SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTY FOSTER FAMILY AGENCY SOCIAL WORKERS\u27 AWARENESS OF DOMESTIC MINOR SEX TRAFFICKING

Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking is a crime happening right in our own backyards. Social Workers are seeing this vulnerable population fall through the fingers of social services and into the clutches of traffickers at alarming rates. This research project analyzed San Bernardino and Riverside County Foster Family Agency Social Workers\u27 Awareness of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking. This project was a quantitative exploratory research design. A paper survey was distributed to Foster Family Agency Social Workers within San Bernardino and Riverside County, California using a snowball sampling. A bivariate analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship that social work experience in the field and the amount of DMST trainings attended have on social work awareness of DMST. The results of this research show that high number of DMST trainings result in a lower level of DMST awareness. Data also showed no significant relationship between how participants scored on the Awareness of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking survey and years of social work experience. The results of this research can be used as a baseline to study Foster Family Agency Social Worker awareness with San Bernardino and Riverside County, California and how to best implement effective DMST trainings; as federal and state laws are predicted to make Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking training mandatory within social service fields