GIRLS EDUCATIONAL AND MENTORING SERVICES INC

GEMS will:
a) Provide wraparound direct services to approximately 300 members per year, including crisis intervention, safety planning, basic needs, obtaining identification, holistic case management and referrals to medical and dental health, housing and other services.
b) Make measurable improvements in healing and trauma recovery (e.g. increase in knowledge of CSE and trauma, increase in use of positive coping skills and improved self-esteem) for approximately 50 active members (i.e. engaged in programming for more than 6 months) per year through individual and drop-in group counseling and informed referrals to community-based mental health providers, as well as a reduction in PTSD symptoms for 15-20 members per year engaged in a bi-annual 12-week closed therapeutic group.
c) Increase educational gains for approximately 75 members engaged in Educational Initiative, including individual support and advocacy, financial incentives, tutoring, college preparation, and increase vocational gains for an additional 25-40 members per year engaged in a quarterly 2-week closed job-readiness group.

GEMS theory of change states that with the right opportunities, girls and young women can move from victims to survivors to leaders.A trauma-informed approach is essential to our work. The violence and abuse inherent to commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking means that most GEMS members are experiencing Complex Trauma, and many experience anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts and other symptoms as a result of their trauma. GEMS provides mental health support both in-house, with three licensed clinical social workers on staff, and a per diem psychologist, and through our community partnerships with a variety of mental health resources. Staff utilize a variety of clinical modalities including Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EDMR), as well as expressive therapies such as aromatherapy, yoga, transcendental meditation, music and art therapy to ensure an individualized approach. GEMS’ comprehensive support services aim to ensure that the girls and young women we serve become free from CSE and trafficking, make improvements in trauma recovery, increase their healthy social support, achieve educational and vocational gains, become self-sufficient, and strengthen their communities by becoming empowered advocates for themselves and their peers. Our Educational Initiative program in particular has a long-term impact on our member’s ability to move out of poverty. We know that educational attainment has a significant impact on expected earnings over a person’s lifetime, and that women of color are particularly impacted by the gender gap in education and income. By supporting our members to engage or reengage with their education, we provide them with an incredibly effective tool for improving their economic situation. Our survivor-led and survivor-engaged programming prepares members to become leaders in their own lives, families and communities. For two decades, GEMS has supported and empowered thousands of girls and young women, with comprehensive, holistic services, in gaining independence, safety, education, employment and economic sustainability for themselves and their children.

Key to members’ healing journeys is the intentional community that GEMS has created to support survivors. The first foundational principle of GEMS’ Victim, Survivor, Leader (VSL) model is Survivor Leadership and the belief that survivors should be at the forefront of developing and implementing any program or policy that impacts them. As a survivor-led organization, GEMS empowers survivors as members, as alumni and as staff to support, mentor and engage other survivors. The benefits of a healing community made up of women and young women who share the same experiences cannot be underestimated as a therapeutic tool and a powerful engagement strategy. Survivors and alumni staff at GEMS share and model daily what healing and life on the other side of crisis and trauma can look like and give a sense of hop to girls and young women who often have none. Survivor leadership is integral to all of GEMS work and is a critical component of all programs and services for its members. GEMS embodies survivor leadership, with survivor working at all levels of the organization from the CEO to directors, managers, coordinators, and consultants. The organization works to empower our members through internships and fellowships within GEMS as well as giving alumni members the opportunity to apply for part- and full-time staff positions. Additionally, GEMS is committed to ensuring that our members have a voice in how the organization is operated. GEMS regularly holds community meetings where members are given opportunities to express their opinions and give feedback about their experiences with the organization. Member buy-in is a requirement for any programming
Girls and young women requiring short term or crisis needs receive trauma-informed crisis care services, including crisis housing, practical resources such as food and clothing, referrals for longer term housing, substance abuse treatment, intensive mental health treatment, advocacy with the criminal justice system, on site visits to hospitals or jail, support with forensic exams and forensic interviewing, obtaining restraining orders, support with victim/witness testimony, safety planning, support with housing transfers and crime victims compensation advocacy, crisis housing, immigration advocacy, and legal advocacy in criminal and family court and immediate interventions, counseling and therapeutic support by Support Services staff who are all trained in crisis care. Holistic Supportive Services Case Management (HSSCM), provides comprehensive programming that works with young people over a longer period of time and provides ongoing assessment, internal and external referrals, goal planning and counseling, and weekly one-on one support through a specifically adapted version of the Stages of Change model and Motivational Interviewing to build Transformational Relationships (a term coined by the youth organization, Roca and adapted for this population to be our second VSL foundational principle) with staff.

In operation for 20 years, GEMS has been the leading organization serving girls and young women of color who have experienced CSE and domestic trafficking and has an unparalleled level of experience and expertise with this population. GEMS is the largest survivor led organization in the country, the first organization in New York State to focus on domestic trafficking and CSE, and remains the only organization in New York State specifically designed to serve commercially sexually exploited and trafficked girls and young women. GEMS runs the national Survivor Leadership Institute that supports hundreds of individuals, including men and transgender people who identify as survivors of the commercial sex industry. Since its inception, GEMS has been a leader in the movement to end commercial sexual exploitation. A large component of that leadership has been our awareness-raising efforts which have included the production of the 2007 documentary Very Young Girls and the publication of Rachel Lloyd’s biography Girls Like Us in 2011. Additionally, GEMS has a long history of successful education and advocacy around the issue of commercial sexual exploitation. In 2007, GEMS was funded by OJJDP to create the first national curriculum on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The 3-day Train the Trainer intensive was independently evaluated by the University of Southern California and found to significantly increase knowledge of the issue, shift attitudes and change misconceptions and develop skills for identification and intervention. GEMS trained thousands of youth-serving professionals across the country through this training and many components of this curriculum are commonly used in most trafficking trainings today. In 2008, after four years of GEMS survivor-led youth advocacy, New York passed the New York Safe Harbor Act for Children. This Act passed because of the courage of GEMS girls and young women who shared their experiences and fought on behalf of their peers to change a broken system. Co-written by GEMS’ Founder, the Act made New York the first state in the nation to pass a law designed to protect and not punish trafficked and exploited youth. To date, two dozen states have followed suit and implemented similar laws. GEMS has received numerous awards for its work including two awards from the federal government; Office for Victims of Crime’s National Crime Victim Service Award (2012); Spirit of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Award (2011), the global Reebok Human Rights Award (2006), the Celebrating Women Award from The New York Women’s Foundation (2013); and last year GEMS founder and CEO was awarded the global World’s Children’s Prize voted on by 1.2 million children and previously won by Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai.