Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocate Part-Time

Position: Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocate (Part-time)

Department: National Human Trafficking Hotline

FLSA Status: Part-time, Non-exempt

Reports to: Hotline Supervisor

Date Revised: 4/24/2023

Location: Washington, DC

The Mission

Polaris is leading a data-driven social justice movement to fight sex and labor trafficking at the massive scale of the problem – 25 million people worldwide are deprived of the freedom to choose how they live and work.

For more than a decade, Polaris has assisted thousands of victims and survivors through the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, helped ensure countless traffickers were held accountable, and built the largest known U.S. data set on actual trafficking experiences. With the guidance of survivors, we use that data to improve the way trafficking is identified, how victims and survivors are assisted, and how communities, businesses, and governments can prevent human trafficking by transforming the underlying inequities and oppressions that make it possible.

Position Summary

The Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocate (HA) provides frontline contact with victims, survivors, service providers, law enforcement, government, professionals, and community members calling to report on potential and actual sex and labor trafficking cases. The HA is primarily responsible for responding to all signals (call, text, chat, online tips, and email) on the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH), which is a 24/7 call center dedicated to connecting victims and survivors of sex and labor trafficking with services and supports to get help and stay safe. This task occupies 75-100% of the Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocate’s workday. When individuals contact the NHTH, they present as scared, worried, angry, concerned, hurt, and potentially in danger. The HA assesses each caller’s situation and needs to provide appropriate referrals, documentation, and case management. The HA is a skilled professional, empathetic listener, and strategic thinker with excellent crisis intervention and customer service skills.

Standard Schedule:

This is a part-time position (working a maximum of 29 hours a week) as an essential member of the HA team. HA’s are expected to be flexible, with up to 25% adjustment from regular work schedules at times to cover essential shifts and services. We offer a hybrid work environment upon approval, and you are currently expected to be onsite at our Washington DC offices a minimum of one day per week. The HA position is a sedentary position primarily working independently and in front of a screen.

HA’s are exposed to graphic information about human trafficking and other crime, at risk for secondary/vicarious trauma. The NHTH provides support and wellness benefits to HA’s to help navigate this part of the role.

Responsibilities

• Other duties as assigned by the supervisor.
• Attend required HA meetings as described in the HA Manual;
• Communicates openly and honestly, working as a team with other staff, and demonstrating a positive, solution-oriented attitude when working with contacts and colleagues.
• Achieve required HA developmental milestones such as managing the text and chat lines
• Provides crisis intervention, empathy, and immediate safety planning for callers in need using a trauma-informed approach
• Provides compassionate support, patience, information, and referrals to all victims, survivors, law enforcement, and other individual contacts during designated shifts.
• Triage and strategize responses to signals, including crisis contacts, requests for referrals, and requests for training and technical assistance, using relevant protocols and databases
• Attends internal and external meetings and trainings to ensure up-to-date understanding of best practices and to ensure compliance with standards and protocols
• Respond to signals from victims and survivors, service providers, law enforcement, government, professionals, and community members in accordance with National Hotline protocols via telephone (primarily), text, and chat
• Input and maintain clear, concise, and accurate case notes
• Demonstrate an ongoing commitment to the National Human Trafficking Hotline mission and Polaris values;

This job description provides a summary of the major duties and responsibilities performed by individuals in this position. Incumbents may be asked to perform other tasks not specifically written in this job.

Required Qualifications

• Ability to follow directions, manage time, work well under pressure, and maintain composure during stressful situations
• Intermediate knowledge of Google Suite; or similar (Office, Mac etc)
• Comfort and sensitivity when working with survivors of severe forms of exploitation;
• Demonstrated critical thinking and creative problem-solving;
• Demonstrated passion for social justice, human rights, and gender issues;
• Strong focus on direct and open communication with the ability to transition easily between diverse communication styles on and off the hotline;
• Excellent writing and analytical skills;
• Cultural and Emotional Intelligence and/or ability to learn
• Demonstrated ability to learn new technology systems.
• Maintain primary residence in the DMV, and the ability to be onsite one day per week in our DC office
• Strong organizational skills, particularly under pressure
• Deep passion! Mad skills! Low ego!
• Resiliency, strong self-care routine, open to support and coaching

Preferred Qualifications

• Accredited certificate demonstrating Spanish/English bilingual proficiency
• Experience with Salesforce, Slack, Paylocity
• Call center experience a plus
• Lived or professional experience with human services or social work field or working with survivors of severe trauma.
• Practical and/or academic knowledge of the anti-trafficking movement in the United States;

Organization Background

VALUES: Polaris is grounded in a set of values and organizational beliefs and strives to model and embody these values in all that it does.

We work with humility and a spirit of service. We serve a mission that is bigger than ourselves, and we recognize that we cannot do this work alone. We foster a caring community of mutual support, and we actively pursue collaborations and partnerships to expand our reach.

Victims’ and survivors’ experiences ground our efforts. We honor the dignity, agency, and resilience of victims and survivors of slavery, both past and present. We serve, work alongside, and stand in solidarity with those who have been most affected by modern slavery.

We strive for inclusion and equity. We engage different perspectives to inform our decisions, actions, and positions. We create opportunities that empower individuals of diverse backgrounds and circumstances. We acknowledge the structural inequities that lead to human trafficking and modern slavery, which drives us to create just and equitable solutions.

We approach our work with courage. We promote a culture of inquiry, innovation, risk-taking, and continuous learning. We are resilient and evolve when faced with obstacles or failure. We recognize that what is typical or traditional is not always optimal.

We create positive impact and achieve results. We leverage and cultivate the strengths of our staff, and we work with discipline, integrity, and a commitment to excellence. We embrace a measurement culture to track our progress. We view impact holistically, considering multiple sectors and the effects on individuals’ lives, as we pursue systemic and social change to eradicate modern slavery

DIVERSITY STATEMENT:

Polaris designs and implements data-driven strategies to prevent and disrupt human trafficking, and restore freedom to survivors. Achieving this ambitious goal requires both trafficking-specific systemic interventions and broader cultural and structural shifts that reduce the inequities that lead to human trafficking. While Polaris alone cannot build a more diverse, just, equitable, and inclusive society, both the success of our work and our organizational values require modeling in the workplace the change we want to see in the world.

This means cultivating a workforce, organizational culture, and priorities that respect and celebrate a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team made up of individuals with different identities, lived experiences, and backgrounds. Within both our team and across every part of our work, we strive to integrate and elevate the full range of survivor voices.

This is a living commitment. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values to be manifested daily, in the work we do, the decisions we make, and the way that we treat each other and the people we seek to serve. This means creating space where staff can be included, heard, valued, and set up for success, and where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, best selves to work. We will not check boxes and consider it done. We will push new innovations and different ways of thinking, and treasure the community built and strengthened by each of our contributions.