SAFE: Relationship Safety and Trafficking Prevention for Youth

Program Overview

SAFE is a multi session prevention education program designed to help youth understand healthy, unhealthy, and abusive relationships, including the realities of human trafficking. The program focuses on building awareness, critical thinking, and practical skills that support safety, autonomy, and peer support.

Youth are often targeted for exploitation during periods of transition, isolation, or increased independence. SAFE helps young people understand how manipulation, power, and control can show up in relationships and how traffickers often rely on trust, coercion, and unmet needs rather than force. The program is grounded in trauma informed and survivor centered principles and emphasizes empowerment, choice, and access to support.

SAFE was developed by Our Voice to provide youth with accurate information and prevention tools that reflect real world experiences.

Who This Training Is For

SAFE is designed for:

Middle school students
High school students
Youth serving programs and organizations
Schools and alternative education settings

The program is adapted to be developmentally appropriate and responsive to the needs of different youth populations.

What the Program Covers

SAFE provides comprehensive education on relationship safety and exploitation while centering prevention and early intervention.

Participants learn about:

Healthy, unhealthy, and abusive relationship dynamics
Power and control in relationships
Warning signs of exploitation and trafficking
Common recruitment tactics used by traffickers
The role of social media and technology
Online safety and digital boundaries
Myths and realities about sex and labor trafficking
How grooming and coercion occur
How to support peers and seek help
Trusted adults and community resources

The program emphasizes that trafficking can happen to anyone and that help is available.

Why This Program Matters

Many young people receive inaccurate or sensationalized information about trafficking, which can create fear without increasing safety. SAFE provides clear, realistic education that helps youth recognize risk without placing blame or responsibility on them.

By learning how exploitation actually occurs, youth are better equipped to recognize red flags early and support one another. SAFE helps reduce isolation, increase awareness, and strengthen protective factors.

This program supports prevention by addressing vulnerabilities before harm occurs and by reinforcing that youth deserve safety and respect.

How the Program Works

SAFE is delivered as a multi session, interactive program that allows time for learning, discussion, and reflection. Content is scaffolded so concepts build over time and can be processed in supportive ways.

Training elements include facilitated discussion, interactive activities, scenario exploration, and age appropriate examples. Sessions are designed to be engaging, inclusive, and responsive to participant questions.

The program can be adapted to fit school schedules and youth program structures.