Yesterday we brought you part of an online presentation called Youth & Internet Safety/Trafficking & Exploitation: How to Have the Conversation.
Carly Hiti of PAVSA, and Kylee Pass and Tyra Jaramillo of First Witness know these conversations can be awkward, or embarrassing -- or maybe you're just not sure how to lead into them.
But the good news - or the bad news, depending on your wheelhouse - is that the conversations they're encouraging you to have with your kids have less to do with the mechanics ... and more to do with feelings and relationships.
Trafficking, for example, is generally less about the Hollywood tropes of kidnappings and more about potential predators insinuating themselves into the lives of kids as friends, a listening ear, and someone who seems to treat them as adults.
Carly, Kylee and Tyra work with teens, but they work with younger people, too, and they know that curiosity is normal. But they emphasize if you don't answer those questions yourself, you lose a chance to put the experience in context.
The Duluth MN Trafficking Awareness Facebook page has lots of great resources and videos from this month's Trafficking Awareness virtual events.
And there's a Youth & Internet Safety/Trafficking & Exploitation: How to Have the Conversation session this evening at 5pm.