POETIC
- United States
I am most drawn to individualized support that will advance our work at POETIC. In just three years, POETIC is able to demonstrate that our model (rooted in equitable access to high quality education, mental health services, creative expression and paid internships) changes the trajectory for youth involved with the juvenile justice and child protection systems. 95% of POETIC girls do not go back into the juvenile system and 100% are able to complete their probation successfully. But more importantly, POETIC girls are completing their High School education, mastering skills of emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, and are employed and building a life in which they thrive. To actually solve the issue of victimization, exploitation and trafficking of minors, we need a more comprehensive approach that addresses under-education, generational trauma and incarceration, and lack of financial means. POETIC has proven that a system-process approach works. Now, how can we take our effective model and think bigger? That is where the Elevate Prize comes in. To be selected as a winner of the Elevate Prize will elevate our work, deepen our impact in the Dallas community, and help us scale our model to other communities.
In 2014, I was given the opportunity to build the first long-term, residential treatment for girls within Dallas Juvenile Justice as their first clinical director. I saw girls who experienced complex trauma thrive in the safe and supportive environment. However, within months of their successful discharge, the same vulnerabilities would surface (runaway, truancy, homelessness and trafficking). One night, I was scrolling on social media and saw a picture of a familiar girl, a former resident, on a missing and exploited children’s post. The one marked difference was that she was branded with a man’s name on her forehead. That was the moment. I quit the stability of a county job and co-founded POETIC. After just over three years of operating, 95% of girls avoid going back into the juvenile justice system; 100% complete probation successfully. But more importantly, girls are earning their high school degrees, accessing paid internships, learning entrepreneurism, and working at POETIC as mentors, advocates and teachers. That same girl became a POETIC girl. She joined our 2019 graduating class at POETIC School for Girls. To see her walk across the stage, live out her dream and her potential, that is why POETIC exists.
POETIC’s mission is to equip girls (ages 12-18+) who have experienced child maltreatment, commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking to find their voices, reclaim their narratives and persist forward. POETIC was created to serve vulnerable girls in Dallas by targeting the two institutions where vulnerability is most prevalent: juvenile justice and the foster care system. Nationally, 75% of youth who experience sex trafficking come from these systems. While the exact number is unknown, the University of Texas estimates that there are approximately 79,000 children in Texas being trafficked or exploited. POETIC’s comprehensive, in-community aftercare program builds a seamless bridge out of the juvenile justice and foster care systems and into wrap-around care, equipping girls to not only avoid the cycle of revictimization but to become our community’s future leaders. Elements include the POETIC School for Girls, POETIC Trauma Therapy, POETIC Creative Arts Therapy and POETIC Design Co. (paid internships focused on entrepreneurship). POETIC’s programming is built on the belief that every girl should have access to equitable resources with a focus on education, mental health, and economic empowerment in order to tackle the underlying systems, not just the symptoms, that lead to revictimization and generational trauma.
Best practice models of care for youth victims show that youth are not free from a life of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation until they are able to live in their own communities in a healthy and positive way. Due to the array of traumas and/or significant mental health diagnoses commonly associated with an experience of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, successful aftercare and/or post- adjudication services must include mental healthcare for youth to succeed. A first-of-its-kind program in the country, POETIC’s integrated approach, with mental health services complemented by comprehensive care at its core, directly combats the issues that perpetuate the re-victimization of girls in Dallas.
While POETIC is an “anti-trafficking agency” and stands against sex trafficking, the organization also boldly stands for the empowerment of girls and women. This guiding belief is modeled in POETIC’s organizational structure as POETIC was founded by two women social entrepreneurs. With complementary skill sets, HaeSung Han and Jennifer Tinker sharpen and support one another, teaming up as CEO and Board Chair to model for POETIC girls, our staff, and for our community what it looks like for women to empower women and invest in each other’s success.
Prior to the creation of POETIC, there was not a single aftercare program in Dallas for juvenile justice-involved girls that addressed the sexual abuse to prison pipeline. POETIC’s model aims to directly combat the injustices faced daily by girls in our community trapped by poverty, structural racism and violence against women. In just under four years as an organization, POETIC has surpassed every program goal. An unprecedented 97% of POETIC girls avoid returning to the juvenile system, saving Dallas taxpayers $161,300 per year/per girl. However, simply avoiding re-incarceration is not POETIC’s only definition of success. True impact is measured in the way girls are given an equitable solution that prepares them to become the next generation of female leaders in our community.
POETIC was named 2019 Social Innovator of the Year by United Way Metropolitan of Dallas, DCEO 2019 Non-Profit Team of the Year, and accepted into two national catalysts programs, BBVA and Stand Together. Through these opportunities, POETIC will develop a plan to scale our proven approach as a national best practice, deepening our work in Dallas, where we will learn from national experts, and further the movement nationally that rejects the notion that girls should be bought and sold.
- Women & Girls
- Children & Adolescents
- Poor
- Low-Income
- Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
- 1. No Poverty
- 3. Good Health and Well-being
- 4. Quality Education
- 5. Gender Equality
- 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
- 10. Reduced Inequality
- 16. Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
- Health
Since its founding in 2017, a total of 265 individuals received services at no cost to themselves or their families (including 157 served in 2020). Since the start of 2021, we have served 85 individuals, that includes POETIC youth and their family/guardian members (65 youth between the ages of 13-18, 7 between 19-21, 12 between 22-44, and 1 between 60-64 years old). For the entirety of 2021, we anticipate supporting roughly 100 individuals. Each youth and their guardian is paired with a therapist and case worker with 24/7 access to support, focusing on the quality of services and relationship with them as opposed to the quantity of individuals served.
Every program we offer is to address the needs of our youth, identified by our youth. Our home-school, trauma therapy with 24/7 support, art therapy, and paid internships are all areas of need that were expressed by our youth and their guardians. At the heart of who we are, more than an anti-trafficking agency, we are a female empowerment agency, and our goal is to create a platform of resources until every girl, regardless of background, has a chance to find a life worth thriving.
At POETIC, we strive for gender equity and empowerment for women and girls, aligning most strongly with UN Goal #5. POETIC's true impact is measured in the way girls are given an equitable solution, preparing them to become the next generation of female leaders in our community. Girls gain self-esteem and self-efficacy, avoid returning to an unforgiving justice system, engage in paid internships, and graduate high school at rates higher than their peers.
An unprecedented 95% of POETIC girls avoid returning to the juvenile justice system, and we are in our third year of tracking this outcome. 80% report increased utilization of adaptive coping skills that increases their self-protective capacity, and 95% of seniors enrolled in our POETIC School for girls earned their high school diplomas. For our social enterprise, we will begin to measure enrollment and entrepreneurial milestones achieved this year.
Every girl is assessed to gain a baseline understanding of emotional, psychological, and academic functioning by a licensed professional through validated measures. Other measures are determined by a combination of self-report, therapist report, supervisor review, and probation report.
Sex trafficking of minors exist at the intersection of childhood sexual abuse, poverty, under-education, familial stress, and racism, all exacerbated by COVID-19. POETIC adjusted to the rise in challenges and responded by providing the same level of programming and support but through virtual and mobile means until resuming in-person services in September 2020. POETIC girls remain engaged, are actively working on their education and treatment, and are utilizing coping skills to help continue to weather the storm of stress and uncertainty.
The most critical barrier in the fight against the exploitation and trafficking of minors is lack of financial means for our most vulnerable youth. Generational poverty and lack of equitable resources is often one of the strongest push factors for our youth towards exploitation. Our goal in building our Entrepreneurial Institute (EI), which launched in September 2020, was to combat this by equipping girls with tools to build a path of empowered independence. To respond to an increased interest in EI, we expanded our physical footprint by building out a 300sf mixed-use space we call POETIC HQ with dedicated space for EI programming. Funding will be used to help fuel EI initiatives that build on POETIC’s other evidenced-based programming.
Since the start of POETIC in 2017 we have been intentional about emphasizing a culture built on putting our youth first. We are also laser focused on addressing the systems, not just the symptoms of exploitation and trafficking of minors, which is why emphasize the intersection between under-education, lack of mental health resources, racism, objectification of girls, and the over-utilization of the juvenile justice system. As an Elevate Prize Winner, we will humbly take this larger platform of influence to continue to inspire others to think beyond traditional NGO “saviorism” and instead see the systems that hold up inequity in every community. Through this exposure, hopefully it will inspire others to find their community's unique solution of distributing equitable resources for our young people.
To demonstrate one difference in how we market our organization, unlike many anti-trafficking organizations, we do not center our content around pain and trauma in an attempt to elicit a response. Instead, we elevate the artistry, successes, and resilience that our girls demonstrate every day. We are dedicated to ending exploitation of youth, and we believe that starts within the walls of youth-serving organizations. We welcome guidance to help us elevate our voice and point of view.
Co-founded by two female social entrepreneurs, POETIC has been intentional to build a staff team that is highly competent, culturally responsive and reflective of the population served because we believe that representation matters. At POETIC, a healthy and supportive culture is our top priority. POETIC’s values are upheld in every aspect of our service delivery and in all the ways we relate to one another and work together. We are:
Trauma-focused
Youth First
Evidence-Based
Social Justice and Culturally Responsive
Non-Judgmental
Honesty and Integrity
Self-Awareness
Balance
Assume Good Intent
Teamwork
Amenable to Supervision
We are proud to have been selected to the 2021 Dallas Truth Racial Healing and Reconciliation cohort. This 7 month training focuses on narrative change, racial healing, and implementation of racial equity policy into our organization, with a capstone research project that highlights racial inequities and its ties to the exploitation and trafficking of minors. 95% of POETIC youth are girls/women of color; we cannot deny the fact that racism is baked into system-involvement for vulnerable youth. For this reason, it is our duty to fight against racism and racist policies that keep youth of color trapped in a system that deprives them of normative and equitable development.
Prior to building POETIC, I served as the first clinical director of a residential treatment center within the Dallas County Juvenile Department. With a 9 million dollar city-wide investment, I was entrusted to build the treatment program through a “closer to home” initiative and kept adjudicated girls in the communities they lived for long-term treatment. Despite every resource, implementing best-practices, and the best efforts of staff and youth, I saw that within months of successful discharge, youth would runaway, be truant, and lured back into a life of exploitation. While the youth themselves might have changed, their homes and community were not equipped to provide them with the structure and support they needed. POETIC was born because there was not a single in-community resource that focused on inherent strengths rather than deficits, the family rather than the child, inequity rather than saviorism. Having come from the juvenile justice system, our team is intimately aware of the issue of over-incarceration of girls of color as well as the over-reliance on the juvenile justice system.
Organizationally, in 2020, we launched our national Young Professionals Board to encourage the millennial generation to help guide POETIC. 100% of the advisory board’s members are young people of color.
Considering the competitive nature of nonprofits, early on, there was not always a seat for us, nor were we welcomed. However, rooted in humility and the belief in building strategic partnerships, all while centered on our 11 core values, we persisted. In a short period of time, we gained the trust and support of our community, and have become an integral resource within the Juvenile Justice and Child Permanency Court. To say we have struggled would not be accurate. POETIC is privileged and we acknowledge it.
Now I, as an immigrant, undoubtedly have endured various obstacles in my path. Our team, made up of 100% women, 71% women of color, 42% first generation immigrants, have all overcome obstacles. However, the beauty of our team is that the moment we walk into the doors of POETIC, we function out of reserves rather than fumes. We make room for all of the roles we inhabit (mother, partner, caretaker, breadwinner). Our collective life stories are that of women who have overcome and who still are overcoming. We work through our traumas and build resilience for stressors, but we don’t stop there. We do the work, we learn, we respond, and we persist.
POETIC aligns itself with MIT Solve’s pillars of elevating humanity, embracing innovation, and advocating for good in underserved communities. When investing in POETIC, MIT Solve is investing in change at a systemic level. As opposed to providing handouts or transitioning girls from being reliant on a trafficker to reliant on an agency, POETIC addresses the underlying systems that perpetuate poverty, under- education and re-victimization.
POETIC has benefited tremendously from the mentorship and guidance of leaders who have helped us drive a clear strategic plan geared toward scalability and sustainability, and we operate with a growth mindset, open to learning from MIT Solve professionals and mentors. POETIC’s long-term vision is to scale and train on this innovative model as an evidence-based national best practice. Additionally, we recently launched our first social enterprise, “From Discard to Purpose,” a line of hand-made paper stationery created and sold by POETIC girls and staff as part of our Design Co. and Entrepreneurial Institute. On behalf of POETIC we are asking MIT Solve to partner with us on our trajectory toward growing these new initiatives along with replicating our core model, and in doing so, equipping girls in Dallas and beyond to persist forward.
In 2018, POETIC was invited to join the Dallas-based Multi- Disciplinary Team championed by Governor Greg Abbott’s Child Sex Trafficking Team. Additionally, POETIC was approved for three consecutive years by the Dallas County Juvenile Board to have a formal partnership agreement (a Memorandum of Understanding) with the Dallas County Juvenile Department. In 2020, building on POETIC’s success, Judge Delia Gonzales asked POETIC to scale this model in support of foster youth through the Child Protection and Permanency Court.
WIth the goal of collaboration, we manage a monthly group, our Dallas County Case Conference, ensuring all the key players in Dallas that work with vulnerable youth are working in unison, sharing information, and ensuring the best interest of every youth. Partnering non-profits include Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, Dallas County Juvenile Department, Texas Governor’s Sex Trafficking Team, and other anti-trafficking organization such as Traffick911, New Friends New Life, and Refuge City.
We also rely on other non-profits to share their wealth of knowledge, such as Big Thought, an organization that delivers spoken word workshops; a sex education organization, NTARUPT, that delivers science-based information on sex and reproduction; and Hanaman Homies, a trauma-based yoga organization that provides movement classes for our girls.
- Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.)
- Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, accessing funding)
- Marketing & Communications (e.g. public relations, branding, social media)
- Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
