S.B. 356 Summary

• Requires the Hawaii Department of Education to offer training for teachers, educational officers, and school-based behavioral health specialists on sex trafficking prevention and response.

• Training must cover methods used to lure children into trafficking, identification of victims, health effects on victims, disparate impacts on children of different races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and gender identities, and prevention strategies.

• Requires training to include trauma-informed response strategies, informational resources for victims, victim service provider information, and education on enthusiastic consent to prevent sex trafficking and sexual violence.

• Department must distribute explanatory information about approved protocols for providing services to trafficking victims to school staff at the beginning of each school year.

• Department may coordinate and contract with state or county agencies, victim service providers, or sex trafficking experts to implement the training requirements.