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HOPE Court is the DC Superior Court’s response to the needs of court-involved youth, namely youth who are a part of the delinquency or PINS (persons in need of supervision) systems, who are at high risk or have experienced commercial sexual exploitation or human trafficking. The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) is a national problem impacts the lives of thousands of youth. The District of Columbia is considered to be one of the top 10 cities where CSEC occurs.

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About
Hope Court

In October 2015, a multi-disciplinary team of CFSA, OAG, DBH, Children’s National Medical Center, law enforcement, the Child Guidance Clinic, and others was formed to review at risk and confirmed cases of child sex trafficking.

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HOPE Court is the manifestation of D.C. Superior Court’s desire to comprehensively address the needs of child victims of sexual exploitation in a trauma-informed and community minded way. As a treatment court, HOPE Court relies on interagency collaboration and community direct service providers to ensure that child victims are identified quickly, treated fully, and supported long-term with the appropriate community services and resources. HOPE Court is unique in ensuring youth agree to the program and engage in their service delivery plan.

 History

HOPE Court was born out of the passage of the 2014 Sex Trafficking of Minors Prevention Act, legislation that members of Karana Rising and other advocate agencies, fought to pass for three years. The main goals of this legislation were to ensure child victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking were protected from arrest charges of prostitution and solicitation as well ensuring at risk children were identified and referred by law enforcement to child protective services. Shortly afterwards in 2015, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act also was passed that effectively mandated that states amend their laws to ensure that sex trafficking be included as a form of child abuse and neglect. States had two years to come into compliance.

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Meanwhile, D.C. Superior Court held monthly CSEC PINS- SUBCOMMITTEE meetings that began the process of looking at how the court should respond to children who were victims of sex trafficking. During this time, members of Karana Rising worked on another aspect of the Sex Trafficking of Minors Prevention Act which was to create an online training to reach every single metropolitan police officer on how to identify and assist victims of human trafficking. This included trainings at the police academy, online training development, and trainings for school resource officers.

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FUNDRAISE

Fecha Talaso

Fecha Talaso is the co-founder and director of partnerships at Karana Rising. Fecha  is a certified victim advocate using her eight  years of advocacy and direct service work to cultivate staff growth and development to advance the mission of Karana Rising and the individual goals of the survivors on our team.

Fecha works alongside the executive director to develop and advance policies and programs supporting survivor justice and and healing, including external earned media and owned media consumption. Fecha is responsible for creating and managing Karana Rising’s communications, website, virtual survivor mentoring and workshop portal and social media channels. She is responsible for the development and management of programmatic and development partnerships. 

Prior to joining Karana Rising, Fecha was the prevention education specialist at FAIR Girls, a nonprofit that serves young women survivors of human trafficking, and residential counselor for FAIR Girls’ Vida Home. 
 
Longing for a day when justice is perfect with a deeper international lens from which to view the health and humanitarian challenges facing people around the globe,wealth of experience and practical experience in development and a deep belief in the power of partnership and collaboration and transformation of vulnerable populations and communities at large has continually reenergized the urge to change the world in her own little ways. She dares to dream and passionately to fight criminal and social injustices, as well as retrogressive practices that marginalize vulnerable populations like women and children. She can be reached at fecha@karanarising.org

Andrea Powell

Andrea Powell is the co-founder and executive director at Karana Rising. Ms. Powell is Karana Rising’s chief liaison to the D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force where she co-chairs the training and outreach committee.

 Prior to founding Karana Rising, Andrea was the founding executive director of FAIR Girls, a nonprofit that serves young women survivors of human trafficking. Ms. Powell is also the Director of Survivor and Youth Engagement at Unitas. In 2014, Andrea led the FAIR Girls’ team to create and open the only safe home for young survivors of human trafficking in the nation’s capital area. Andrea has led crisis response teams where she assisted law enforcement and other front-line responders in finding and recovering survivors of human trafficking who were later offered safety and supportive services. She received her Masters of European Union Law at the Center for European Integration Studies from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany and Bachelor of Arts and Science in International Relations from Texas State University. Andrea’s writing has been published in the New York Times, CNN, PBS, Huffington Post, Marie Claire, MSNBC, NBC THINX, Thompson Reuters, FAIR Observer, and the Washington Post. She also sits a private consultant for Freedom Fwd and Project Explorer. She can be reached at andrea@karanarising.com