Following CSEC Survivors Longitudinally for Evaluation: Thoughts on Outcomes, Data Collection Procedures and Ethics

• In Event: Evaluation Challenges and Strategies in Services for Victims of Human Trafficking

Abstract

This presentation describes one of only two evaluation research studies that have attempted to follow CSEC survivors longitudinally. In 2015 a research team from Boston University and Northeastern University began work on a three-year evaluation of My Life, My Choice (MLMC), a Boston-based program designed to prevent commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), also known as domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST). MLMC offers a prevention-oriented, 10-session, manual-based intervention to girls at high-risk for CSEC, and one-on-one mentorship and advocacy for individuals who have experienced CSEC and are trying to “exit the life.” In this session, members of the research team will convey some of the successes of the data collection approach that they developed and also describe some of the challenges that came up along the way—including ethical dilemmas and complexities for which the team had no pre-existing template or ready answers. The team will share their strategies for retaining CSEC survivors longitudinally, selecting particular outcomes to assess for evaluation, describe several moments when we had to devise innovative strategies to protect CSEC survivors’ safety, and some of the most rewarding moments that they experienced along the way while conducting this extraordinarily complicated, yet commensurately rewarding, research.

Authors

• Emily Rothman, Boston University

• Amy Farrell, Northeastern University

• Jennifer Paruk, Boston University

• Katherine Bright, Northeastern University