Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Human Trafficking topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County authorizes Safe Harbor grant agreement to expand human-trafficking response and training
Summary
Albany County authorized an agreement with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and a crime-victim services partner to fund the Child Right Safe Harbor initiative, which trains law enforcement, hospitals and community agencies and provides hospital-response services for trafficking victims.
An unnamed county presenter told the Albany County Department of Social Services board that the Child Right Safe Harbor initiative would fund training for law enforcement, hospitals and community agencies and provide crime-victim response when suspected trafficking victims present at medical facilities. The presenter said the program’s goal is to ensure victims’ needs are met and to bridge them to services.
A board member asked whether trafficking is organized locally and where incidents tend to surface; the presenter identified Central Avenue and area hotels as local concerns and said the county is “in the pipeline” connecting upstate routes to New York City. The presenter offered to provide approximate incident numbers on request.
The board voted by voice to authorize the agreement and interdepartmental memorandum described in the agenda.
The authorization covers a grant and interagency coordination with the county’s crime-victim services partner and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. The transcript indicates the board approved the authorization by voice vote; no roll-call vote or individual tallies were read into the record.
Next steps: staff said they would follow up with data on local incident counts and continue coordination with hospital partners to ensure victim response capacity.
