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The Importance of Training and Preparing | Starting and Supporting a Safe Home - Season 5, Episode 2
14 Plays1 hour ago
The U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking and Kids Not For Sale presents a special new, 4-part episode titled “Starting and Supporting a Safe Home.” In this season, we sit down with Brandy Cristafulli, the Founder and President of LifeRecaptured, a safe home out of Florida that provides shelter, restoration, and healing for trafficked women throughout the United States.
In this season, Brandy shares with us how she began her safe home, how she runs her safe home, and what she has learned along the way. This is extremely insightful for anyone wanting to end human trafficking in America. We can all be educated on where to assist organizations that help victims of human trafficking, but this dives in even deeper. Whether you are wanting to begin a safe home or simply just support, Brandy provides the proper directions for how to do just that. It goes beyond loving and caring - we must be ready to provide a service that may seem unorthodox to some of us, but helps victims restore their lives.
In this episode, we talk about starting a safe home. This may seem too far fetched for most as starting a safe home is a huge task and, understandably, only a select few are truly called to do. However, understanding what goes into starting a safe home is very important information. It can help shape how you get involved, help support, or simply approach the ministry of serving trafficked victims.
If you want to become more educated and engaged in the fight to end human trafficking, subscribe to become an Abolitionist at usiaht.org/abolitionist
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Transcript
Introduction to Safe Homes for Trafficking Victims
00:00:12
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into our second episode of starting and supporting a safe home for traffic victims in the US.
Challenges in Starting Safe Homes
00:00:19
Speaker
In this segment, we put a hard focus on the reality of starting a safe home. When I began my journey with the US Institute against human trafficking, I can tell you that I immediately felt a dark presence that did not just circle around me, but really my entire family. There is a strong spiritual warfare around this fight and it is not to be taken lightly.
00:00:41
Speaker
And that is not to discourage you from taking steps to help fight human trafficking. If anything, this should motivate you to do more. But Satan does more than oppress. He is the father of lies and will hate wisdom. That's the very thing that God asks us to request from him. Beginning a safe home takes wisdom because your intentions of doing good without knowing a better tested process can hurt a victim more than help. And I know that that is the last thing that we want to do.
Financial and Community Support Needs
00:01:11
Speaker
So in this episode, we focus on the first steps of getting started and provide some resources along the way. In addition to this, we also discuss supporting a safe home. The reality is that they cannot mark themselves like other ministries. The truth is that running a safe home is expensive and they need funding. We need to have a better strategy at supporting a safe home, which can be done through a family, a church, or other things. They also need businesses surrounding them to help offset costs by providing help to victims or their home at a lower cost or for free.
00:01:45
Speaker
We talk about the multiple strategies and needs around a safe home, so please listen to help understand more about how you can get involved, which can also be a very narrow process to protect the victims and the safe home itself.
Training and Collaboration Importance
00:01:59
Speaker
Stay the course and keep watching or listening to this series as we try to cover all aspects around starting or supporting the safe home in the US.
00:02:12
Speaker
So going back to the training that you received, you went through four and a half years of that. um Where did you receive this training? How did you find the training? And what did you do and do during that training?
00:02:29
Speaker
The person who mentors us and still does is called Selah Freedom. They're really the only one that I've found that seems to not be competitive. They want to offer all the help that they can offer because their heart is really in this to help the world to change this this whole epidemic. So I'm still with them and this is six and a half years later.
00:02:54
Speaker
twice a month I received their mentorship and my leaders have to come on that Zoom and they have to go with me to understand what is happening in today's world. You learned what was happening back here but now the traffickers are up here so you need to learn it. So that's who I went and stayed with and ah some of the sting operations um We worked with other counties with different sheriffs that let us go on those too because when they hear that you're really interested in helping and they bust these big um groups, what happens is they usually bust them on a drug ring because they cannot just go in and say you're being trafficked. The girls won't admit to it.
00:03:38
Speaker
A lot of the girls and boys don't even know they are being trafficked. They've been programmed to think they've been bad. They made these choices. Like their prostitutes are selling themselves. Absolutely. This is not like, OK. Yeah, absolutely. And so when they can realize that it wasn't their fault and they have been you know sexually abused or into slavery, what will happen if they will flip over and and tell the truth?
00:04:05
Speaker
and can go to court and point them out, those people are going to spend time in prison. But to have a girl do that, We're working with girls right now that are in jail. They're so scared, Jeremy, that when we go to see them, they keep telling us to don't say anything because they're going to kill me. And so we have to be very careful with these girls. But we work with the detectives. We work with law enforcement. We're there. That's another thing you better be trained on, because if you start to expand your territories,
00:04:36
Speaker
and start to work with detectives and sheriffs, they don't want to hear what
Rescue Operations and Immediate Care
00:04:41
Speaker
you have to say. They want you to be ready because when they bust these situations, sometimes they have 40 girls. 40 girls, Jeremy, what are you going to do to help us? Then we come and we do whatever they say for us to do. We submit totally. We may have to take transportation. We may have to hide them in another place. But here we are willing to do this because it all has layers.
00:05:06
Speaker
Human trafficking has layers. Some of the girls, the detectives will actually give them a cell phone. And we will be the person waiting that they call for us to come and get them. But sometimes we would think we're going to get them, Jeremy. The other people have already gotten to them, and they run in the woods. And then we have to find them. We found one girl, Jeremy, that ran into the word woods, and she was so eaten up with the bugs, she looked like a monster. But we gave her food, and we gave her a tent, and another tent, because people kept stealing it, till we could get her.
00:05:42
Speaker
to come to a place of safety. But ah you have to make sure you're ready when they say go. You mentioned before, knowing the need for this training. um The pastor um told you, like, be ready, you know, or be trained. why did what what what was What was he saying and what made you feel like, I've got to get trained before I do this? Well, he was so, when he looked into our eyes, there were no words being You know, we he was clear when he looked into our eyes because he had done this for 47 years. He just said, please don't go out there and do this without training because you will hurt the girls and boys. So that was enough for me. Maybe I'm a different personality, but when I don't know something and I'm about to get into
00:06:32
Speaker
any type of job or ministry or organization, I submit myself to learning. I think learning along with a heart is a good thing to do. And so to go back and talk with my husband was huge because, Jeremy, I quit my job and just to right then go down, go in the safe houses, go on sting operations, go in counseling.
Financial Realities of Safe Homes
00:06:54
Speaker
I took it seriously. A lot of people think that safe houses, you just go out and rescue someone and put them in there and you make a lot of money. Honestly, people have said that to me, Jeremy, well, you're making a lot of money off this. No, I'm not, Jeremy. We hang by a thread most of the time because we don't charge them anything. We take them to doctor's appointment. Sometimes, Jeremy, they don't even have insurance because you can't say their real names. I'm fortunate enough to have a hospital. I'm not, I don't know if I should name them on the video, but it's a big hospital here that helps me. They'll go, okay, then bring her in the back door. You know, and they, they are so aware of our need.
00:07:39
Speaker
and one girl was pregnant, lost her baby. So they have been helped. You need help from your community. You need hospitals. You need law enforcement. You need advocates. You need directors. You need urban defense. You need all of these people. We even have people that come in and teach piano or drums or guitar.
00:08:00
Speaker
They don't even know they have gifts. But when they find their gifts, Jeremy, they're like children in a candy store. And it's so beautiful to see they'll grow something from a seed. you know they'll They'll do that. And they they they love to be able to be taught finances or to be able to have these curriculums that teach them that they are somebody. They're finding themselves. And we're going to keep them safe. And we let them know that.
00:08:29
Speaker
We don't let them go in the bedroom. Now you have to be careful in safe homes who you hire, because sometimes I had to go through cleaning out my whole house, Jeremy, because a person did not stay within the boundaries. They started being a friend, which hurt the survivors, and they try to take over your safe house. You have to stay within the boundaries of your teaching.
00:08:55
Speaker
I'm sure you've run into so many people who have, they have a heart. Yes. And they they love, they want to love on, and they want to get into this. But, as you were trying to say is, it it can hurt.
00:09:09
Speaker
by not knowing and not knowing the boundaries. And it feels, and to a point, probably feels off. Yes, yes. Right? but You just want to love on them like you do with your family, but yeah there's a limit. There's a limit because they're manipulators. They've learned it from the best. yeah And they only know what they've learned.
00:09:26
Speaker
And they may not even mean to manipulate you. And the girl, one girl would be against another girl and they're jealous of this girl. You can't have that. You cannot have that. I i have core values and I have a frame and we live by those core values in the safe house. If they need to take ownership for something, we take down the frame. We go into the room and we say, now listen, are you willing to take ownership for this? Let's talk about it. And if they cannot do their faces in this home to be able to integrate. If all they do is be in a just keep being mean and and and being against someone and they don't want help, then we do have to do what's called an exit program. That's hurtful. I used to cry. I didn't want to. But one girl cannot affect all your other girls.
Facility Development and Recovery Stages
00:10:16
Speaker
And can I tell you, Jeremy, the reason that happens is because right now we have one safe house.
00:10:22
Speaker
We're doing everything in went all the phases in one house. So when one girl's doing good and you bring in a new one, she doesn't know why can't I do what that girl's doing. But we are building three other houses, which means this will be our assessment house where we assess them, we let them sleep, we get the medication, we get the dietitians, and we start trauma.
00:10:46
Speaker
Then our second house, which we're getting hopefully to build within the next three months, will be our residential. That means now they've got more freedom. The residential house does education, mentoring, financing, more relationships. This is getting them ready to go to work.
00:11:06
Speaker
and but you still gotta have your advocates. You still gotta have directors in that house. Then when they graduate that part, they move on to the little condo we're building on the same properties, and that is going to be called the empowerment. Now they have their kitchen. They live in that with two other girls. They're more independent, still having to to come to the group therapy, still being mentored by our advocates, but they now have their phones.
00:11:36
Speaker
because they're getting ready to go into the work world. They're getting ready to adjust to a new world. So after they finish that phase, they go into the last one, which is independent. That independent is they pay some money to live there because they need to know responsibility and um What we do, Jeremy, is at the end of that time, we will turn around and give them back their money in a check. So that helps them to go out into the world. And where we go with them. We don't put a time limit. ah Some safe homes say you can be here a year and a half or three years. That's okay. We just don't feel that. We feel that sometimes people have triggers and then they have to go all the way back.
00:12:22
Speaker
And we don't want them to think, we're going to throw you out. We go, it's OK. It's all right. Some people just need to start again. And it's kind of like a prisoner that said he can leave now, and he'll go out and commit a crime.
00:12:38
Speaker
Because he's been there for so many years, he doesn't know how to work in the real world. But we help these girls. We're going to be with them for life. That's what I tell them. I'm with you as long as you want me. And so is my team. But sometimes you have to assess your team. And sometimes you have to say, this doesn't work. This isn't working for you. This takes a special person to work in this safe home with all those different personalities. So if I think about the order so far of like let's say there's someone listening to this or a church you know congregation wanting to do something and start a safe home.
00:13:21
Speaker
um your your first thing is get trained. And trained by, it seems in this situation you want to say the freedom to kind of have a mentor. I would um describe say the freedom as more of like advanced training if you would. If you're going to get into the fight, truly get into the fight, you you need to go to say the freedom.
00:13:43
Speaker
um And that's important. And that's part of that network that we
Training and Emotional Challenges for Workers
00:13:48
Speaker
talk about of, you know, US Institute is here to help get make you even aware of sale of freedom, of help pointing you the direction to go, or just the start of your journey in many ways. um And then you go to the the training, which it involves the the stings, really learning of how how What's happening in the world before they come here? yeah Connect with law enforcement. Connect. Don't go in trying to tell them. Go in and submit to them and say, I'm here to help you. And would you help me? And then it is where you're collaborating. But law enforcement is a whole total different world.
00:14:29
Speaker
yeah And we do offer, Jeremy, we offer training too. So if there's someone listening, they can call us and we will work with them on that training because we feel after six and a half years that we would like to share ah with people too and so we could help them. um I just think, Jeremy, it's so important important what you're doing.
00:14:51
Speaker
Because if you're not here caring enough to say, listen, everybody, there's not enough safe homes. And for the safe homes that are out there, come on. It's like, to me, it's like a ministry who doesn't have good business. And before you know it, everybody is leaving the church and there's problems.
00:15:11
Speaker
you need to do what you do to the best of your ability. And if you don't know what human trafficking is, you cannot help those who are going through it because it is a world that you and I never experienced until God brought us into this and we begin to see how evil and how dark. Listen, this is the heaviest thing I've ever done. Every day, Jeremy, we face trauma every day because these girls are filled with trauma. And so what we do is we have a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, a psychologist that gets on a Zoom with us once a month for all of my lead staff. And we are
00:15:55
Speaker
We are helped. We are told how to empty out that feeling we feel when we're not thinking a girl is is being able to move forward. They help us because we need help just like they need help because all of that stuff is coming on us. So see, there's different levels. I feel that there's so many needs here. We have to have transportation people.
00:16:21
Speaker
We have to have them being ready to take them to doctors, being made ready to take them to their attorney's officer, to the courts. We just created what's called the Tyler Court, and we're not the first one ah to create it, we just created it here. But the Tyler Court is T-Y-L-A, turn your life around.
Judicial Support and Trafficked Boys
00:16:40
Speaker
That means the judge, the public defender, and the prosecuting attorney who's all been here,
00:16:46
Speaker
have agreed to work with us on what's called the Tyler Court. Now we train the judges what to look for. They're not prostitute judges. What's happened is when they are worn out, the trafficker goes, hey, I'm the only one who loves you. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put you out there on the street. I'm gonna look after you. You're gonna make some money and we're gonna split it. That's how much I believe in you and how much I love you. They go out, they steal for their drugs, they lay on their back. They come before the court. The court recognized them as prostitution. I've seen you here twice this year. I know you're gonna be back. No judge.
00:17:24
Speaker
ask them, and this just gives me chills, ask them, would you like help? And then I take one of my survivors into that room and they can tell within a few moments that that person's been trafficked because they know it. And then we offer them help. Some of them say no because they think they're in love with their trafficker. Some of them say no because they're scared. And some of them, because they're scared and they're ready to give up on life, will come to us. We've had two cases now.
00:17:53
Speaker
too And I'm proud of that because they're out there everywhere. And we are trying to be a house of integrity, a house that moves and shakes when we need to, when we need to get out there, when we need to get that knowledge so that we can get them out of every corner that they're going to. We will be there and do the best that we can do. We're still learning. We're certainly not perfect. This is a hard field to be in. You know, you're gonna get criticized.
00:18:23
Speaker
I have people that have said awful things, but you have to get past it. You have to realize what is your mission. And I know what my mission is, Jeremy. I know that it's to help these girls and boys. And I say boys, even though we don't take them in, because it's important that you collaborate with other organizations and other ministries, because there's 30% boys and 70% girls that are being trafficked. And these little boys and these older boys, they've been taught not to say anything, be a big boy.
00:18:57
Speaker
And we can't leave them out there. So when we find them, we can take them to these other places and keep in touch with them. We don't just find people and take them to safe homes. We check them out. We do investigations. Because I'm not going to be holding hands with somebody that doesn't have the right heart for this. But Jeremy, there are organizations that are working hard like us. And if people don't help us, we're not going to be around. I don't get federal help.
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't get any federal help. I don't get a paycheck. I just started getting a gas allowance this year, six and a half years later. I'm willing to do that. God has helped us. We pay a price to do it, but it's $600,000 a year. It takes me to run this.
00:19:47
Speaker
600,000. And that is not anything in the bank to save or for any emergencies. That's just what I need. And sometimes Jeremy, every week I can't sleep. I'm just up walking the floors trying to think, who can I call to help me? I can't do this alone. This is not a job for me to get paid on. This is a calling for me. And it should be.
00:20:12
Speaker
for the whole United States because it's happening every 30 seconds and it's 150 billion dollar business and Florida is number three and Brevard County is a hot spot. I don't even need to ask the question, do we need safe
Visibility vs. Secrecy Dilemma
00:20:30
Speaker
homes? Yeah, yeah. um But like something that has been more difficult than I imagined when getting into the U.S. Institute and working to grow the network and whatnot was how hard it is to find safe homes.
00:20:54
Speaker
um like I don't even know how people find you to give you a call, right? Because the the hard thing about your ministry is how secretive you have to be. yes so You need to be known, but also secretive. It's tough. and um And that's why I think most safe homes do suffer.
00:21:14
Speaker
And you said it cost $600,000 a year to run the safe home. If you could guess on average, maybe like last year, how many beds did you fill in our seat, in women did you see? Well, we can only fill seven beds at a time, but we have an outreach program too. So it's not just seven beds in here. We're working with other people. And so that was probably about 11 altogether.
00:21:40
Speaker
And people may think that's small, but the percentage of that is high. Because if you're working with these girls and they're responding, it doesn't matter if you have five or 10. Your percentage rate is what matters. How's it going? Is it successful? We've got to have more homes, Jeremy. I have the property, but I only have enough for a half of the money. I don't have the money for the rest. We're waiting to get that so we can clear it.
00:22:06
Speaker
and do that safe home and you know what's amazing to me somehow the word has got out about us and we're getting calls all the time from agencies from uh the national hotline from uh different sheriffs around different counties are starting to call us so when you are a house of integrity when you do start working and expanding your territories with law enforcement and you're working with the clerks of the court. We're partnering with the clerks of the court. 365 clerks that we're training and then they're going to train us. We just got to meet with ah Kennedy Space Center.
00:22:46
Speaker
just met with them. We're getting ready to get in because it happens in all of these parks and things that's going on all the time. We just got voted in last year to go into every school in Brevard County. 69,000 children will learn our curriculum of how not to be groomed.
00:23:06
Speaker
how not to be groomed. That's huge because the schools are the playgrounds. Now we haven't started, we hope to start, we've gone twice, but it it's hard to get in to all the schools and try to get them together. But to be voted in, to do that is a miracle.
00:23:24
Speaker
And so now we're gonna help these kids. We're gonna teach them. We're gonna teach them how not to have secrets, how to see when someone's trying to groom. Bus drivers are gonna be watching bus drivers. Lunchroom workers are gonna be watching lunchroom workers. We busted ah a teacher in Melbourne last year. Then we had one in Titusville. Didn't have any records, but we're getting ready to traffic little girls, but we got them. We got them. So if you can stop what's going on in the schools,
00:23:52
Speaker
before they get them and then we get them at a later age. We got to unlay or everything. If we could have worked with them when they were young and prevent that, that's what's going to stop a trafficker from coming to
Prevention and Strategic Approaches
00:24:05
Speaker
Brevard County. Word gets out like, you don't want to go to Brevard County because they're in they're connected to law enforcement. They're getting these girls to testify. They're going into the school, stay away from Brevard County.
00:24:17
Speaker
You don't want to go there. And I'm happy about that. I'm going to work to make that happen. And then I'm going to move on to other areas. And I'm going to do everything I can to make sure these girls and boys know that I hear their voice. And then I'm coming. I'm coming. As we we try to help share that, there's three stages truly to fighting human trafficking and of and the most basic form, obviously. Like you said, there's many layers. But it comes down to prevention.
00:24:47
Speaker
victim care, victim restoration. Awareness, yes. The the prevention is what's going to help the percentage go down yeah that need a safe home, that victim care. And the reality is victim care and victim restoration are very expensive. You just mentioned 11 people, 600,000.
00:25:12
Speaker
like so First of all, I will say 11 people at 600,000 better than most safe homes, right? And because most safe homes only have their beds and that's all they can do, you are One of the best safe homes. Thank you. If not the best safe home I've ever gotten to really understand and experience. So I want ah want everyone to understand that they're looking at a real pro here. They don't really feel like that, but thank you. To God be the glory, honestly. But the reality is like, the sad reality is that I know that that when the state thinks about what's a fund, what's a help with, they look at that ah ROI.
00:25:53
Speaker
Oh, is it worth $100,000 a person?
00:25:59
Speaker
And that's where the community of this entire country can come together and go, yeah, it's worth it. It's way worth it. $100,000 to help so a human being leave this life of hell. Yeah, we need more safe homes. we do and And not only do we need people creating the safe homes, like you,
00:26:23
Speaker
but we need support. And the reality, and what we're gonna learn in this in these segments is ultimately how you build your safe home, to inspire others to see the right direction, um a good direction that has been set.
00:26:39
Speaker
I do believe that many safe homes have their own type of way they're doing ministries and that's okay. i think you have you you Kind of like churches, everyone has their style of ministry and the way and then the best way to help others. For example, we need more boys safe homes. you know Exactly. But the reality is that the those will be the few that begin the safe home.
00:27:00
Speaker
then you have the other, ah the entire network that you're talking about. You said you have a hospital, you have pilots, you have ah you have lawyers, you have um ah other homes that, or I should say other other places and and and and people that help with these other you know halfway homes, the independent homes that you were just talking about and the whole process. It takes a network around one safe home. So if you feel like you can be part of a network of a safe home,
00:27:28
Speaker
find a safe home to support in that way, then everybody else can support financially. yeah If we're all giving a few bucks, $600,000 is not that much. It's not. you know you know But if you're asking one church, yeah if you're asking a few people. They can't do it. Yeah. But I find that people get emotional, especially after they watch something like The Sound of Freedom.
00:27:51
Speaker
which should change our hearts and they're all emotional and ready to go. And then within two weeks, you don't see them anymore. They all disappear. You don't work this by emotion. Yes, it is very emotional, but you work this from knowing how to work with human trafficking survivors.
00:28:10
Speaker
you know um A lot of people will come in and start trying to tell me how human trafficking works. I just listen silently because I understand they've watched something or read something. But until you can experience it, and I say to my husband, until they walk in our shoes,
00:28:28
Speaker
They don't have a clue. I told you earlier, you Jeremy, sometimes I would run home and cry and cry for days, or I would just run in the bathroom and vomit from the things that they've been through. It's hard to listen. It's hard to really think.
00:28:43
Speaker
These things are real. People say, I just I don't know if I believe what you're saying is real. And you know what, Jeremy, I don't waste my time with those people because I've got to move on. There's enough out there that's going to experience somewhere somebody they know someone in their backyard or they're going to.
00:29:03
Speaker
It might be their neighbor. They're going to experience human trafficking because it happens every 30 seconds. And, you know, Jeremy, people ask me, is your house filled with immigrants because all of the immigrants is no, it's not. It's filled with people in Brevard County right here in Brevard County sold by their mothers.
00:29:27
Speaker
sold by their boyfriends. Not even, I haven't gotten one in my house that's been sold by their dad. They've been sold by their mothers or by their boyfriends, or either getting captive, one of them, they got into this, but not hardly any of them were kidnapped. They were, I mean, we can say they were kidnapped, but they were put into human trafficking by their family.
00:29:52
Speaker
one girl towed to service two men that came every week and she was seven years old and her mother would tell her what to do and if she didn't do it she would pour her head back and pour vodka down her throat and say to her if you don't want to live on the street You do what mommy says and be a good girl. How are you a good girl doing the stuff you're doing? She had multiple personalities when she came here. It was hard for me to work through. How old was she when she got here?
00:30:24
Speaker
Oh, she was older. She was, I think 27, 28. I can't take in anyone under 18. But she started at that age. So can you imagine twenty that many years, ah one of the girls that we got that came here was taken off the bus at 14, was not found until 31.
00:30:47
Speaker
So when you are dealing with people that's been in isolation that long, um sometimes we can't keep them because they'll want to harm the other girls. They'll think that they're trying to sell them or hurt them. As you're dealing with all this psychological trauma that's in your house,
00:31:07
Speaker
And sometimes you have to call law enforcement because you realize, look, we gotta take them to the hospital. They might have to be Baker active for a while because they're really having a hard time, but you still gotta love them. You still gotta reach out and find a mental care program. But if you're not capable of handling that mental care, you better be set up to get her into another place where you don't just go, you don't fit into my program. Goodbye.
00:31:36
Speaker
They may not receive it. They may go right back in to be in traffic 80%. 80%, Jeremy, of those who cannot find a safe house will go right back out and go into trafficking and be re-victimized over again 80%.
00:31:56
Speaker
Bernie, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for life recaptured. I'm excited about the next segment as we start talking about exactly um what a safe home should be trying to accomplish. um What like what they've come here. um And there's there's there's we could we would spend way too many hours talking about all the different possibilities of in ways that um victims coming and stuff like that. And I hope to eventually to expand expand on that more. and But I know in your situation, you have many ways that people come between calling and stuff like that. But what I want to talk about next is ultimately what you're trying to accomplish while they're here and how you do that. So I'm excited about talking about that next. day