One in Ten – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of One in Ten, host Teresa Huizar talks with Dr. Matt Kafafian from George Washington University about his research on how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the nature of the characteristics of exploited youth served by a Children’s Advocacy Center. Dr. Kafafian discusses significant findings from studies examining post-pandemic changes in the identification and referral of commercially sexually exploited children and youth. They explore how shifts to online environments and evolving police and social service practices have impacted the demographics and types of exploitation cases being reported. Key points include the new challenges facing child abuse professionals, changes in risk factors, and the implications for screening tools designed to identify vulnerable youth. Dr. Kafafian also discusses emerging trends related to gender differences and mental health issues among exploited youth, highlighting the need for updated tools and approaches in the field. 

Time Stamps 

Time Topic 

00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview 

00:17 Guest Introduction: Dr. Matt Kavian 

00:48 Impact of the Pandemic on Youth Exploitation 

04:29 Pre-Pandemic Vulnerabilities and Risk Factors 

06:53 Changes in Youth Exploitation During the Pandemic 

08:39 Study Findings and Hypotheses 

24:20 Implications for Child Abuse Professionals 

26:35 Future Research Directions 

29:17 Acknowledgments and Conclusion 

Resources

Changing Profiles of Youth Referred for Commercial Sexual Exploitation before and since the Onset of COVID-19 in the United States - Matthew Kafafian, Ieke de Vries, Amy Farrell, Christen Asiedu, Elizabeth Bouchard, 2025

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 In this episode of 'One in Ten', host Teresa Huizar speaks with researcher Scarlet Cho, a doctoral student at the University of California Irvine, about the reluctance of trafficked youth to disclose their experiences to authorities. They explore the unique challenges these youth face, including complex relationships with their exploiters, mistrust of police and legal systems, and the adversarial nature of initial police interactions. Scarlet shares insights from her research on forensic interviews and court testimonies, highlighting the need for better rapport-building strategies and trauma-informed approaches to improve the disclosure process and support for these vulnerable adolescents. 

Time Stamps: 

Time  Topic 

00:00 Introduction to the Episode 

00:59 Understanding Reluctance in Trafficked Youth 

01:46 Scarlet Chip's Research Journey 

03:33 Developing a Coding Scheme for Reluctance 

04:44 Unique Challenges of Interviewing Trafficked Adolescents 

09:04 Study Hypotheses and Methodology 

12:09 Key Findings and Surprising Insights 

19:53 Implications for Practitioners 

30:12 Future Directions and Final Thoughts 

Resources:

Identifying novel forms of reluctance in commercially sexually exploited adolescents - PubMed

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This episode features a live conference panel discussion led by NCA CEO, Teresa Huizar, at the 2025 NCA Leadership Conference. Highlighting their theme of 'Everyday Champions,' the discussion features three inspiring survivor advocates: Jenna Quinn, Jimmy Widdifield, and Dr. Danielle Moore. Each panelist shares their experiences, challenges, and motivations for becoming public voices for change. They delve into critical topics such as survivor involvement, the importance of trauma-informed approaches, and the ethics of utilizing survivor stories. Practical advice and personal anecdotes emphasize the importance of support, authenticity, and the avoidance of exploitation or tokenism. The segment concludes with each panelist offering insights into best practices for inviting and amplifying survivor voices in a respectful and ethical manner.

Time  Topic

00:00 Introduction

01:25 Panel Introduction and Survivorship

02:27 Jenna Quinn's Story and Advocacy

03:36 Jimmy Widdifield's Experience and Work

04:32 Dr. Danielle Moore's Mission and Advocacy

05:37 The Importance of Survivor Inclusion

07:30 Deciding to Go Public: Personal Stories

15:45 Handling Media and Public Speaking

30:29 Ethics of Sharing Trauma Narratives

33:17 Ethical Considerations in Survivor Storytelling

36:03 Avoiding Tokenism and Ensuring Authentic Input

40:53 Creating a Supportive Environment for Survivors

45:14 Positive Experiences and Lessons Learned

50:53 Cautionary Tales and Advice

54:37 Key Takeaways for Working with Survivors

57:48 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

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In our season-ending episode, we look at the wave of statute of limitation (SOL) reform that has swept our country, giving survivors of child sexual abuse—who may take years to fully process and disclose what happened to them—more time to seek justice. But the reform also poses challenges for prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and professionals who work with victims of child abuse. How do we properly maintain evidence in perpetuity? What resources do we need to really store this evidence—both physical and digital—and support survivors throughout their lifetimes? In this conversation with Nelson Bunn, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, we discuss how to meet the practical demands of retaining evidence and prosecuting older cases while keeping survivors centered at the heart of our work and at the heart of reform.

This is the last episode of Season 2 for One in Ten. We’ll be back in early January with a fascinating conversation about a different approach to preventing child sexual abuse.

Topics in this episode:

• Benefits and challenges of SOL reform (2:04)
• Preserving evidence (7:37)
• Digital evidence (11:31)
• Prosecuting the backlog (15:29)
• Advice for CACs (18:38)
• Learn more about NCA and CACs (22:24)

Links:

Nelson Bunn, executive director, National District Attorneys Association (NDAA)

childusa.org/law has information on child protection laws across the United States

Justice Served Act of 2018 amended the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 to add, as a purpose area under the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, increasing the capacity of prosecutors to address the backlog of violent crime cases involving suspects identified through DNA evidence. Debbie Smith is a survivor of sexual assault. The DNA evidence from her forensic exam afterward went unanalyzed for more than five years.

Listen to the rest of the Criminal Justice Crystal Ball Series:

• Part 1: “The Future of Prosecution” with Nelson Bunn (aired 11/5/2020)
• Part 2: “What’s Past Is Prologue” with Brad Russ (aired 11/19/2020)

You may also enjoy “Radically Vulnerable: Achieving Justice for Survivors” with Prof. Marci Hamilton (aired 9/30/2019)

For more information about National Children’s Alliance and the work of Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit our website at nationalchildrensalliance.org. And join us on Facebook at One in Ten podcast or email us at oneinten@nca-online.org.

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It was after midnight one night in 1983 when young police detective Brad Russ heard the knock on his front door that would transform his career. A 16-year-old girl named Kathy had run through a driving rainstorm to reach the one person in her neighborhood she thought might help her. Russ had never investigated child abuse before, and overnight he got a crash-course in the disjointed way the system handled—or didn’t handle—such cases. It launched him on a lifelong mission to improve his own community’s response to abuse and made him a champion of Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) and the multidisciplinary team (MDT) model.

Fast forward to today, with communities across the United States confronting problems with our justice system and police-community relations. In part two of our Criminal Justice Crystal Ball Series, “What’s Past Is Prologue,” we talked with Russ about his own experience with systemic reform. What can we learn from the past? How might deep partnerships between the police, MDT members, and CACs set an example and provide a path forward in these community conversations? How can meaningful collaboration and trust form the glue that keeps it all together?

Topics in this episode:

• The past: A siloed approach to child abuse cases (1:53)
• Common issues in abuse investigations (11:26)
• Collaboration is difficult and necessary (21:14)
• How to make things happen (32:20)
• Our next episode (42:39)

Links: 

Brad Russ, former police chief of the Portsmouth, N.H., Police Department, is executive director of the National Criminal Justice Training Center of Fox Valley Technical College

Abbreviations used in this interview: CPS (child protective services); CACs (Children’s Advocacy Centers); DCYF (New Hampshire’s name for CPS, the Division of Children, Youth, and Families); MDT (multidisciplinary team); OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention)

Seacoast Mental Health Center

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program

CACs mentioned: Colorado Springs, Colo.; Dallas; Huntsville, Ala.; Rockingham County (Portsmouth), N.H.

During his conversation with us, Brad Russ credited a number of people he worked with over the course of his career. Some of the names were edited out when we trimmed the interview. The full list of people mentioned: Joy Barrett, Bill Black, Ed Garone, Wendy Gladstone, Brian Killacky, Ron Laney, Sandy Matheson, Marci Morris, Bill “Mort” Mortimer, Jim Reams, and Kay Wagner.

For more information about National Children’s Alliance and the work of Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit our website at nationalchildrensalliance.org. And join us on Facebook at One in Ten podcast or email us at oneinten@nca-online.org.

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In the midst of a national debate about criminal justice reform, what’s the role of the prosecutor? And how do we transform the system while still centering victims? We spoke to Nelson Bunn, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA), about the unique role of prosecutors in leading systemic change. In a time of anxiety in the community about the relationship with law enforcement and with the criminal justice system overall, trust, accountability, and transparency are vitally important. And so are victims—we have to make sure they’re taken care of as well.

This episode is the first in a three part series on criminal justice reform: Criminal Justice Crystal Ball. How might the justice system look different moving forward? Let’s find out.

Topics in this episode:

• Prosecutors’ perspective on criminal justice reform (2:11)
• A shift in thinking over time (6:20)
• Transparency, accountability, and trust (11:25)
• Collaboration; the CAC model (17:09)
• The voice of the victim (21:05)
• Our next episode (23:32)

Links:

Nelson Bunn, is executive director of the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA)

First Step Act of 2018 (and the NDAA press release about it)

Commonswealth’s Attorney Nancy G. Parr is the current president of NDAA

Prison Fellowship website has a video on Why Pell Grants Matter

The Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) model and multidisciplinary teams (MDTs)

For more information about National Children’s Alliance and the work of Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit our website at nationalchildrensalliance.org. And join us on Facebook at One in Ten podcast or email us at oneinten@nca-online.org.

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In “Is Abuse Contagious?” we sit down for a conversation with a guest who does fascinating work—Dyann Daley of Predict Align Prevent. As a pediatric anesthesiologist, Dr. Daley was driven by the sight of little kids fighting for their lives in the emergency room because they had been abused. She started a nonprofit that uses existing data to find neighborhoods that are hot spots for abuse—including some places where folks say, “Oh, not, that’s not a problem on this side of town.” How can a family’s environment raise the risk of abuse? And what can we do to get abuse prevention services to the neighborhoods where they’re needed the most?

In this episode:

• Children 0-3 most at risk of dying from abuse (1:45)
• Environment influences behavior: A place-based approach to prevention (4:28)
• The Predict Align Prevent model (11:53)
• Office of Prevention and targeted universalism (16:50)
• Protecting kids to death (30:31)
• What the critics say (42:05)
• There is no evil overlord hoarding data (47:35)
• What can people do? (51:49)

Links:

Dyann Daley, MD, is a pediatric anesthesiologist and the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Predict Align Prevent (PAP)

Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities

The Richmond, Va., report; an ethical evaluation of the PAP program; and other resources are available online at predict-align-prevent.org/resources

Gary Slutkin, MD, former head of the World Health Organization’s Intervention Development Unit, founded Cure Violence (cvg.org)

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

Nurse-Family Partnership

Casey Family Programs

Related episode of One in Ten: “Prediction as Prevention” with Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Ph.D., aired on August 15, 2019

The Leadership Conference mentioned is our annual conference

For more information about National Children’s Alliance and the work of Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit nationalchildrensalliance.org. And join us on Facebook at One in Ten podcast or email us at oneinten@nca-online.org.

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In “Can a Pandemic Have a Silver Lining?”, we invite Dr. Danielle Roubinov of the University of California to discuss a “research manifesto” letter she and her colleagues published in JAMA Pediatrics in August. Even as a novel coronavirus has upended our world, leading to new public health and safety guidelines that are playing hob with many research projects, it is also fostering innovation. The result has, in some ways, catalyzed research into early childhood adversity.  

COVID-19 has also ratcheted up the pressure on parents. Dr. Roubinov has a hopeful message for them, too: Even small positive experiences, and having a strong relationship with a caring adult, can help a child weather adversity.  

In this episode: 

• The intersection of childhood adversity and the pandemic (1:32) 
• Why we focus on the negative (4:49) 
• Concerns about disparities and about parents’ mental health (9:51) 
• The absence of a negative is not always a positive (14:12) 
• Polystrengths, and the importance of caregivers (16:48) 
• ABC intervention: Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (27:15) 
• An open letter to policymakers (35:35) 
• A message for parents (37:52) 

Links: 

Danielle Roubinov, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco 

“How a Pandemic Could Advance the Science of Early Adversity.” JAMA Pediatrics. 2020 Jul 27. Roubinov D, Bush NR, Boyce WT. PMID: 32716499. 

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) 

“Greater Than the Sum—Multiple Adversities in Children’s Lives,” One in Ten interview with Sherry Hamby, Ph.D., originally aired on February 14 (as “Mending the Tears of Violence”). Rebroadcast on August 6, 2020 

Ann S. Masten Ph.D., Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development 

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC intervention) was developed by Mary Dozier, Ph.D., at the University of Delaware 

For more information about National Children’s Alliance and the work of Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit nationalchildrensalliance.org. And join us on Facebook at One in Ten podcast or email us at oneinten@nca-online.org 

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We're back from our Best of the Best series to talk with Dr. Isha Metzger, a clinical psychologist, a University of Georgia researcher, and head of The EMPOWER Lab. But her real claim to fame: she noticed that the gold-standard treatment for children delivered at CACs wasn't working for her Black clients, dug into it, and came up with a brand-new adaptation to serve Black children and families, build their trust, and see themselves reflected in the work of healing from trauma. In fact, Just as concrete barriers need to be lowered to help families engage with treatment, the messages embedded within that treatment must include racial socialization and messages that include messages of strength, joy, pride, and voice. How can CACs and clinicians ensure they're meeting the needs of Black kids and families, or of other BIPOC kids? What are white clinicians to do to ensure that the messages in treatment fit the experiences of their BIPOC clients? And what are the implications for family engagement? 

Topics in this episode: 

• What is racial socialization? 
• How social and racial messages affect treatment outcomes
• Culturally specific treatment strategies
• How racial adaptations for treatment models work
• Racial trauma and polyvictimization
• The role of celebratory experiences in treatment
• Racial justice
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Mental health disparity

Resources:

"Healing Interpersonal and Racial Trauma: Integrating Racial Socialization Into Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for African American Youth"

The EMPOWER Lab at the University of Georgia

Dr. Metzger's research

UGA Racial Trauma Guide

Coping with Racial Trauma (infographic)

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Greater Than the Sum—Multiple Adversities in Children’s Lives (originally "Mending the Tears of Violence") is the third in a three-part series of best-of-the-best episodes. Adversity and violence are common in kid's lives. The cumulative burden creates a lifelong vulnerability to physical and psychological issues. So how do we help kids thrive? What strengths are most important? Sherry Hamby, research professor of psychology at the University of the South, discussed trauma’s cumulative impact and how teachers, parents, and advocates can help kids.

Topics:

• Adversity and violence (2:02)
• Polyvictimization, dose response (7:20)
• Resilience, polystrengths (12:30)
• Symptom relief is not well-being (20:39)
• Important strengths (23:08)
• Recovering positive affect (30:14)
• Helping kids (35:30)

 Links:

Sherry Hamby, Ph.D.,  Life Paths Research Center director and ResilienceCon founder

ACE study

David Finkelhor, Heather A. Turner

National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence 

“Polyvictimization: Children’s Exposure to Multiple Types of Violence, Crime, and Abuse”

Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire

Ann S. Masten, Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development

“Sense of Purpose—The Most Important Strength?”

“From Poly-Victimization to Poly-Strengths: Understanding the Web of Violence Can Transform Research on Youth Violence and Illuminate the Path to Prevention and Resilience” 

“Poly-victimization, Trauma, and Resilience: Exploring Strengths That Promote Thriving After Adversity”

“Health-related quality of life among adolescents as a function of victimization, other adversities, and strengths”

MMPI

“Developmental Stage of Onset, Poly-Victimization, and Persistence of Childhood Victimization: Impact on Adult Well-Being in a Rural Community–Based Study” 

Two-by-Ten 

James Pennebaker

For more information about National Children’s Alliance and the work of Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit nationalchildrensalliance.org. And join us on Facebook at

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