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HHS and partners spotlight school-based prevention programs and early reach of HYPE demonstration
Summary
HHS officials and CDC researchers used a federal webinar to highlight school-focused prevention programs, report early reach metrics from ACF's HYPE demonstration, and urge coordinated, multi‑sector approaches to scale prevention and support students.
Federal officials and researchers on the webinar “From Evidence to Implementing Prevention Education to Address Child Trafficking and Exploitation” said school-based prevention programs can identify at‑risk youth and connect them to services.
Kevin Malone, the HHS senior advisor on human trafficking, said prevention requires “coordinated action across all sectors” and described the Administration for Children and Families’ Human Trafficking Youth Prevention Education (HYPE) demonstration program. Malone said HYPE recipients have, “as of September 2025,” trained more than 32,600 educators and other school staff and have reached what he reported as “over 97,360,000 students across 2,827 schools.”
Catherine Chan, director of the Office on Trafficking in Persons at the Administration for Children and Families, opened the webinar and framed the event as a chance to share practical implementation advice and evaluation findings. Chan said federal partners will make the recorded session available to registered participants and encouraged peer‑to‑peer sharing among researchers and school program administrators.
Judy Schechter, director of the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, said the CDC directs most of its prevention funding to local communities and emphasized the agency’s interest in rigorous evaluation to identify what works.
Why it matters: webinar speakers framed prevention education as both an upstream safety measure and a way to surface existing abuse. Federal and state partners emphasized that training school staff and embedding screening and response protocols in district systems can lead to earlier identification and connection to services.
What happens next: organizers said the recording will be shared with registrants and encouraged attendees to contact listed program representatives for peer support, technical assistance, and materials.
