Kayla grew up with parents who dealt and used drugs. Home life was erratic and unsafe. Illegal activity took place regularly, there was seldom enough to eat, and Kayla often skipped school. An acquaintance of her parents sexually abused her several times.

Child Protective Services placed Kayla in foster care when they visited the house to investigate her chronic absences from school. Entering protective care was an essential step in securing Kayla’s safety. However, the trauma she’d endured continued to affect her. Kayla struggled to pay attention in class, didn’t trust her foster family, and often argued with them. Soon, they relinquished custody of her.

As Kayla’s mental health needs went unmet, she began running away from subsequent foster home placements and using drugs. During this time, she was commercially sexually exploited, further traumatizing her.

Kayla became involved in illegal activities to support her drug use, which she increased in an attempt to deal with the pain and trauma of sexual exploitation and abuse. Eventually, she was arrested and placed in a youth detention facility.  

At that point, the county referred her to Stanford Sierra Youth & Families, where she was connected with Teresa, a Youth Advocate with the organization’s CSEC program. CSEC stands for the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.  

Teresa understood what Kayla was going through because Teresa had been through it, too. Youth Advocates draw on their experiences to support and advocate for young people like Kayla.  

Through her conversations with Teresa, Kayla became open to the idea of harm reduction, an approach to substance abuse that enabled Kayla to improve her health and safety even though she wasn’t willing or able yet to abstain completely.

Kayla’s journey wasn’t a straight line.  She returned to her risky behaviors and increased substance use more than once. On her last stay at a youth detention facility, Kayla broke down while talking with Teresa. She revealed a deep hopelessness. She believed a normal life was impossible, that she’d been through too much ever to love or be loved by someone else, let alone go to school and get a job.

Teresa sat with Kayla. She knew how honest and overwhelming those feelings were. She’d felt them herself in her own past many times. But Teresa knew there was a path to a better life because she’d walked it.

Over the following weeks, Teresa engaged Kayla in an ongoing discussion about Kayla’s future. Looking back, Kayla saw that small changes had made a big difference in her life. Maybe that was the way forward.

By her 19th birthday, Kayla had distanced herself from her exploiter, completed an outpatient substance use program, and was attending 12-step meetings. She also discovered a love of reading and writing poetry. She belonged to a group of women who read each other’s work. She’d also taken steps toward earning her GED while looking into certified nursing assistant programs with a longer-term goal of achieving an RN degree.  

Kayla is increasingly connected to people who care about her and about whom she cares. Though she and Teresa speak less often these days, Kayla knows she’s only a phone call away and will be for as long as she needs her.

*Names have been changed to protect confidentiality.​