Drive Change Through Survivor And Youth Leadership
NCYL advocates and creates space for survivor leaders to inform policy and practice reforms that meet the needs of youth impacted by commercial sexual exploitation and their families.
Change is driven by the people who are most directly impacted by it. NCYL convenes survivor leaders and engages with youth impacted by commercial sexual expliotation (CSE) to better understand the impact of exploitation, the challenges young people experience, and the services and supports they need to meet their goals and thrive. By doing so, we advocate for and make change recognizing that exploitation does not define a young person. Exploitation is one set of experiences in their lives that impacts the way they see the world and we want to make sure that youth with this experience are not limited by the trauma and stigma associated with this experience.
Survivor voices are essential to reform
Youth and survivor voices, priorities and leadership should be centered in generating ideas, planning, decision-making, execution, and evaluation. We engage survivor leaders in multiple ways, including through advisory boards, focus groups, surveys, individual consultation opportunities, listening sessions, conference presentations and trainings. Their voices drive every part of our work.
The CSEC Action Team Advisory Board
NCYL convenes the first-of-its-kind CSEC Action Team Advisory Board, comprised of lived experience experts. The Advisory Board provides leadership and consultation to the state, counties, community partners and other stakeholders to improve identification, programing, service provision, and state and local policy for youth who have been impacted by CSE and their families.
First-hand experiences grow understanding
We also engage with survivor leaders to help us identify challenges that young people are currently experiencing. Based on those challenges, we develop solutions alongside young people, survivors, and lived experience experts including reports, guides, tools and issue briefs that help policy makers and service providers implement best practices and grow their understanding of and empathy for all youth impacted by exploitation, including Black and Brown girls, Native Youth, LGBTQIA2S+ youth, and boys.
