October 17, 2023 • 52 mins
Sharing invaluable insights, Dr. Doug Gilmer, an influential member of the Department of Homeland Security's Center for Countering Human Trafficking and mentor for the Frederick Douglass Human Trafficking Institute's Fellows Program, unveils the secrets of running effective and diverse coalitions in the fight against human trafficking. Prepare to be educated as he presents the enlightening findings of his dissertation on the results of multidisciplinary teams tackling this grave issue.
As we dig deeper, we uncover not only the surprising perspectives within these multi-disciplinary teams but also the central role trust and accountability play in their success. Imagine what can happen when victim service providers and law enforcement officers find common ground and shared purpose! Is it easy to stay in one's lane? Can trust be rebuilt once it's broken? Listen in as we explore these compelling questions.
Despite the challenges, Dr. Gilmore highlights the importance of shared goals and understanding each other's motivations. Packed with wisdom and invaluable lessons, this episode enlightens us on the power of collaborative coalitions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, before we start this episode, I want to let you
know that this is a particularlylong episode.
On purpose.
It is about coalitions and howto run an effective coalition
and how to run a diversecoalition if you want to
actually make a big differencein the anti-trafficking field.
(00:22):
So throughout this episodethere are lots of jewels that
are being dropped.
So please listen along, pick upthe jewels, implement them and
try to.
If you can't listen to it allat one setting, come back to it
and listen to the whole episode.
You know the why humantrafficking work is needed To
(00:45):
fight for the freedom of modernday slaves.
But love, passion, commitmentisn't all you need to be an
effective and successfulanti-trafficking advocate.
Learn the how.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson,director of the Human
Trafficking and Social JusticeInstitute at the University of
Toledo.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation podcast, where I'll
(01:07):
provide you with the latest andbest methods, policy and
practice discussed byexperienced experts in the field
, so that you can cut throughthe noise, save time and be
about the work of saving lives.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson.
This is episode 195.
Today I have Dr Doug Gilmer withme and he is the senior law
(01:33):
enforcement person for theDepartment of Homeland
Security's Center for CounteringHuman Trafficking, so they
provide a lot of information toDHS to be able to do their job
and do it with a level ofexcellence.
Doug has a PhD inorganizational leadership, a PhD
(01:57):
that he didn't necessarily need.
He went out on his own tofurther his own education and
knowledge and skills so that hecould get this dissertation, and
we're going to talk about hisdissertation today because I
think it's very relevant to whatpeople need to know as they
fight human trafficking.
He currently also serves as amentor for the Frederick
(02:22):
Douglass Human TraffickingInstitute's Fellows Program in
DC.
The program is worldwide, butthe headquarters is in DC.
Doug actually ran the office inBirmingham, alabama, and they
received the very first DHSSecretary Award for Victim
Protection and Countering HumanTrafficking.
(02:44):
So this is the guy we want totalk to today.
So welcome, doug.
I'm so glad that you could makeit.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, thank you very much, Dr Williamson.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, so you did a dissertation, and many people do
dissertations on things that Iwould consider collecting dust
in a book and a library.
But you actually did adissertation that could be very
helpful to us, and it was theoutcomes of collaborative,
multidisciplinary teamsencountering human trafficking,
(03:14):
and it's very useful for whatwe're trying to do today.
So can you talk a little bitabout, first of all, why you
would pursue a PhD when youdidn't really need it in your
job?
Why would you go out and somepeople would say, torture
yourself like that why would yougo out and get a PhD?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I have a master's degree in counseling with a
concentration in trauma-informedpractice and that type of thing
, and so I had a little bit ofbackground in this area.
I wouldn't call myself apractitioner, but I feel like I
had a pretty good education andbackground on what being
trauma-informed met and dealingwith critical incidents and
(03:57):
trauma and that kind of thing,and really a lot of that began
several years ago when I was theunit chief at the time for our
International Human RightsViolators and War Crimes Unit
(04:18):
and I wanted to understandbetter what the victims of these
crimes were going through andhow to better relate to the
victims and that kind of thing.
But it transcends all differentkinds of crime.
When I got to Birmingham,alabama six years ago to take
(04:46):
over running the office here, wewere doing a lot of human
trafficking work but we weredoing it different and we were
really partnering with our NGOpartners, our nonprofits, our
victim advocates and that kindof thing, and realized that we
(05:07):
were far more successful when wepartnered with the community
than when we tried to do itourselves.
And I began thinking back tothe way that we worked these
cases 20 and 30 years ago andwhen we had very little
community support.
I mean, there might be one ortwo organizations that we could
(05:29):
rely on for help, but there wasreally nobody that was providing
long-term, sustainablewraparound care for victims and
everything just seemed to workand we were having a tremendous
amount of success in identifyingvictims and making cases.
And I began to wonder well, andfrom that point I mean we ended
(05:55):
up creating a child sextrafficking multidisciplinary
team in Birmingham like a taskforce, but more of a
collaborative or a coalitionrather than a task force,
because there is a difference.
And we were very successful atthat and we had these protocols
in place and everything justseemed to work.
(06:15):
And I thought if it worked here, it should work other places.
And I know from talking toother folks across the country
that were doing similar thingsthat they were having success.
But there was really nothingout there that said this is why
(06:40):
these teams are successful.
There was quantitative datathat would say well, there was
an X number of increase in casesor prosecutions or whatever.
But I thought statistics don'talways tell the complete story
and statistic you change one ortwo variables and how you do
(07:01):
your research and you getentirely different results.
And so I said I don't want to doquantitative research, I want
to do qualitative research, Iwant to talk to the
practitioners, I want to figureout why this works, and so the
best way to do that was reallyto pursue the PhD.
And as I began looking intothese various programs and how
(07:30):
these teams worked and how I wasgoing to get the best results,
to really get a handle on thewhole idea of collaboration and
multidisciplinary teams, that'sreally what led me to the
organizational leadership aspect, because there's a strong
leadership and organizationalcomponent to these teams and
what it means to becollaborative, and the trust
(07:52):
component and the accountabilitycomponent that comes along with
operating these types ofcoalitions, and so that's really
what led me down that road.
I wanted to find out for myselfwhy they worked, and if they
worked here in Birmingham andthey worked in other places,
(08:13):
then they should be able to workeverywhere.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, see, I think that the way your brain works
and thank God for it is.
With the master's degree youunderstood the importance of the
social services, the counselingaspect of it, and then, with
your training in criminaljustice and those types of
things, you saw the marriage asbeing very integrative and I
(08:41):
mean that is the best way to goabout it.
But so you said you mentionedthere's a difference between
task force and then coalition orcollaboration.
Can you explain that?
I want to break into thispodcast and ask you an important
question why did you become sopassionate about the issue of
human trafficking?
(09:01):
Because you know how preciousfreedom really is and you know
that if you could offer that tosomeone else, it would make your
life that much richer, as wellas theirs.
Whatever you've accomplishedthus far in life, nothing is
more satisfying than being ableto help someone receive the gift
of freedom.
If you're interested in takingthe deep dive, in becoming
(09:24):
trained, write this down.
It's my effective casemanagement with human
trafficking survivors.
Course, you know many directservice providers are passionate
about working with survivors.
They understand their why indoing this work, but many don't
understand their what to do orhow to do it, or when to do it
(09:44):
and where and how much to dowhat.
And unfortunately, we don'tgive permission for someone to
be honest and say they don'thave the knowledge and skills to
effectively work with thepopulation of survivors that
have suffered trauma.
Well, I have a course on how towork directly with survivors,
including the 10 common areas ofneed and how to assess those
(10:06):
areas of need, and then how tointervene more effectively and
in trauma-informed ways.
Complete my course EffectiveCase Management with Human
Trafficking Survivors at yourOwn Pace.
I'll walk alongside you as youwalk alongside survivors,
sharing with you my almost 30years of experience.
If you're interested, you canfind my free webinar on my
(10:30):
website at CeliaWilsoncom.
And now on with the podcast.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, so typically, you know, when you use the word
task force, you typically thinkof either a law enforcement or a
military entity and, bydefinition, a task force.
Typically it doesn't involvemore than one discipline and you
(10:59):
know we would have lawenforcement task forces and I've
worked on violent crime taskforces.
I've worked on, you know,vehicle theft task forces.
I've worked on, you know,throughout my career DUI task
forces and joint terrorism taskforce and all these different
things, and we didn't involveanybody else.
(11:22):
It was strictly it was a lawenforcement operation and
typically those task forces areled from the top down.
It's very autocratic, you know,there's one person that's
calling the shots and that's theway it is.
They give direction, you do it.
You know, like in the militaryand having a military background
(11:45):
as well, I mean there's kind ofthe old adage yours is not to
question why, yours is only todo or die, and that's kind of
the idea behind the task force.
Well, ngos, nonprofits,community partners, they don't
always operate well in that typeof a leadership construct.
(12:05):
And so a collaboration or anMDT or a coalition, you know, by
definition involves multipledisciplines.
It brings together people withdiverse backgrounds, diverse
education, diverse experiences,diverse resources to come
(12:27):
together to solve a singleproblem.
And, by definition, when you'retalking about collaborations
and coalitions, you're alsotalking about distributed
leadership, shared leadership,shared decision making, which
kind of go contrary oftentimesto the way that we often operate
within law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And so that sort of leads to your belief in
multidisciplinary collaborations, and so your dissertation is
focused on outcomes ofcollaborative, multidisciplinary
collaboration.
So tell us a little bit abouthow you did this study, and then
maybe some of the findings thatwe could take away and learn
(13:12):
from.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, so Basically what I did.
Like I said, I did aqualitative study because I
wanted to hear directly frompeople, I wanted to hear their
experiences.
So what I ended up doing waswithout going in-depth into all
(13:38):
the methodology and that kind ofthing I did a number of
interviews of law enforcementofficers and victim service
providers across the country.
I understand that a lot of MDTsthey have an education
component, they may have alegislative component, they may
have a community outreach orwhatever.
But of course you can't withinthe confines of a dissertation,
(14:03):
you have to kind of narrow yourscope.
And so I focused on lawenforcement and victim service
providers, the folks that arereally kind of at the front
lines.
So I did individual interviewsacross the country and then I
also did focus groups withcoalition collaborative MDT
leadership around the countryand I asked everybody whether it
(14:30):
was an interview or the focusgroups.
I asked everybody basically thesame nine questions related to
how does your team respond tothis particular type of
leadership structure?
How does it work?
(14:50):
How do the folks respond to it?
How does law enforcement orwhat are the attitudes, opinions
, perspectives of lawenforcement toward victim
service providers?
What are the perceptions,attitudes and opinions of victim
service providers toward lawenforcement.
What are conflicts andchallenges that your team faces?
(15:15):
How do you measure outcomeswithin your teams?
But how are victims that youencounter, even though they may
not understand?
They may have never heard theterm MDT before, they may not
(15:39):
understand collaboration, allthese kinds of things, but how
are they responding to this typeof construct?
Because even though they maynot know what it is, it doesn't
mean that they're still notbenefiting from it.
So those were the types ofquestions that I asked, related
(16:02):
to the research in order to tryand draw out these outcomes.
And then, ultimately, do youbelieve that the collaborative,
multidisciplinary approachshould be standard practice or
protocol across the country?
And so that's really what I did.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Oh, good questions.
And so first, I'm veryinterested in the perspectives
that each had of the other.
What were those perspectives?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It was surprising because I really felt like this
is where I was going to get kindof the most conflict or the
most conflicted responses, andwhat I found is that law
enforcement had a very favorableopinion toward the victim
(16:58):
service providers.
They said that we cannot dothis on our own.
We are not equipped to do whatthey do.
We are not equipped to providethis long-term wraparound care.
Sure, we can provide someimmediate security, Maybe we can
provide a bag with some hygieneitems, maybe a change of
(17:19):
clothes, we can get them somefood, but beyond that, we don't
really have the capability to dowhat the advocates do.
And so they actually had a highopinion of the victim service
providers, the victim serviceproviders.
Their responses wereinteresting and a little
(17:43):
surprising because they too hada very high opinion of law
enforcement.
But they said it didn't startout that way, and a lot of the
people said that they had beenconditioned early on in their
education.
When they began their jobs insocial work or whatever, and
(18:08):
when they began doing advocacy,they were told you can't trust
law enforcement.
Law enforcement doesn't careabout victims, Law enforcement
only cares about prosecution,and they said that they were
being trained and these moreseasoned social workers and
people who were training them.
They just kind of drilled thisinto them and they said what we
(18:32):
found was that that wasn't true.
We were being told to believe aperspective that we hadn't
actually seen firsthand and thatnow, going into it, they went
in with these perceptions ofwhat law enforcement was about.
But they said, over time theyrealized that that's not the
(18:52):
case, that law enforcementthat's there, they're actually
just as concerned about thevictim.
Their strategies might bedifferent, the goal of law
enforcement may be differentfrom the victim service provider
, but they do care about thevictims.
And so it was kind of aninteresting response.
(19:16):
Not that there again, not thatthere aren't conflicts, but they
said generally those thingsthat we were conditioned to
believe early on just did notbear themselves out.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, that's so critical and I think the
research, there's a body ofliterature that says proximity
is so important, even in thearea of racial justice proximity
, getting to know someone.
Because, on our coalition, andfirst of all, thank you for
(19:51):
clearing up Task Force versuscoalition or collaboration,
because many times people arehaving a conversation Just go to
your coalition and people hearTask Force and they're like I'm
not on, they think they'recommunicating and they are not.
They're talking about twodifferent things.
So thank you for clearing thatup.
(20:12):
But also on our coalition,there were initial thoughts
about different disciplines atthe table.
Well, I know who you are, I knowwhat you're about and I know
what you're not about.
And until I get to know you,I'm going to hold those
preconceived notions.
But over time, as people startto build relationship and
(20:33):
understand that they serve thesame mission, they start then to
break down those walls andrevisit their preconceived
notions.
And even if they don't say allpeople in this discipline are
like this, they definitely aregoing to say I really can work
(20:55):
with this group of people, andso that's kind of how it starts.
So anything else that you foundin your study outcomes that
were useful- yeah, I mean therewas a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
When it comes to conflicts and challenges, I
think probably one of thebiggest conflicts and challenges
that was brought up was peoplestaying in their lane, knowing
their roles right, and it's onething to put.
(21:34):
And it's not so much knowingthe rules, because they said
it's one thing, we can putprotocols on paper all day long,
but that's just a piece ofpaper.
It's what happens in real life.
That actually matters, it's theapplication of those rules.
And so when victim serviceproviders cross out of that lane
(21:56):
and they try and get toodirectly involved in the law
enforcement piece, or when lawenforcement gets out of their
lane and tries to get tooinvolved in the victim service
piece, that's when you tend tohave the biggest conflict.
Law enforcement doesn't likewhen a non-law enforcement
(22:18):
person says to them this is whatthe law says, this is what you
need to do, this is a buy, youneed to go kick in that door,
you need to go do this.
Why aren't you doing this?
And maybe they don't understand.
They don't understand the law,they don't understand what that
law enforcement officer, thehoops that they have to jump
through, but at the same time,the law enforcement officer may
(22:45):
not best understand the needs ofthat victim if they're not
properly trained.
And so, really, the applicationof those roles.
One of the things that went backearlier in the questioning that
I did, and when we talk aboutthe overarching theme of
(23:10):
collaboration out of theresearch, was trust, and trust
is the absolute bedrock of anyteam.
Well, and the best researchshows and it even bore this out
throughout my research is thatthat trust doesn't happen
overnight.
It takes two to five yearsbefore a team to really gel and
(23:36):
to begin working together,unless there are already some
long-term preexistingrelationships.
I mean that can shorten thatwindow of time, but of course,
every time you bring anotherperson in, you kind of start
that clock over a little bit.
And so another challenge wasjust to link the time that it
(23:59):
takes sometimes to build thattrust.
And again, trust is so essentialbecause when you're talking
about collaboration you've gotto have accountability.
It's not cooperation.
If we're talking cooperation,it's because I'm asking you to
(24:19):
help me do something that's inmy best interest.
I want you to help me succeedat something.
Collaboration bearsaccountability, in that your
goals become my goals, my goalsbecome your goals, and when
we're working together towardthat common purpose, that shared
(24:39):
purpose that leads toaccountability.
We're going to hold each otheraccountable when the goals of
the victim service provider arethe prosecution of the offender
and the goals of law enforcementare the protection and service
(25:00):
to the victim.
That's really where we want toget to, and when we do that,
when we establish that trust, wehave not only greater
communication but we havegreater accountability.
And so the time that it takes tokind of establish that trust
there was also there was alsosome dissension among folks
(25:25):
actually a lot of the folks thatI talked to about grant funding
and primarily federal grantfunding and how that tends to
oftentimes create a lot ofconflict or challenge within a
team, because sometimes thesegrants come with restrictions
that say you can't do certaintypes of operations, you can't
(25:47):
do certain types of things, andthere are blanket requirements
that apply to everybody acrossthe country who's receiving
these grants.
Well, that might be fine in onecity, but in the city that
you're at you need to do thosetypes of things because the
trafficking landscape might bedifferent.
And they said that when there'sa grant and you've got that
(26:10):
grant money, everybody kind oflooks at you as a cash cow and
everybody wants to be there aslong as the money's there, but
once the money is gone, thepeople leave.
Now the counter to that is thatthe people that stay are really
the ones who are committed toit regardless and they turn out
(26:33):
to be the best partners.
And then again kind of back tothe whole building trust thing.
There's a lot of turnover inthese types of coalitions and
these types of MDTs and peopleleave, and every time there's a
(26:54):
change in personnel, every timethere's a change in leadership,
you really have to kind of beginall over again, and that kind
of creates some challenge forthese teams to effectively
operate.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah, I think I mean you've gone over a lot.
First of all, I think you'regiving us permission to take
that time two to five years tobuild a good, effective
collaboration.
Some of us blame ourselves orfeel terrible when we know that
our collaboration is six monthsold and it's a hot mess.
(27:30):
Well, it's going to be a hotmess.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Well, it's funny that you said that, because just a
few weeks ago I had traveled toanother city and I was kind of
giving this presentation that Icalled collaborating on purpose
and where I go over all of thesethings, and afterwards the main
(27:58):
point of contact from the statelaw enforcement agency that's
involved in this particularcoalition came to me and said I
am so glad you said what yousaid.
I said because we've been atthis now for like seven months
and she said I was beginning tothink that we were a complete
(28:21):
failure and I was thinking we'reabout to pull the plug and walk
away from this because we'rejust not making any headway.
And she said when you said thatit takes two to five years, she
said I just had this huge sighof relief and I realized that
we're not that bad and thatactually maybe we're actually
(28:42):
kind of ahead of the game, butthat it's still going to take a
while.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh yeah, I remember our.
You know we have amultidisciplinary collaboration.
It thrives today.
I mean, we started in 2009, butI could tell you two years
before that we called it aroundtable and it was a mess and
people had to come.
They had to grieve, you know.
(29:07):
They had to air all theirgrievances, they had to vent all
of their struggles, they weretired, they were fed up, they
were frustrated by this issue.
Why aren't we doing anything?
And then, you know, people camein and said I'm going to save
the day.
And we're like no, you're notsitting out, You're a part of
the partnership, you were notleading anything.
It was like it was.
(29:27):
It was a mess for a while untilwe were able to establish
exactly what you said trust.
And once we have some trust,then when we asked for
accountability, it didn't seemthreatening because it was a
part of the mission.
We said over and over you know,don't come to the table just to
(29:50):
look for the grant funds,Because you know we don't have
them right now.
We may not have them and if weget them, it's going to be
collaborative, and so we kind ofthose people that were just
interested in what can I get formy agency or myself, they
eventually got tired of comingand they walked away, and then
we got down to the people thatwanted to be there.
(30:16):
And now, years later, we're atthe point of building the
structure in these agencies, sothat exactly what you talked
about when the turnover happens,the structure is still in place
, the person, the new person,can plug in and their agency has
the structure, knows what thecollaboration does, can assess
(30:38):
the people, knows where to referyou know those types of things
I mean.
But that that must happen eveneven years later, I don't know,
but yeah, so I am happy to hearthat too, because that really
gives people permission to sitin, live in the mess until it
(30:59):
forms a structure, and I likethat.
You also define the differencebetween cooperation, which is to
come and help me do what I needto do, versus collaboration,
you know, which is we all get inthere together and and serve
the mission.
So, wow, what important work.
Is anything else critical thatyou found?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I think I.
There are a couple of things Ithink you know.
Probably the most like the micdrop moment for me in the
research was the question Iasked about how victims respond
you know to this, you know tothis environment.
(31:40):
And the response that I got overand over again in in the
research from you know, from thepractitioners that I talked to.
They said you know most of thevictims, the that we encounter,
they have never known a healthy,functioning relationship.
(32:04):
They were probably, if they'rean adult, they were probably
sexually abused as kids.
They probably grew up in abroken home.
They may have been a fosterchild.
They, you know, whatever thecase might be, they've never
known a stable, functioning,healthy relationship.
They were just recovered out ofthe most dysfunctional
(32:28):
relationship ever and so theythey've never seen what a
healthy relationship looks likeand they said so.
When they they're sitting in aroom and there's a law
enforcement officer and a victimadvocate sitting with them in
that room and that lawenforcement officer and that
(32:50):
victim advocate are speaking tothem and they're speaking to
each other about what's in thebest interest for the victim,
that survivor.
They said that's probably thefirst healthy relationship
they've ever seen and I thought,man, that is like.
(33:13):
At that point I could have juststopped because in my mind that
validates that one thing,validates everything, everything
that we do right, because atthe end of the day it's truly.
It's truly about the victims.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
That is profound.
I mean, I think that is, yeah,so dead on that.
That might be the firstcollaborative, healthy
relationship that's seen.
And you know other ways that wecan kind of mirror the
experience of survivors.
You mean, we're in this roomwith these collaborators and,
(33:53):
like you said, your researchsays we don't trust in the
beginning, so we can expect thesurvivor to automatically trust
us in the beginning.
We just traveled that, that roadof trust.
We should be uniquely keenlyaware that trust takes time.
But some of us expect.
Why don't the survivor just dowhat we want to?
(34:15):
We want to walk alongside them.
Why aren't they just walkingalongside us right away?
I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Right, you know, I asked folks about you know how
they measured success.
Everybody said it's not aboutnumbers, you know.
And what I actually found wasreally interesting was when I
asked the victim's serviceproviders.
(34:41):
You know, when I talked tovictim service providers they
were very quick to mentionvictim identification and
prosecution.
Right, law enforcement was veryquick to say victim protection,
providing services to thevictims, which I thought was
(35:01):
interesting because usually youwould think that that would go,
that would go the other way.
But everybody agreed it's notabout numbers.
At the end of the day it boilsdown to you know, you measure
success by those you're able toidentify and those that you're
able to provide.
You know the appropriateservices too quickly.
(35:22):
And again kind of back to theconflicts and challenges.
You know, one of the otherthings kind of related to this
was when somebody says thatthey're going to do something
and they don't do it, thatcreates a conflict, right?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
And so if law enforcement calls a victim
service provider and they don'tshow up or law enforcement
doesn't do what they say thatthey're going to do, that has
the potential to erode trust.
And, whereas you know, all theresearch says two to five years
to establish trust, once trustis broken it takes even longer
(35:57):
to reestablish it again.
And so you know that'simportant.
But the overarching theme, likethere was one thing that
permeated all of this research,and that is the idea of shared
purpose, and a number of peoplethat I interviewed, in the
(36:21):
transcripts they actually usedthe words shared purpose, but
every single person that Italked to, even if they didn't
say shared purpose, they definedit in their responses, and
there's actually Adler andHeckscher actually defined
(36:42):
shared purpose as a unified goalor mission that all
participants are motivated toachieve, and every research
participant agreed that withoutshared purpose, the best efforts
are without great effect.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
And you can't.
And that shared purpose isreally what helps to define what
success in these teams lookslike.
And it's not something that wecan't you can't write it into a
protocol, you can't demand it,you can't order shared purpose
but it's something that it'sthat invisible force, it's that,
(37:24):
it's that thing that just itjust happens right over time.
But it's the result of thattrust, it's the result of that
accountability, it's thatinvisible force that brings us
all together.
(37:45):
Again, where your goals are mygoals and my goals are your
goals, we're all working towardthat unified purpose at the end,
and without that we're nevergoing to achieve what we want to
achieve throughout thesecoalitions.
(38:05):
And again, at the end of the day, there was 100 percent
agreement and everybody that Italked to that this needs to be
the standard protocol across thecountry.
But there's no way to do it.
A number of folks said, hey, weused to do it the other way and
that's why we're not, becauseit never worked.
And this is why we're doing itnow, because this is where we're
(38:29):
seeing the success.
I think that there are a numberof studies by DOJ, by others,
proctor and others that talkabout the importance of
collaboration in this space andwhy it's so essential, and that
(38:51):
if we don't do these things andwe don't find that shared
purpose again, our best effortswill be without great effect.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Right, it's like the gel that fills in to hold
everybody together.
Once I understand your heart,once I understand your mind,
once I understand yourmotivation, why you're here,
then I can even some of themistakes I can even forgive.
(39:24):
I can get back to thecollaboration Once I understand
your mind and your heart, andthose are subliminal.
Those are in the way that youspeak, in the way that you talk,
your passion and the way thatyou do your work.
All of those things that, right, we can't define, we can't put
a finger on, but those are thecues people pick up in deciding
(39:49):
whether they're going to trustyour overall heart, your overall
motivation, why you're here,what you do and, yeah, all of
those things are so important, Ithink, to effective work and
you can't put your finger on it.
So I agree, even in ourcoalition, you know everybody
(40:10):
doesn't show up and do whatthey're supposed to do all the
time and we call them on it andwe now can get back to the work.
You know we don't define theirwhole character by the mistake.
We define their whole characterby the body of work that
they've done as they come to thetable, not just the mistake.
(40:31):
So, yeah, I think, when acollaboration can get to that
point, then they can be a highfunctioning, you know entity
that's together.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, and you know, and unfortunately we just
haven't, you know, up untilrecent years we just we haven't
worked this way and I, you know,and I would love to do more
research when I retired.
But I honestly believe that alot of the fault in the way that
(41:06):
we've done things and,anecdotally, a lot of law
enforcement that I talked to ofmy generation agree with me that
the media has influenced overthe years the way that we work
these cases, and I often bringup, you know, in my
presentations because I, youknow, I kind of grew up in what
(41:30):
I think is the golden era of copTV, right?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
So Kojak Streets, of San Francisco, Cherokee and
Hodgkin.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
And all of those shows that we grew up with, even
moving forward.
You know, tj Hooker, you knowup until you know, just you know
, this past generation.
We were always conditioned tolook at this issue in one
particular way, and in none ofthose shows were they ever
(42:04):
trying to help the victim.
That's interesting, yes, and youknow they would do.
They would do raids, you knowprostitution raids, and you'd
see the.
You'd see the pictures in thesquad room of a bunch of women
locked in a cage.
You know they're all underarrest on prostitution charges,
that kind of thing, or theywould.
(42:25):
In essence, they would justreexploit the victims and that
they would say listen, I won'ttake you to jail if you do this
for me, if you give me thisinformation, whatever the case
might be and they were nevertrying to help anybody it became
almost an accepted practice,right.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
It wasn't until 24 seasons ago, you know, when law
and order SVU, olivia Benson,elliot Stabler came along where
we began seeing law enforcementwork with the faith-based
community, with the medicalcommunity, with social workers.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
To try and find better outcomes for victims.
Not that that's a perfect show,but that's really kind of the
first time that you know that wesaw that.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
That would have been good.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
And if you recall, if you've ever seen it, the old
movie Annie Get your Gun, theold musical, and in that musical
there's a point where the twomain characters are they're
doing a musical number wherethey're kind of fighting with
each other.
They're not reallycollaborating and the song goes
(43:30):
whatever you can do, I can dobetter.
Well, at the end of the day, ina collaboration it should be
whatever you can do, we can dobetter?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Absolutely, I wholeheartedly agree, and I
often say you know the Africanproverb if you want to go fast,
go alone, but if you want to gofar, go together.
And that takes time.
So, doug, is there anythingthat you want to leave us with?
I think we have so many jewelshere to choose from.
(44:07):
But any last words that you'dlike to leave us with, as we try
to, you know, go through themud, the struggle, as we're
trying to form this partnership.
That seems incredibly hard, butanything that you any wisdom
you'd like to impart on usbefore we go, you know I would
just say that don't get in arush, don't become impatient.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Take the time to identify the right partners and
build that trust, work towardestablishing, you know, that
shared purpose, because that'sreally, at the end of the day,
that's really what's key.
And you know there's I meanthere's so much more you know
(44:57):
out of this research that youknow that we could talk about if
we have time.
But you know I'm also happy tocommunicate with others
Personally.
You know folks can reach out tome if they have specific
questions or you know that kindof thing.
They can email me at info atDoug Gilmorecom that's my
(45:20):
personal email where I do mostof my communication on this
issue.
But I would also, you know,suggest that if people want more
information they can go todhsgov backslash, ccht center
for countering human traffickingor just Google DHS Center for
(45:42):
countering human trafficking, tofind out more about the work
that we're doing around thecountry in support of not just
training and education but alsoin operations and helping to
support and fund localinitiatives and really trying to
move the needle forward when itcomes to countering human
(46:03):
trafficking, both in the UnitedStates and outside of the United
States.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Oh, thank you so much for saying that.
And if there is an entity outthere that would like to some
training on how to just be astronger collaboration, are you
open and able to train?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Absolutely, yep, absolutely.
Whether I do it on my own timeor I do it, you know, on behalf
of the government, I'm alwayswilling to come and help.
This is a very it's become avery important issue passionate
issue of mine that I devoted alot of time and resources to and
(46:45):
you know I can talk about thisall day long and I think that
I've really kind of developed avery unique, kind of fun way to
boil down 175 pages of academicpeer reviewed, you know,
research, you know, intosomething that's, you know
that's fun and entertaining.
(47:06):
And, without giving it all away, I always tell people that
you'll never look at a smore thesame way again.
Okay, when we get done?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Good, so you'll train on that in a fun way.
And thank you so much, too, forjust making creating this
dissertation and for your bodyof work and for really
explaining it in a way that'svery clear and just makes so
much sense for people out therethat are trying to do this work
and do it in an effective way.
So thank you so much, doug.
(47:38):
I so much appreciate your timeand please continue the great
work.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Absolutely, and I look forward to working together
.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
That was Doug Gilmer dropping all kinds of jewels and
he he ends with, you know,looking forward to working
together because we are going tocollaborate on some projects
and I'm so looking forward tothis work with Doug.
So he dropped a couple jewels.
So let's just discuss briefly.
(48:06):
He told us the differencebetween task force and coalition
, and I think that's so criticalbecause there's so much
misunderstanding, actually, onmy part and my colleagues part.
We were in a meeting and wetold people will just go to your
talk about it with yourcoalition, and they were like we
, we don't have a voice on ourtask force and we thought we
(48:31):
were talking about the samething.
We absolutely were not talkingabout the same thing.
The other thing he mentionedwas the difference between
cooperation you helped me withmy project or my idea or my
mission and collaboration, wherewe have a shared purpose your
goals are my goals and my goalsare your goals.
(48:54):
I think that was also, you know, very important to know.
And if you remember or rewindthis, you'll see that when he
talked about survivors andinvolvement with survivors, he
used the word recovered, notrescued.
(49:15):
I really like that, becauserescue is becoming very
problematic and if you have acoalition, a collaboration,
whatever you call yourselves,and you are in the struggle.
You are on the struggle busright now.
(49:38):
That's okay.
Take peace in the fact that youare on a path to structure, to
working together.
Remember, when you form a group, remember that you know forming
, storming, norming, performing.
You remember that process.
Like forming, you know you'rejust getting together and then
(50:01):
the storm and storming processwhere people just don't get
along.
It doesn't seem like it's goingto come together, but then it
starts the norming process wherepeople becomes the norm to come
in and work together and thenhopefully, you get to the stage
of performing where you aresuccessful in your performance.
(50:22):
So try to hang in there and ifyou need Doug's help, please
reach out to him.
I'm so curious to understandwhat how he brings s'mores into
his discussion.
I can only guess that s'moresare very different, but when you
put them all together and somemash them together and then put
(50:45):
them in your mouth, it isheavenly.
So that's my guess on hisanalogy regarding s'mores
Collaboration is the way to go.
If you listen to these episodes, you will hear that consistent
theme throughout these episodeswe can't do it alone, we have to
(51:05):
collaborate.
So until next time.
The fight continues, thank you,thank you.
Hey, before we start this episode, I want to let you
know that this is a particularlylong episode.
On purpose.
It is about coalitions and howto run an effective coalition
and how to run a diversecoalition if you want to
actually make a big differencein the anti-trafficking field.
(00:22):
So throughout this episodethere are lots of jewels that
are being dropped.
So please listen along, pick upthe jewels, implement them and
try to.
If you can't listen to it allat one setting, come back to it
and listen to the whole episode.
You know the why humantrafficking work is needed To
(00:45):
fight for the freedom of modernday slaves.
But love, passion, commitmentisn't all you need to be an
effective and successfulanti-trafficking advocate.
Learn the how.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson,director of the Human
Trafficking and Social JusticeInstitute at the University of
Toledo.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation podcast, where I'll
(01:07):
provide you with the latest andbest methods, policy and
practice discussed byexperienced experts in the field
, so that you can cut throughthe noise, save time and be
about the work of saving lives.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson.
This is episode 195.
Today I have Dr Doug Gilmer withme and he is the senior law
(01:33):
enforcement person for theDepartment of Homeland
Security's Center for CounteringHuman Trafficking, so they
provide a lot of information toDHS to be able to do their job
and do it with a level ofexcellence.
Doug has a PhD inorganizational leadership, a PhD
(01:57):
that he didn't necessarily need.
He went out on his own tofurther his own education and
knowledge and skills so that hecould get this dissertation, and
we're going to talk about hisdissertation today because I
think it's very relevant to whatpeople need to know as they
fight human trafficking.
He currently also serves as amentor for the Frederick
(02:22):
Douglass Human TraffickingInstitute's Fellows Program in
DC.
The program is worldwide, butthe headquarters is in DC.
Doug actually ran the office inBirmingham, alabama, and they
received the very first DHSSecretary Award for Victim
Protection and Countering HumanTrafficking.
(02:44):
So this is the guy we want totalk to today.
So welcome, doug.
I'm so glad that you could makeit.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, thank you very much, Dr Williamson.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, so you did a dissertation, and many people do
dissertations on things that Iwould consider collecting dust
in a book and a library.
But you actually did adissertation that could be very
helpful to us, and it was theoutcomes of collaborative,
multidisciplinary teamsencountering human trafficking,
(03:14):
and it's very useful for whatwe're trying to do today.
So can you talk a little bitabout, first of all, why you
would pursue a PhD when youdidn't really need it in your
job?
Why would you go out and somepeople would say, torture
yourself like that why would yougo out and get a PhD?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I have a master's degree in counseling with a
concentration in trauma-informedpractice and that type of thing
, and so I had a little bit ofbackground in this area.
I wouldn't call myself apractitioner, but I feel like I
had a pretty good education andbackground on what being
trauma-informed met and dealingwith critical incidents and
(03:57):
trauma and that kind of thing,and really a lot of that began
several years ago when I was theunit chief at the time for our
International Human RightsViolators and War Crimes Unit
(04:18):
and I wanted to understandbetter what the victims of these
crimes were going through andhow to better relate to the
victims and that kind of thing.
But it transcends all differentkinds of crime.
When I got to Birmingham,alabama six years ago to take
(04:46):
over running the office here, wewere doing a lot of human
trafficking work but we weredoing it different and we were
really partnering with our NGOpartners, our nonprofits, our
victim advocates and that kindof thing, and realized that we
(05:07):
were far more successful when wepartnered with the community
than when we tried to do itourselves.
And I began thinking back tothe way that we worked these
cases 20 and 30 years ago andwhen we had very little
community support.
I mean, there might be one ortwo organizations that we could
(05:29):
rely on for help, but there wasreally nobody that was providing
long-term, sustainablewraparound care for victims and
everything just seemed to workand we were having a tremendous
amount of success in identifyingvictims and making cases.
And I began to wonder well, andfrom that point I mean we ended
(05:55):
up creating a child sextrafficking multidisciplinary
team in Birmingham like a taskforce, but more of a
collaborative or a coalitionrather than a task force,
because there is a difference.
And we were very successful atthat and we had these protocols
in place and everything justseemed to work.
(06:15):
And I thought if it worked here, it should work other places.
And I know from talking toother folks across the country
that were doing similar thingsthat they were having success.
But there was really nothingout there that said this is why
(06:40):
these teams are successful.
There was quantitative datathat would say well, there was
an X number of increase in casesor prosecutions or whatever.
But I thought statistics don'talways tell the complete story
and statistic you change one ortwo variables and how you do
(07:01):
your research and you getentirely different results.
And so I said I don't want to doquantitative research, I want
to do qualitative research, Iwant to talk to the
practitioners, I want to figureout why this works, and so the
best way to do that was reallyto pursue the PhD.
And as I began looking intothese various programs and how
(07:30):
these teams worked and how I wasgoing to get the best results,
to really get a handle on thewhole idea of collaboration and
multidisciplinary teams, that'sreally what led me to the
organizational leadership aspect, because there's a strong
leadership and organizationalcomponent to these teams and
what it means to becollaborative, and the trust
(07:52):
component and the accountabilitycomponent that comes along with
operating these types ofcoalitions, and so that's really
what led me down that road.
I wanted to find out for myselfwhy they worked, and if they
worked here in Birmingham andthey worked in other places,
(08:13):
then they should be able to workeverywhere.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, see, I think that the way your brain works
and thank God for it is.
With the master's degree youunderstood the importance of the
social services, the counselingaspect of it, and then, with
your training in criminaljustice and those types of
things, you saw the marriage asbeing very integrative and I
(08:41):
mean that is the best way to goabout it.
But so you said you mentionedthere's a difference between
task force and then coalition orcollaboration.
Can you explain that?
I want to break into thispodcast and ask you an important
question why did you become sopassionate about the issue of
human trafficking?
(09:01):
Because you know how preciousfreedom really is and you know
that if you could offer that tosomeone else, it would make your
life that much richer, as wellas theirs.
Whatever you've accomplishedthus far in life, nothing is
more satisfying than being ableto help someone receive the gift
of freedom.
If you're interested in takingthe deep dive, in becoming
(09:24):
trained, write this down.
It's my effective casemanagement with human
trafficking survivors.
Course, you know many directservice providers are passionate
about working with survivors.
They understand their why indoing this work, but many don't
understand their what to do orhow to do it, or when to do it
(09:44):
and where and how much to dowhat.
And unfortunately, we don'tgive permission for someone to
be honest and say they don'thave the knowledge and skills to
effectively work with thepopulation of survivors that
have suffered trauma.
Well, I have a course on how towork directly with survivors,
including the 10 common areas ofneed and how to assess those
(10:06):
areas of need, and then how tointervene more effectively and
in trauma-informed ways.
Complete my course EffectiveCase Management with Human
Trafficking Survivors at yourOwn Pace.
I'll walk alongside you as youwalk alongside survivors,
sharing with you my almost 30years of experience.
If you're interested, you canfind my free webinar on my
(10:30):
website at CeliaWilsoncom.
And now on with the podcast.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, so typically, you know, when you use the word
task force, you typically thinkof either a law enforcement or a
military entity and, bydefinition, a task force.
Typically it doesn't involvemore than one discipline and you
(10:59):
know we would have lawenforcement task forces and I've
worked on violent crime taskforces.
I've worked on, you know,vehicle theft task forces.
I've worked on, you know,throughout my career DUI task
forces and joint terrorism taskforce and all these different
things, and we didn't involveanybody else.
(11:22):
It was strictly it was a lawenforcement operation and
typically those task forces areled from the top down.
It's very autocratic, you know,there's one person that's
calling the shots and that's theway it is.
They give direction, you do it.
You know, like in the militaryand having a military background
(11:45):
as well, I mean there's kind ofthe old adage yours is not to
question why, yours is only todo or die, and that's kind of
the idea behind the task force.
Well, ngos, nonprofits,community partners, they don't
always operate well in that typeof a leadership construct.
(12:05):
And so a collaboration or anMDT or a coalition, you know, by
definition involves multipledisciplines.
It brings together people withdiverse backgrounds, diverse
education, diverse experiences,diverse resources to come
(12:27):
together to solve a singleproblem.
And, by definition, when you'retalking about collaborations
and coalitions, you're alsotalking about distributed
leadership, shared leadership,shared decision making, which
kind of go contrary oftentimesto the way that we often operate
within law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And so that sort of leads to your belief in
multidisciplinary collaborations, and so your dissertation is
focused on outcomes ofcollaborative, multidisciplinary
collaboration.
So tell us a little bit abouthow you did this study, and then
maybe some of the findings thatwe could take away and learn
(13:12):
from.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, so Basically what I did.
Like I said, I did aqualitative study because I
wanted to hear directly frompeople, I wanted to hear their
experiences.
So what I ended up doing waswithout going in-depth into all
(13:38):
the methodology and that kind ofthing I did a number of
interviews of law enforcementofficers and victim service
providers across the country.
I understand that a lot of MDTsthey have an education
component, they may have alegislative component, they may
have a community outreach orwhatever.
But of course you can't withinthe confines of a dissertation,
(14:03):
you have to kind of narrow yourscope.
And so I focused on lawenforcement and victim service
providers, the folks that arereally kind of at the front
lines.
So I did individual interviewsacross the country and then I
also did focus groups withcoalition collaborative MDT
leadership around the countryand I asked everybody whether it
(14:30):
was an interview or the focusgroups.
I asked everybody basically thesame nine questions related to
how does your team respond tothis particular type of
leadership structure?
How does it work?
(14:50):
How do the folks respond to it?
How does law enforcement orwhat are the attitudes, opinions
, perspectives of lawenforcement toward victim
service providers?
What are the perceptions,attitudes and opinions of victim
service providers toward lawenforcement.
What are conflicts andchallenges that your team faces?
(15:15):
How do you measure outcomeswithin your teams?
But how are victims that youencounter, even though they may
not understand?
They may have never heard theterm MDT before, they may not
(15:39):
understand collaboration, allthese kinds of things, but how
are they responding to this typeof construct?
Because even though they maynot know what it is, it doesn't
mean that they're still notbenefiting from it.
So those were the types ofquestions that I asked, related
(16:02):
to the research in order to tryand draw out these outcomes.
And then, ultimately, do youbelieve that the collaborative,
multidisciplinary approachshould be standard practice or
protocol across the country?
And so that's really what I did.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Oh, good questions.
And so first, I'm veryinterested in the perspectives
that each had of the other.
What were those perspectives?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It was surprising because I really felt like this
is where I was going to get kindof the most conflict or the
most conflicted responses, andwhat I found is that law
enforcement had a very favorableopinion toward the victim
(16:58):
service providers.
They said that we cannot dothis on our own.
We are not equipped to do whatthey do.
We are not equipped to providethis long-term wraparound care.
Sure, we can provide someimmediate security, Maybe we can
provide a bag with some hygieneitems, maybe a change of
(17:19):
clothes, we can get them somefood, but beyond that, we don't
really have the capability to dowhat the advocates do.
And so they actually had a highopinion of the victim service
providers, the victim serviceproviders.
Their responses wereinteresting and a little
(17:43):
surprising because they too hada very high opinion of law
enforcement.
But they said it didn't startout that way, and a lot of the
people said that they had beenconditioned early on in their
education.
When they began their jobs insocial work or whatever, and
(18:08):
when they began doing advocacy,they were told you can't trust
law enforcement.
Law enforcement doesn't careabout victims, Law enforcement
only cares about prosecution,and they said that they were
being trained and these moreseasoned social workers and
people who were training them.
They just kind of drilled thisinto them and they said what we
(18:32):
found was that that wasn't true.
We were being told to believe aperspective that we hadn't
actually seen firsthand and thatnow, going into it, they went
in with these perceptions ofwhat law enforcement was about.
But they said, over time theyrealized that that's not the
(18:52):
case, that law enforcementthat's there, they're actually
just as concerned about thevictim.
Their strategies might bedifferent, the goal of law
enforcement may be differentfrom the victim service provider
, but they do care about thevictims.
And so it was kind of aninteresting response.
(19:16):
Not that there again, not thatthere aren't conflicts, but they
said generally those thingsthat we were conditioned to
believe early on just did notbear themselves out.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, that's so critical and I think the
research, there's a body ofliterature that says proximity
is so important, even in thearea of racial justice proximity
, getting to know someone.
Because, on our coalition, andfirst of all, thank you for
(19:51):
clearing up Task Force versuscoalition or collaboration,
because many times people arehaving a conversation Just go to
your coalition and people hearTask Force and they're like I'm
not on, they think they'recommunicating and they are not.
They're talking about twodifferent things.
So thank you for clearing thatup.
(20:12):
But also on our coalition,there were initial thoughts
about different disciplines atthe table.
Well, I know who you are, I knowwhat you're about and I know
what you're not about.
And until I get to know you,I'm going to hold those
preconceived notions.
But over time, as people startto build relationship and
(20:33):
understand that they serve thesame mission, they start then to
break down those walls andrevisit their preconceived
notions.
And even if they don't say allpeople in this discipline are
like this, they definitely aregoing to say I really can work
(20:55):
with this group of people, andso that's kind of how it starts.
So anything else that you foundin your study outcomes that
were useful- yeah, I mean therewas a lot.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
When it comes to conflicts and challenges, I
think probably one of thebiggest conflicts and challenges
that was brought up was peoplestaying in their lane, knowing
their roles right, and it's onething to put.
(21:34):
And it's not so much knowingthe rules, because they said
it's one thing, we can putprotocols on paper all day long,
but that's just a piece ofpaper.
It's what happens in real life.
That actually matters, it's theapplication of those rules.
And so when victim serviceproviders cross out of that lane
(21:56):
and they try and get toodirectly involved in the law
enforcement piece, or when lawenforcement gets out of their
lane and tries to get tooinvolved in the victim service
piece, that's when you tend tohave the biggest conflict.
Law enforcement doesn't likewhen a non-law enforcement
(22:18):
person says to them this is whatthe law says, this is what you
need to do, this is a buy, youneed to go kick in that door,
you need to go do this.
Why aren't you doing this?
And maybe they don't understand.
They don't understand the law,they don't understand what that
law enforcement officer, thehoops that they have to jump
through, but at the same time,the law enforcement officer may
(22:45):
not best understand the needs ofthat victim if they're not
properly trained.
And so, really, the applicationof those roles.
One of the things that went backearlier in the questioning that
I did, and when we talk aboutthe overarching theme of
(23:10):
collaboration out of theresearch, was trust, and trust
is the absolute bedrock of anyteam.
Well, and the best researchshows and it even bore this out
throughout my research is thatthat trust doesn't happen
overnight.
It takes two to five yearsbefore a team to really gel and
(23:36):
to begin working together,unless there are already some
long-term preexistingrelationships.
I mean that can shorten thatwindow of time, but of course,
every time you bring anotherperson in, you kind of start
that clock over a little bit.
And so another challenge wasjust to link the time that it
(23:59):
takes sometimes to build thattrust.
And again, trust is so essentialbecause when you're talking
about collaboration you've gotto have accountability.
It's not cooperation.
If we're talking cooperation,it's because I'm asking you to
(24:19):
help me do something that's inmy best interest.
I want you to help me succeedat something.
Collaboration bearsaccountability, in that your
goals become my goals, my goalsbecome your goals, and when
we're working together towardthat common purpose, that shared
(24:39):
purpose that leads toaccountability.
We're going to hold each otheraccountable when the goals of
the victim service provider arethe prosecution of the offender
and the goals of law enforcementare the protection and service
(25:00):
to the victim.
That's really where we want toget to, and when we do that,
when we establish that trust, wehave not only greater
communication but we havegreater accountability.
And so the time that it takes tokind of establish that trust
there was also there was alsosome dissension among folks
(25:25):
actually a lot of the folks thatI talked to about grant funding
and primarily federal grantfunding and how that tends to
oftentimes create a lot ofconflict or challenge within a
team, because sometimes thesegrants come with restrictions
that say you can't do certaintypes of operations, you can't
(25:47):
do certain types of things, andthere are blanket requirements
that apply to everybody acrossthe country who's receiving
these grants.
Well, that might be fine in onecity, but in the city that
you're at you need to do thosetypes of things because the
trafficking landscape might bedifferent.
And they said that when there'sa grant and you've got that
(26:10):
grant money, everybody kind oflooks at you as a cash cow and
everybody wants to be there aslong as the money's there, but
once the money is gone, thepeople leave.
Now the counter to that is thatthe people that stay are really
the ones who are committed toit regardless and they turn out
(26:33):
to be the best partners.
And then again kind of back tothe whole building trust thing.
There's a lot of turnover inthese types of coalitions and
these types of MDTs and peopleleave, and every time there's a
(26:54):
change in personnel, every timethere's a change in leadership,
you really have to kind of beginall over again, and that kind
of creates some challenge forthese teams to effectively
operate.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah, I think I mean you've gone over a lot.
First of all, I think you'regiving us permission to take
that time two to five years tobuild a good, effective
collaboration.
Some of us blame ourselves orfeel terrible when we know that
our collaboration is six monthsold and it's a hot mess.
(27:30):
Well, it's going to be a hotmess.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Well, it's funny that you said that, because just a
few weeks ago I had traveled toanother city and I was kind of
giving this presentation that Icalled collaborating on purpose
and where I go over all of thesethings, and afterwards the main
(27:58):
point of contact from the statelaw enforcement agency that's
involved in this particularcoalition came to me and said I
am so glad you said what yousaid.
I said because we've been atthis now for like seven months
and she said I was beginning tothink that we were a complete
(28:21):
failure and I was thinking we'reabout to pull the plug and walk
away from this because we'rejust not making any headway.
And she said when you said thatit takes two to five years, she
said I just had this huge sighof relief and I realized that
we're not that bad and thatactually maybe we're actually
(28:42):
kind of ahead of the game, butthat it's still going to take a
while.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh yeah, I remember our.
You know we have amultidisciplinary collaboration.
It thrives today.
I mean, we started in 2009, butI could tell you two years
before that we called it aroundtable and it was a mess and
people had to come.
They had to grieve, you know.
(29:07):
They had to air all theirgrievances, they had to vent all
of their struggles, they weretired, they were fed up, they
were frustrated by this issue.
Why aren't we doing anything?
And then, you know, people camein and said I'm going to save
the day.
And we're like no, you're notsitting out, You're a part of
the partnership, you were notleading anything.
It was like it was.
(29:27):
It was a mess for a while untilwe were able to establish
exactly what you said trust.
And once we have some trust,then when we asked for
accountability, it didn't seemthreatening because it was a
part of the mission.
We said over and over you know,don't come to the table just to
(29:50):
look for the grant funds,Because you know we don't have
them right now.
We may not have them and if weget them, it's going to be
collaborative, and so we kind ofthose people that were just
interested in what can I get formy agency or myself, they
eventually got tired of comingand they walked away, and then
we got down to the people thatwanted to be there.
(30:16):
And now, years later, we're atthe point of building the
structure in these agencies, sothat exactly what you talked
about when the turnover happens,the structure is still in place
, the person, the new person,can plug in and their agency has
the structure, knows what thecollaboration does, can assess
(30:38):
the people, knows where to referyou know those types of things
I mean.
But that that must happen eveneven years later, I don't know,
but yeah, so I am happy to hearthat too, because that really
gives people permission to sitin, live in the mess until it
(30:59):
forms a structure, and I likethat.
You also define the differencebetween cooperation, which is to
come and help me do what I needto do, versus collaboration,
you know, which is we all get inthere together and and serve
the mission.
So, wow, what important work.
Is anything else critical thatyou found?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I think I.
There are a couple of things Ithink you know.
Probably the most like the micdrop moment for me in the
research was the question Iasked about how victims respond
you know to this, you know tothis environment.
(31:40):
And the response that I got overand over again in in the
research from you know, from thepractitioners that I talked to.
They said you know most of thevictims, the that we encounter,
they have never known a healthy,functioning relationship.
(32:04):
They were probably, if they'rean adult, they were probably
sexually abused as kids.
They probably grew up in abroken home.
They may have been a fosterchild.
They, you know, whatever thecase might be, they've never
known a stable, functioning,healthy relationship.
They were just recovered out ofthe most dysfunctional
(32:28):
relationship ever and so theythey've never seen what a
healthy relationship looks likeand they said so.
When they they're sitting in aroom and there's a law
enforcement officer and a victimadvocate sitting with them in
that room and that lawenforcement officer and that
(32:50):
victim advocate are speaking tothem and they're speaking to
each other about what's in thebest interest for the victim,
that survivor.
They said that's probably thefirst healthy relationship
they've ever seen and I thought,man, that is like.
(33:13):
At that point I could have juststopped because in my mind that
validates that one thing,validates everything, everything
that we do right, because atthe end of the day it's truly.
It's truly about the victims.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
That is profound.
I mean, I think that is, yeah,so dead on that.
That might be the firstcollaborative, healthy
relationship that's seen.
And you know other ways that wecan kind of mirror the
experience of survivors.
You mean, we're in this roomwith these collaborators and,
(33:53):
like you said, your researchsays we don't trust in the
beginning, so we can expect thesurvivor to automatically trust
us in the beginning.
We just traveled that, that roadof trust.
We should be uniquely keenlyaware that trust takes time.
But some of us expect.
Why don't the survivor just dowhat we want to?
(34:15):
We want to walk alongside them.
Why aren't they just walkingalongside us right away?
I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Right, you know, I asked folks about you know how
they measured success.
Everybody said it's not aboutnumbers, you know.
And what I actually found wasreally interesting was when I
asked the victim's serviceproviders.
(34:41):
You know, when I talked tovictim service providers they
were very quick to mentionvictim identification and
prosecution.
Right, law enforcement was veryquick to say victim protection,
providing services to thevictims, which I thought was
(35:01):
interesting because usually youwould think that that would go,
that would go the other way.
But everybody agreed it's notabout numbers.
At the end of the day it boilsdown to you know, you measure
success by those you're able toidentify and those that you're
able to provide.
You know the appropriateservices too quickly.
(35:22):
And again kind of back to theconflicts and challenges.
You know, one of the otherthings kind of related to this
was when somebody says thatthey're going to do something
and they don't do it, thatcreates a conflict, right?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
And so if law enforcement calls a victim
service provider and they don'tshow up or law enforcement
doesn't do what they say thatthey're going to do, that has
the potential to erode trust.
And, whereas you know, all theresearch says two to five years
to establish trust, once trustis broken it takes even longer
(35:57):
to reestablish it again.
And so you know that'simportant.
But the overarching theme, likethere was one thing that
permeated all of this research,and that is the idea of shared
purpose, and a number of peoplethat I interviewed, in the
(36:21):
transcripts they actually usedthe words shared purpose, but
every single person that Italked to, even if they didn't
say shared purpose, they definedit in their responses, and
there's actually Adler andHeckscher actually defined
(36:42):
shared purpose as a unified goalor mission that all
participants are motivated toachieve, and every research
participant agreed that withoutshared purpose, the best efforts
are without great effect.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
And you can't.
And that shared purpose isreally what helps to define what
success in these teams lookslike.
And it's not something that wecan't you can't write it into a
protocol, you can't demand it,you can't order shared purpose
but it's something that it'sthat invisible force, it's that,
(37:24):
it's that thing that just itjust happens right over time.
But it's the result of thattrust, it's the result of that
accountability, it's thatinvisible force that brings us
all together.
(37:45):
Again, where your goals are mygoals and my goals are your
goals, we're all working towardthat unified purpose at the end,
and without that we're nevergoing to achieve what we want to
achieve throughout thesecoalitions.
(38:05):
And again, at the end of the day, there was 100 percent
agreement and everybody that Italked to that this needs to be
the standard protocol across thecountry.
But there's no way to do it.
A number of folks said, hey, weused to do it the other way and
that's why we're not, becauseit never worked.
And this is why we're doing itnow, because this is where we're
(38:29):
seeing the success.
I think that there are a numberof studies by DOJ, by others,
proctor and others that talkabout the importance of
collaboration in this space andwhy it's so essential, and that
(38:51):
if we don't do these things andwe don't find that shared
purpose again, our best effortswill be without great effect.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Right, it's like the gel that fills in to hold
everybody together.
Once I understand your heart,once I understand your mind,
once I understand yourmotivation, why you're here,
then I can even some of themistakes I can even forgive.
(39:24):
I can get back to thecollaboration Once I understand
your mind and your heart, andthose are subliminal.
Those are in the way that youspeak, in the way that you talk,
your passion and the way thatyou do your work.
All of those things that, right, we can't define, we can't put
a finger on, but those are thecues people pick up in deciding
(39:49):
whether they're going to trustyour overall heart, your overall
motivation, why you're here,what you do and, yeah, all of
those things are so important, Ithink, to effective work and
you can't put your finger on it.
So I agree, even in ourcoalition, you know everybody
(40:10):
doesn't show up and do whatthey're supposed to do all the
time and we call them on it andwe now can get back to the work.
You know we don't define theirwhole character by the mistake.
We define their whole characterby the body of work that
they've done as they come to thetable, not just the mistake.
(40:31):
So, yeah, I think, when acollaboration can get to that
point, then they can be a highfunctioning, you know entity
that's together.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, and you know, and unfortunately we just
haven't, you know, up untilrecent years we just we haven't
worked this way and I, you know,and I would love to do more
research when I retired.
But I honestly believe that alot of the fault in the way that
(41:06):
we've done things and,anecdotally, a lot of law
enforcement that I talked to ofmy generation agree with me that
the media has influenced overthe years the way that we work
these cases, and I often bringup, you know, in my
presentations because I, youknow, I kind of grew up in what
(41:30):
I think is the golden era of copTV, right?
Speaker 1 (41:33):
So Kojak Streets, of San Francisco, Cherokee and
Hodgkin.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
And all of those shows that we grew up with, even
moving forward.
You know, tj Hooker, you knowup until you know, just you know
, this past generation.
We were always conditioned tolook at this issue in one
particular way, and in none ofthose shows were they ever
(42:04):
trying to help the victim.
That's interesting, yes, and youknow they would do.
They would do raids, you knowprostitution raids, and you'd
see the.
You'd see the pictures in thesquad room of a bunch of women
locked in a cage.
You know they're all underarrest on prostitution charges,
that kind of thing, or theywould.
(42:25):
In essence, they would justreexploit the victims and that
they would say listen, I won'ttake you to jail if you do this
for me, if you give me thisinformation, whatever the case
might be and they were nevertrying to help anybody it became
almost an accepted practice,right.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
It wasn't until 24 seasons ago, you know, when law
and order SVU, olivia Benson,elliot Stabler came along where
we began seeing law enforcementwork with the faith-based
community, with the medicalcommunity, with social workers.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
To try and find better outcomes for victims.
Not that that's a perfect show,but that's really kind of the
first time that you know that wesaw that.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
That would have been good.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
And if you recall, if you've ever seen it, the old
movie Annie Get your Gun, theold musical, and in that musical
there's a point where the twomain characters are they're
doing a musical number wherethey're kind of fighting with
each other.
They're not reallycollaborating and the song goes
(43:30):
whatever you can do, I can dobetter.
Well, at the end of the day, ina collaboration it should be
whatever you can do, we can dobetter?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Absolutely, I wholeheartedly agree, and I
often say you know the Africanproverb if you want to go fast,
go alone, but if you want to gofar, go together.
And that takes time.
So, doug, is there anythingthat you want to leave us with?
I think we have so many jewelshere to choose from.
(44:07):
But any last words that you'dlike to leave us with, as we try
to, you know, go through themud, the struggle, as we're
trying to form this partnership.
That seems incredibly hard, butanything that you any wisdom
you'd like to impart on usbefore we go, you know I would
just say that don't get in arush, don't become impatient.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Take the time to identify the right partners and
build that trust, work towardestablishing, you know, that
shared purpose, because that'sreally, at the end of the day,
that's really what's key.
And you know there's I meanthere's so much more you know
(44:57):
out of this research that youknow that we could talk about if
we have time.
But you know I'm also happy tocommunicate with others
Personally.
You know folks can reach out tome if they have specific
questions or you know that kindof thing.
They can email me at info atDoug Gilmorecom that's my
(45:20):
personal email where I do mostof my communication on this
issue.
But I would also, you know,suggest that if people want more
information they can go todhsgov backslash, ccht center
for countering human traffickingor just Google DHS Center for
(45:42):
countering human trafficking, tofind out more about the work
that we're doing around thecountry in support of not just
training and education but alsoin operations and helping to
support and fund localinitiatives and really trying to
move the needle forward when itcomes to countering human
(46:03):
trafficking, both in the UnitedStates and outside of the United
States.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Oh, thank you so much for saying that.
And if there is an entity outthere that would like to some
training on how to just be astronger collaboration, are you
open and able to train?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Absolutely, yep, absolutely.
Whether I do it on my own timeor I do it, you know, on behalf
of the government, I'm alwayswilling to come and help.
This is a very it's become avery important issue passionate
issue of mine that I devoted alot of time and resources to and
(46:45):
you know I can talk about thisall day long and I think that
I've really kind of developed avery unique, kind of fun way to
boil down 175 pages of academicpeer reviewed, you know,
research, you know, intosomething that's, you know
that's fun and entertaining.
(47:06):
And, without giving it all away, I always tell people that
you'll never look at a smore thesame way again.
Okay, when we get done?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Good, so you'll train on that in a fun way.
And thank you so much, too, forjust making creating this
dissertation and for your bodyof work and for really
explaining it in a way that'svery clear and just makes so
much sense for people out therethat are trying to do this work
and do it in an effective way.
So thank you so much, doug.
(47:38):
I so much appreciate your timeand please continue the great
work.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Absolutely, and I look forward to working together
.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
That was Doug Gilmer dropping all kinds of jewels and
he he ends with, you know,looking forward to working
together because we are going tocollaborate on some projects
and I'm so looking forward tothis work with Doug.
So he dropped a couple jewels.
So let's just discuss briefly.
(48:06):
He told us the differencebetween task force and coalition
, and I think that's so criticalbecause there's so much
misunderstanding, actually, onmy part and my colleagues part.
We were in a meeting and wetold people will just go to your
talk about it with yourcoalition, and they were like we
, we don't have a voice on ourtask force and we thought we
(48:31):
were talking about the samething.
We absolutely were not talkingabout the same thing.
The other thing he mentionedwas the difference between
cooperation you helped me withmy project or my idea or my
mission and collaboration, wherewe have a shared purpose your
goals are my goals and my goalsare your goals.
(48:54):
I think that was also, you know, very important to know.
And if you remember or rewindthis, you'll see that when he
talked about survivors andinvolvement with survivors, he
used the word recovered, notrescued.
(49:15):
I really like that, becauserescue is becoming very
problematic and if you have acoalition, a collaboration,
whatever you call yourselves,and you are in the struggle.
You are on the struggle busright now.
(49:38):
That's okay.
Take peace in the fact that youare on a path to structure, to
working together.
Remember, when you form a group, remember that you know forming
, storming, norming, performing.
You remember that process.
Like forming, you know you'rejust getting together and then
(50:01):
the storm and storming processwhere people just don't get
along.
It doesn't seem like it's goingto come together, but then it
starts the norming process wherepeople becomes the norm to come
in and work together and thenhopefully, you get to the stage
of performing where you aresuccessful in your performance.
(50:22):
So try to hang in there and ifyou need Doug's help, please
reach out to him.
I'm so curious to understandwhat how he brings s'mores into
his discussion.
I can only guess that s'moresare very different, but when you
put them all together and somemash them together and then put
(50:45):
them in your mouth, it isheavenly.
So that's my guess on hisanalogy regarding s'mores
Collaboration is the way to go.
If you listen to these episodes, you will hear that consistent
theme throughout these episodeswe can't do it alone, we have to
(51:05):
collaborate.
So until next time.
The fight continues, thank you,thank you.
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