one that gives them the real picture and then they can intervene. So everything that we do, every small thing that we do is important.
01:04:22
Speaker
in assisting the survivors the whole piece of installation of hope is so important and you mentioned they believe that they've been traffic there also believe that they don't they don't deserve.
01:04:33
Speaker
the life that all of us so richly deserve, regardless of our experience, our backgrounds, and even regardless of our behaviors. I've had clients say to me, well, I wanted the drug, so it was my fault that I was there. And my response is, I don't care whether you wanted the drugs or not, you know, connected to your trafficking or not connected to your trafficking. No one had the right to objectify you in the ways in which you were being exploited. And so it's not your fault. So there is hope that we can assist you over time in restoring, you know,
01:05:04
Speaker
your life journey towards wholeness. I really liked that rather than recovery because surviving human trafficking is a lifelong process.
01:05:14
Speaker
Well, Dr. Toll, thank you so much for being so candid and sharing your experience with working with survivors and clients in your professional capacity. And obviously the Florida Alliance is grateful for your service on our board of directors and for today for serving as my co-host on this podcast. So thank you again, Dr. Toll. Thank you, Erin. Appreciate it. This has been another podcast by the Florida Alliance to Engie with Trafficking.
01:05:44
Speaker
you