059: Uniting communities to end domestic sex trafficking with Brittany Dunn

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, a podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources and relevant stories for today's military spouses so they can continue to make confident and informed decisions for themselves and their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen a Moe's, a gold star daughter, veteran spouse and your host for holding down the fort by us that wealth. Let's get started

all right. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of holding down the floor. I am your host, Jen emos. Really excited to get into this interview today I have with me Brittany Dunn. She has the honor of helping leading safehouse project as the chief operations officer. So prior to the safe house project, Brittany done spent 10 years in the international business development@careerbuilder.com working around the world. She has a BA in economics and English from Wellesley College, she has her MBA and graduated top of her class from Thunderbird School of Global Management. She has a military spouse, mother to continual learner, world traveler and protector of the vulnerable right now. Welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 1:15

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Jen Amos 1:18

Yeah, I know that we met in person like once, like, over a year ago, when my husband Scott and I were really just exploring synapse out here in Virginia Beach, because formally, we were in Richmond and getting to know the organization over there. And when we came out here, you know, I was a Navy child, I've always been your water. And so the moment we saw water out here, we like literally found a place and a month and like moved here. And we've been here ever since. And so I like it here. I know that things have shifted this year for many of us. And so I thought I would start by asking you the question, Brittany, has anything changed for you since you know, since the new normal since the pandemic, just a few things.

Speaker 1 1:57

Actually, we're in Virginia Beach. Now we are up in the DC area, we did a PCS during this time. So we're just so you know, has been no longer in a squadron. But now I'm working at the Pentagon. And from the work perspective, just cancelling 10 fundraisers is a lot to try and make up for and from an operational budget side of the house. So I think it's been a little bit of everything. We've been working at it and trying to make sure that we can adjust. But I think all of us are still learning a little bit of how to balance the collision of work and home life and moves and everything that the Navy life brings, or the military life. So yeah, it's been an experience, I think for all of us.

Jen Amos 2:47

Wow. Well, that's amazing. And I appreciate you updating me on your life. And it sounds like so much has changed in just a matter of months. I mean, obviously, a lot of things have changed for a lot of people, but the fact that you and your family have PCs in this time, I was actually very curious about that. So you know, my husband's a veteran and I've, you know, been out of the military life for a long time. Do you feel like this PCs was unique compared to maybe other PCs that didn't involve a pandemic?

Speaker 1 3:11

Yes. And I think that's been the case for a lot of military families. I think that we already know how unpredictable military life is. But I've seen a lot of spouses have their move cancelled day out, because there's a shift in you know, wherever they're going to, you know, you have to be extra sensitive to who's in your home and the fact that you have people just flowing in and out of your space while you're trying to control the family and control the whole situations that are happening right now. It's a lot, I was very impressed. We had for the first time I watched six guys pack my house and a half of a day, today to 20,000 pounds of packing and a half day, which was really impressive and loaded the truck. And I've never seen them pack and load in one day. So wow, that meant that we had a lot broken. But that's kind of also the joy of pcse.

Jen Amos 4:04

Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm glad to hear that. It sounds like you've settled in just fine. And everything and you know, just talking about the chaos of being a military family and really trying to establish a new normal after every PCs. But it sounds like you were able to make a smooth transition from what I'm hearing. Yeah,

Speaker 1 4:21

be more successful to weather: 2020

Jen Amos 4:51

Yeah, absolutely. I was saying to Scott at the beginning of the year or really the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, you know, I think this is a time that civilian families need To model after military families, because we are so accustomed and used to this type of shift in our lives. And so I appreciate you just sharing little part of that and what transition or PTSD has been like for you in these recent months. So the next thing that I want to get into Brittany is you did hint that this year, you had to, unfortunately, cancel 10 fundraisers. And so before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about the safe house project, because I think it's an incredible organization. But for people that are hearing about it for the first time, what do you want to tell them about the safe house project?

Speaker 1 5:34

military families, the end of: 2017

Jen Amos 6:57

yeah, I think it's quite incredible that three military spouses had come together to create this talk about the early stages of that of let's say, you three coming together or meeting and what sparked it in you, and all three of you to be like, we're going to create the safe house project.

Speaker 1 7:13

Yeah, that was an adventure. So it kind of was born out of a, one of our, the members of our church had gone on a missions trip to South Africa, and he had seen the need for a safe house to serve those who had been single or double orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. And he came back with this vision to start a safe house. Well, he's a Christian hip hop artist. And so he started and launched an album held safe house, and we kind of go outside, I know and supported, getting that off the ground. But the three of us that are military spouses have seen the impact of trafficking on communities that we've lived in or worked in, as military families moving around, and we said, wow, you know, it's amazing to be able to pour into projects overseas, that if this is happening on domestic soil, we really want to take a look at that. And so I went out on maternity with my second child, and my daughter was three weeks old. My husband deployed with three days notice my co founder and our CEO, Christy wells, her husband deployed that week. And the last one Tasman was underway. So when you have seven children under the age of seven point, spouses, one of those kids being a newborn, you start a national nonprofit, and you just see how it goes. Right? Exactly. So bad. maternity leave, I emailed my husband on the ship, because of course, we didn't get to really have a nice long discussion about walking away from gainful employment. And he said, so I'm not going back to corporate America. And he was great with that. But you know, it's one of those where sometimes you get called into something else. And I think, for us, our family operates from a place of service and wanting to really protect vulnerable kids in our community, whatever community that is that we get to be part of for whatever period of time. Yeah, so really, that is where we kind of our early days started was, you know, a baby on a kitchen counter and three military spouses coming together to make something work and seeing the way that it's grown has been, really we say, a god sized adventure.

Jen Amos 9:26

Yeah, I just love how you describe like, oh, you know, imagine having this many kids and these spouses and let's just create it, let's create a nonprofit, why not wait on the middle of all this, let's just do that. That's what you do. That's the perfect time to create something is in the middle of chaos.

Speaker 1 9:41

It is. But I think that's been the thing that I like to remind people even about COVID is that those trials breed innovation. And so we can either allow for the impact of these challenges to shape us and form us or we can mold those into opportunities to respond. And so for me during that season specifically, I am somebody who I love my kids. But I like to work. And I really enjoy solving complex problems. And so I think it was probably a godsend to start something new in a season where I didn't have my spouse at home, as that kind of other person to help with the kids and all of that. This was a huge outlet for me, where I felt like, you know, we were all in it together as military families, we were doing life together like somebody else have my baby while she was, you know, anybody. Yeah. And was there for her when I was having just that desperate need to sit and focus my mind on something that I enjoyed, or, and I know, this is a hard subject, but the act of bringing life to an organization and starting a business can be really rewarding. And I think leaning into hard can produce a lot of incredible results. And I think that's even when COVID What we work to do, as safehouse project, like when everything hit the fan. And we had to cancel all of those events. We said, Okay, well, what can we do in this season. And that's when we recognize that last year, Christy and I trained 10,000 people between the two of us on how to stop, report and prevent trafficking. And when we started to really analyze the, who we trained, we were seeing an increase in survivor identification at a exponential rate compared to the areas that hadn't been. And well, we were able to partner with an incredible foundation called the Maloof foundation out of Utah, to take all of our learnings from last year, and take that back to our survivors and say, hey, the most impactful thing that people have said about the trainings as your stories have, we bring that to more people. And that's what COVID has done for us is we took all of these survivor stories, and we converted it into a one hour free digital training called on watch where survivors share about those not really about what happened behind closed doors, about where they intersected community members, and how each of us can be equipped and empowered to spot report and prevent trafficking. Yeah. And so I wonder sometimes that if we didn't have COVID, would we have done that? Probably not. Because we had 75, speaking engagements already lined up for the year, let alone just fundraisers and other activities. And so I think it's recognizing that we have an opportunity to pivot and come up with something better sometimes than what maybe our original plans were. And that's great. And that's what I think that I think that's also a unique quality of military families is to know how to pivot and to lean into hard and then to be better for it.

Jen Amos: 12:55

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's very powerful. And sometimes you can have all your plans laid out and something to look forward to. And then you know, God's like, not just getting any challenges you he's like, you know, actually, that's not what I want you to do, I want you to do something else. And in this experience, you've been able to educate more people on victim identification and everything. I just want to talk about that for a little bit, Brittany, because I'm very curious, as someone who really knows very little about trafficking, what are some key things that you can share with us to understand victim identification? Like what can the average person do? Actually, I think is a question want to ask to know if someone is a victim?

: 13:39

Sure. I think what is important to realize is that there are a lot of misperceptions around what trafficking is. And so at its core, it's anytime somebody is coerced into sex through force, fraud, or coercion, and so that into commercial sex, I should say, but whenever we're talking about a child, we don't have to prove force fraud or coercion. So that means that anytime a child is used for commercial sex, whether that's child pornography, or prostitution, that it is considered sex trafficking. So with that, it's a broad definition. And it spans a lot of different business types. So in the on watch training, we dive into, well, what does familial trafficking look like? We I think all have an understanding that child sexual abuse, unfortunately, is been a reality for a lot of American kids for a very long time. And this is the continuation of that it's adding on that commercial element. And so we have to be aware of vulnerable kids who are being abused by family members, especially during times where now these kids are trapped in safe, unsafe homes and right right, you know, that's gonna be that child that may not be on all the virtual learning platforms, who's missing a lot of classes who isn't engaging So we have reporting, in some ways is up. But for kids, it's actually down because the mandatory reporters which are teachers, aren't there to necessarily interact with the students in the same way. And so we all have to kind of become mandatory reporters, so to speak, and speak up when when we think a child is in harm's way. And so we kind of go through that we go through boyfriend name scenarios, which I think is one that we all can have seen, you know, are probably know somebody who's had that older boyfriend pressure on that teen girl who gets her to maybe engage in activities that she didn't 100% feel comfortable with the evolution of that has been really these girls sleeping around with, or not sleeping around, but having sex being forced into sexual acts with either peers or older individuals. And so, you know, it's not quite as complex as I think everybody imagines it to be. And so that's what I'm watched as it really talks about how grooming happens on the, through the gaming console, or on the phone, or through Instagram, or any of the platforms that that predatory behavior can happen on. And so it's how do we just as members of society, protect vulnerable kids as parents and put in place the safety measures to keep our kids safe. And then as anyone just really say, Hey, I'm going to be on watch to just if anything's just feels off, I'm going to say something, and it's reporting to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, you don't have to be fearful that if you're wrong, then nothing is going to blow back on you. Because it's really just about how do we create a pattern of tips that are acute a law enforcement, when you know that something might be wrong and making investigate. So I encourage you, I encourage everyone to go online and to I am on a watch.org. And take the training, I think there's a lot to learn from that our survivors, we had 15 survivors write this. And we've poured six months of their time and energy into it, really to bring to life the first survivor written training on this loan. And I got to bear witness to their, you know, their creation. But I can tell you, it's been powerful. We've already seen about three kids rescued as a result of the training.

Jen Amos: 17:26

Wow, well, thank you for sharing that. And I know that for our listeners, if they want to learn more about that training, the website, again, is I am on watch.org. And we will definitely provide that in the show notes for you. Brittany, I just want to take a moment here and really just applaud you for the work that you're doing. And also, I like how you said earlier that even though you love being a mother, you also love working. And I can tell just by the passion, you know that you have shared with me today with the safe house project, I want to go back to like the family. And so now that you know rather than what is it there's that saying I thought it was funny how you told your husband that instead of or kind of telling them last minute, hey, I'm going to leave my corporate job and start a nonprofit. How has your relationship been with your husband today? And like, how is the dynamic been with the family since you started the safe house project?

: 18:13

Great question. It has been a roller coaster. It's had a lot of highs and a lot of lows. Because I think, you know, as supportive as he is, and a supportive of the military is to try and get spouses to work and be there. The reality is, is that I always well know that there's a trade off in careers and things like that. So I think we've had to navigate that at certain, you know, moments, because my job isn't the one that is you know, bringing home the money really to support the family. But in lieu of that, I mean, he's really supportive and the community has been, I mean, every single one of his bosses has always known what I do, and have helped him be able to stand in the gap when I need to travel or be at an event or flex. And so I think that that's something I would encourage is honest dialogue, if you are a working spouse of somebody in the military, to have those great conversations with your chain of command so that they recognize like that. They want you to be a whole person and be successful and pursue your dreams. And there are times when that does have to take a backseat, but it doesn't have to be all the time. And so I think that's what we've really worked to learn is when are those moments can I you know, I step away and focus really specifically on safe house. And then when do I need to play my role as a mom or as military spouse and I think every time you kind of step into a new dynamic, it takes a little bit of time to work out the kinks. But open communication and dialoguing and then being willing to adjust your expectations can make it honestly successful in the long Right.

Jen Amos: 20:00

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, from what I heard, essentially, it's like you said about having open communication and making everyone involved aware that you have goals and aspirations and dreams too. And I think it could be very easy for spouses to maybe especially I think young spouses to assume that, okay, this is my role, you know, like, this is what I do, I gotta stay at home, I have to adapt, I have to, you know, I'm always going to be a second priority. And I really like how, no matter after every PCs, that you find a way to, you know, get settled in, but also make space for yourself outside of being a mother and even talking to your husband about that, and everyone really involved. And so I think that is very admirable, and something that our, you know, listeners can really benefit from. So thank you for sharing that, Brittany.

: 20:47

Yeah, of course, it is. It's a challenge that is worth overcoming when you have that dialogue with your significant other to figure out how you both can achieve your dreams, because that's where military life is incredible. And it affords a lot of opportunities to all of us. And I think that we don't have to lose our dreams in the process, we don't have to lose our identity. And when we have that open dialogue, and set clear expectations, we create a path for both people can feel empowered to pursue the calling on their life. And that can be a joint calling that can be each kind of as my husband are like different paths, but we're going in the same direction. And I think that's what's important to remember is that we can create a spirit of service within our family. For us personally, that's what it kind of ties back to. And the core of that, though, is making sure that our family is strong, and centered and grounded, and in a position to be a servant leader. And as long as we take that step back on occasion to pour into our family, then we're better equipped to serve, either in safe house or in the military or in one other element of the community that we want to be part of. And I think that's really, it's pouring from a full cup. It's all of that coming together to really create a tapestry of service.

Jen Amos: 22:14

Yeah. Wow. Beautifully said. Well, Brittany, I think that's really all the questions that I have today. I'm just so appreciative of your time, you know, giving us an opportunity to learn a little bit more about the safe house project, and also update me on your life, and how's it going? And how's the family going? And, and everything before we go? And I mean, I feel like you wrapped it up so well already. But if there's any final parting advice that you want to share with our fellow military families, what would you like to share with them?

: 22:41

I think that really, for me, it comes down to we have a unique opportunity to be the eyes and ears of our communities. And we get to flow in and out of a lot of different communities and maybe see the world a little bit differently than somebody who's in the same spot their entire life. And so use that advantage. We have a competitive differentiator between military families and so we can be on watch in our communities, we can stand in the gap for individuals in our communities. And I encourage you to learn more about the safe house project where at safe house project.org Take the online training and just continue to fight for what you're passionate about what your spouse is passionate about. And you will not regret leaning into the life that is military family.

Jen Amos: 23:30

Beautiful. That is a wonderful way to wrap up this conversation. Brittany Dunn thank you again so much for your time. It was a pleasure having you here on holding down the fort. Yeah, yeah. And to our listeners, we hope that today you gained at least one piece of knowledge, resource or relevant story to help you out to continue to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. With that said, we look forward to speaking with you and the next episode in the next time.