Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Child Exploitation

Child Exploitation Child Exploitation

Subtopics

Human Trafficking Information about Human Trafficking Online Exploitation Information about Online Exploitation

Prevent, identify, and respond to child exploitation.

Child exploitation can take many forms and affect youth of any age, race, geographic location, or socioeconomic status. Victimization can take place directly on school grounds as well as through online or social media platforms, which can be sites for predatory behaviors and interactions with malicious actors who target children and adolescents (e.g., adults seeking to sexually exploit children, to financially extort them through the threat or actual distribution of intimate images), and victimized students may suffer physical, mental, and emotional trauma.

Schools are uniquely positioned to support students facing exploitation. Because of the regular interaction between educators and students, school personnel can help identify and report suspected cases of trafficking and exploitation and connect affected students to critical services.

Understanding the factors that make students vulnerable to exploitation, such as adverse childhood experiences, history of trauma, housing instability/homelessness, or lack of supportive adult figures, and recognizing the warning signs is the first step in identifying potential victims. Signs or indicators may include unexplained absences from school, abruptly disconnecting from family or friends, or significant changes in behaviors including online activity, and if observed can be an opportunity to ask more questions or help students get the support they need.

School leaders can provide training and resources on the risk factors and indicators of child exploitation so that teachers and school staff can recognize potential cases, as well as offer age-appropriate safety education programs for students and engage with parents to raise awareness of the issue. School districts should also establish and articulate clearly defined policies, protocols, and procedures, supported by collaboration with relevant local community and law enforcement partners, for school personnel to follow if cases of child exploitation are suspected or disclosed.

To counteract risk factors, identifying and building protective factors and a safe and supportive school community can help to prevent youth from exploitative and trafficking situations. Protective factors can include encouraging youth to seek help, identifying resources to meet student needs, and offering ongoing education about healthy relationships, intimate partner violence, and child sex abuse. Schools should also put in place campus security measures and screen visitors to school grounds and events. As well, providing children, teens, parents, and teachers with information regarding the potential dangers of online environments and how to stay safe online can help prevent many instances of child exploitation.

Use the filter below to sort resources available based upon stages of preparedness and subtopic.

Featured Resources

These resources are a starting point for learning about child exploitation. Use these resources to help prevent, identify, and respond to child exploitation. Members of the school community can also download this SchoolSafety.gov infographic to learn more about the issue of child exploitation and access a sampling of resources and this SchoolSafety.gov infographic to learn more about human trafficking, strategies for schools to address it, and related resources.

Guidance
Child Exploitation
Human Trafficking in America’s Schools: What Schools Can Do To Prevent, Respond, and Help Students To Recover From Human Trafficking (Second Edition)

Department of Education, 2021

This guide is intended to provide awareness of the current prevalence of child trafficking and the forms it takes; information on risk factors and indicators of child trafficking; details about three prevention tiers and the implications for schools’ role in addressing child trafficking; information on how professional development of school staff and prevention education for students and families can reduce the likelihood of trafficking; and details on how policies, protocols, and partnerships with other community sectors can help prevent trafficking.

Program
Child Exploitation
NetSmartz

Third Party

NetSmartz is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's online safety education program. It provides age-appropriate videos and activities to help teach children to be safer online with the goal of helping children to become more aware of potential online risks and empowering them to help prevent victimization by making safer choices on- and offline.

Webpage
Child Exploitation
Blue Campaign Resources

Department of Homeland Security

This webpage houses a collection of materials, trainings, and videos from the Blue Campaign. Blue Campaign is a national public awareness campaign designed to educate the public, law enforcement, and other industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking, and how to appropriately respond to possible cases.

Filter Resources

All Child Exploitation Resources

The federal government identified additional resources that highlight strategies for school safety. Use these resources to learn more about child exploitation.

Webpage
Mental Health
Homelessness Resources: Trauma

Department of Health and Human Services

This webpage provides information to help understand the linkages between trauma and homelessness, and the impact on ensuring quality care.

Guidance
Mental Health
Trauma Treatment Interventions

Department of Health and Human Services

This webpage provides the general public with information on the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s efforts to develop clinical treatments, mental health interventions, and other trauma-informed service approaches as a means of promoting the network’s mission of raising the standard of care for traumatized youth and families.

Tool
Child Exploitation
Vicarious Trauma Toolkit

Department of Justice

This toolkit is an online collection of resources for victim-serving organizations to assess the impact of vicarious trauma on counselors of victims. This toolkit provides an assessment that analyzes the current response to vicarious trauma and includes policies, best practices, research literature, links to websites, podcasts, and testimonials.

Was this page helpful?