HEAL Partners with South Carolina to Develop Healthcare Best Practices Guide
Developed in partnership with the South Carolina Office of the Attorney General, this guide provides practical, evidence-informed recommendations to strengthen healthcare responses to human trafficking.
HEAL Trafficking partnered with the South Carolina Office of the Attorney General to develop Human Trafficking in Healthcare: Best Practices Guide, a resource to help healthcare professionals recognize and respond to human trafficking.
The guide provides evidence-informed best practices to support the development of consistent healthcare response and referral protocols across South Carolina. It brings together research, national standards, and input from healthcare professionals, community partners, and people with lived experience.
What’s Inside the Guide
Designed for use across a range of healthcare settings, the guide offers recommendations in five areas:
- Workforce capacity, education, and training
- Trauma-informed, survivor-centered approaches
- Screening, identification, and survivor engagement
- Referral pathways, resource coordination, and continuity of care
- Reporting, privacy, and information sharing
Healthcare organizations and professionals can use the guide to inform training, policies, protocols, and referral pathways that fit their settings and communities.
Turning Expertise Into Practice
This partnership reflects HEAL’s commitment to translating expertise at the intersection of healthcare and human trafficking into practical tools that strengthen responses at the state and local levels.
While developed for South Carolina, the guide’s principles and resources may also be useful to healthcare and community partners working to strengthen their responses in other locations.
We are grateful to the South Carolina Office of the Attorney General, the South Carolina Human Trafficking Task Force, and the stakeholders who contributed their expertise to this work.