National Runaway Prevention Month 2020

November is National Runaway Prevention Month (NRPM). Spearheaded each year by the National Runaway Safeline, NRPM is an awareness and prevention campaign that began in October 2002 when President George W. Bush’s hosted the landmark White House Conference on Exploited and Runaway Children where leaders from across the country convened to discuss challenges related to runaway youth that our nation must face today.

Support NRPM through the following national events:

• Facebook Profile Picture – November 1
• Education Week – November 2 – 6
• Twitter Chat and Resource Day – November 5at 3 PM ET
• Wear Green Day – November 10
• Light the Night Community Events – November 17
• Prevention Roundtable – November 23
• Youth Roundtable – November 30

For more information on NRPM, and to sign-up to become an NRPM partner, visit www.1800runaway.org.

Bullying Prevention Month

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. All month, NSPN will be sharing resources on social media and NSPNsights, to raise awareness about bullying prevention and highlight the ways in which we work to create a world where all youth are safe. Additionally, PACER's National Bullying Prevention Center, which created National Bullying Prevention Month in 2006, has resources for youth and adults on bullying prevention.

Eliminating Implicit Bias in Hiring

This article from the American Bar Association examines how human resources and managerial staff can eliminate bias in their hiring decisions. The article suggests advertising job openings in diverse outlets to reach a broader pool of applicants and keeping the language in job ads as neutral as possible. Authors also suggest removing identifying information from a resumé that can lead to bias, such as applicants’ names, addresses, or graduation year, and sticking to a standard set of interview questions rather than engaging in freewheeling discussion with applicants.

Read more here.

Running Away and Homelessness are Powerful Risk Factors for Sex Trafficking

A new article from Youth Today discusses the risk factors contributing to the sex trafficking of youth under the age of 18. Reviewing the growing body of research on this issue, the authors find that experiencing homelessness or running away are significant risk factors. Others include age, ethnicity, and sexuality, with LGBTQ youth at much greater risk than heterosexual youth of being trafficked. In one survey of adults participating in sex work, respondents who said they ran away as youth (63%) were more likely to have been trafficked than those who did not run away (27%). Overall, the research indicates that risk factors such as whether or not a person has been a runaway or homeless are more predictive of future involvement in trafficking than demographic factors.

Read the article here.

Building Better Relationships with Youth: A Checklist for Reaching Out Virtually during COVID-19

The Search Institute has released a two-page checklist of simple outreach actions youth program workers can take to build better developmental relationships with young people when they can’t be with them in person. The checklist includes examples of how direct care workers can connect and support youth in five categories: expressing care, challenging growth, sharing power, and expanding possibilities.

Access the checklist here.