This workshop Offers 3 Live Interactive Continuing Education Credits

Human trafficking and sextortion represent two of the most pervasive and rapidly evolving threats facing young people and vulnerable populations today. While distinct in their mechanics—trafficking involves the exploitation of a person for labor or commercial sex through force, fraud, or coercion, while sextortion uses threats to distribute intimate images to extort money, additional images, or sexual acts—both crimes share common threads: they exploit vulnerability, they thrive on secrecy and shame, and they demand that mental health professionals be equipped to recognize, respond to, and prevent them. The intersection of these threats is increasingly visible as online exploitation blurs the boundaries between trafficking recruitment and sextortion operations, with organized criminal networks now running industrial-scale schemes that can drive a teenager from first contact to suicidal crisis in under 30 minutes.

This three-hour workshop provides mental health professionals with a comprehensive, evidence-based understanding of both human trafficking and sextortion. This presentation covers human trafficking fundamentals: federal definitions under the TVPA, common myths, types of trafficking, vulnerability factors, grooming tactics, and indicators for both sex and labor trafficking. It also includes sextortion and online exploitation: how perpetrators operate using scripted grooming and AI deepfakes, the role of pornography in normalizing exploitation, real case studies with documented timelines from first contact to tragedy, and the devastating psychological impact on victims. This presentation leaves participants with practical response tools—what to say, what NOT to say, mandatory reporting obligations, evidence preservation, prevention strategies for families and communities, and a detailed walkthrough of key resources.