COMPASS CONNECTION: The Connection Between Advocates and Survivors

Safety Compass offers 24/7 crisis response and confidential advocacy to survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

A Letter from our Founder:

When Safety Compass advocates respond to the hospital, the police station, or a juvenile detention facility to support those first steps in the healing process for a participant, there are moments that define the role of an advocate as a witness bearer and a reflective mirror of survivors' intrinsic value. Advocates listen and show up 24-7 to help people feel seen simply to affirm that they are worth the connection and that they are the mission.

The connection made between the advocate and the person they are called upon to support feels holy. This is a sacred space. This space is about hope, that with a little reflection of the divinity each person carries within them, that youth who have been impacted by commercial sexual exploitation will believe in themselves and their worthiness. This connection between an advocate and a participant can be the catalyst for change, for finding resources, so that self-determination can lead to safety and new beginnings.

Our mission is to find emergency resources and pathways to self-sufficiency for youth who are faced with life-threatening circumstances and to do so in such a way that they experience dignity and love. Resources are a lifeline. Access to housing can be the difference between life and death. But what takes someone beyond the initial life-saving measure of that emergency resource, toward a new chapter where they can begin to thrive, is safe and loving human connection.

Not everyone has access to that. It is clear to us that people need “exit ramps” to safety at critical moments in life, that they experience “Y’s in the road”. Our most vulnerable youth need people to look at them as capable of a bright future free of exploitation. Youth also need to enter systems of care that do not re-exploit them with expressions of their fragility. That kind of behavior isolates and diminishes people’s sense of equality and belonging.

I founded Safety Compass to be the reflective mirror for young people, that exclusively affirms who they are and the value of their life. While you may never know their identities due to confidentiality, at Safety Compass our mission is to uplift these young people, and their unique purpose. I’m so grateful that Love knows each of their names and calls them family.

-Esther Garrett