After spending several months training on how to identify people impacted by human trafficking, staff at Allegro Family Clinics started displaying signs in clinic bathrooms explaining how victims could get help.
“In one month, we had two kids reach out and ended up reporting three children,” said Allegro Family Clinics President and Founder Amy Bogue.
While the training was effective in identifying victims, Bogue said it was clear that was only the first step.
“The No. 1 complaint was, ‘If we identify, what do we do next?’” she said. “Well, I didn’t know, and you don’t know until you stop and learn.”
In an effort to answer that question, Allegro Family Clinics is the first provider in the nation to adopt a framework of resources aimed at helping health care professionals know how to recognize and respond to victims of human trafficking – all condensed into an app called Just In Time.
Bogue said the clinic has been working since March with Altus, an organization aimed at scaling solutions to end and prevent human trafficking, to develop the app for the clinic’s use. A version available for public use was unveiled Tuesday night during a launch event hosted by Allegro Clinics at Dutch Group Home Office on Tom Rose Road.
The goal, Bogue said, is to hopefully make progress in eradicating the issue in the area entirely.
“Most people don’t know it’s here. It’s everywhere,” she said. “So whatever we can do to make it one step closer.”
Human trafficking is an umbrella term for the sale of human beings for either forced labor, sexual exploitation or organ harvesting. The World Economic Forum estimates the industry rakes in roughly $240 billion in yearly profits. More than 200 victims of human trafficking were reported in Mississippi in 2023.
The Just In Time app is what Altus Founder Ashleigh Chapman called an “everything we can give solution” that helps users know the signs of human trafficking, how to report it and what services are available to victims locally.
“Once we’re educated about what this really is … it is absolutely possible,” Chapman said at the unveiling. “Not just to identify victims, but to care well for them, to prevent it from happening in the first place (and) to reform even what’s broken in our communities that allows trafficking to exist.
In the app, which is available as a resource to anyone, users find information ranging from what human trafficking is to the signs that could indicate someone is a victim. Once people know what to look for, identifications soar, she said.
“What’s happening is, there is a great disparity between the number of individuals who are experiencing trafficking and the number of individuals who are being identified while they’re being trafficked,” she said. “And that boils down in every way to you and me. To us being equipped to see it in our communities and knowing what to do when we see it.”
Once a victim is identified, the app provides resources to help users work out how to respond, either through links to human trafficking hotlines or links to connect with vetted, trauma-informed organizations in the area who can support victims.
Every community member is uniquely positioned to make a difference in combatting human trafficking if they know the right information, Chapman said.
“It is so important that no matter what hat we wear in our communities – from a concerned citizen, to a parent, to a professional – that we know these signs, and we know how to help,” she said.
The app is not available through Apple or Google Play. To download the app, visit https://go.viiision.app/topic/6866a271a70d368853206f4b?feature=menu.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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