GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Just three months in, Katelyn Watts’ graduate student project rescued several victims of human trafficking and became part of a hospital system’s screening process.
“You see the posters and feel bad, but you don’t think it’s in your backyard. But it is. More and more it’s happening to kids. In many cases it’s a family member doing the trafficking,” Watts said.
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During the project period in late spring, nurses identified five victims, including children, and police arrested three suspected traffickers in North Florida.
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Watts, a recent Doctor of Nursing Practice graduate from the University of Florida College of Nursing, said her project came about after her supervisor at Baptist Health returned from a conference highlighting human trafficking.
“I thought this would be the perfect project to help shed light on such a heartbreaking issue,” she said.
With the help of UF College of Nursing faculty, Baptist Health and Epic Systems, Watts developed a screening tool template to identify potential human trafficking victims.
The template works in the system used by healthcare workers when assessing hospital patients. The information entered in the system raises flags that can identify a victim.
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“Observation is a critical component. Noticing how the potential victim acts, their hygiene, what kind of tattoos they have, do they have a cell phone. All these can be clues,” Watts said. “That’s why education is so crucial. Part of the education focused on interacting with the suspected trafficker. We spent a lot of time using scripts and practicing steps to take if things escalated.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates up to 325,000 people are trafficked annually in the U.S. Florida ranks among the top states for trafficking, including forced sex work and labor.
Watts hopes the project helps fight the growing problem, which impacts tens of thousands of children and adults yearly in the United States.
The screening tool is available in the Epic system for use by any provider with access.
