Safe Home

SAFE HOME

Helping vulnerable youth to achieve futures of promise

BY MEGAN RUBINER ZINN

Susan Munsey, M.S.W. ’93 and Sherry Fine, M.S.W. ’88 work with very different populations. Munsey’s clients are young survivors of sex trafficking in San Diego, and Fine supports and educates impoverished children, primarily in Africa and Haiti. However, for both Smith College School for Social Work alums, the agenda is really the same: to create safe homes for some of the world’s most vulnerable children and young adults, giving them a chance at a safe and healthy life. Sherry Fine’s professional passion began with a very personal one—the desire to be a parent. After years of teaching, she adopted two children and founded a counseling agency to help other families prepare to do the same. Once she retired from education, she took her work a step further, creating a fund that allowed her to broaden her care to children across the world.

In 2006, Fine took a life-changing trip to Tanzania, spending two weeks at Living Water Children’s Center (LWCC), an orphanage in Arusha, Tanzania. The children were impoverished, physically and emotionally neglected, and abused, but, as she recalled, “their resilience blew me away. They were generous, they were compassionate, they were thoughtful, and they loved education.”

In 2008, Fine was inspired by LWCC to create an NGO called the Living Water Children’s Fund (LWCF), which expanded the orphanage and built a school. Since its inception, LWCF has raised several hundred thousand dollars, $200,000 in 2017 alone, and supports a range of international programs in Tanzania, Kenya, Haiti and the United States.

Fine says, “The ethic of the Fund is that the needs and desires of the people we support emanate from the individuals themselves. They are the ones that determine the need and how best to implement the need.”

LWCF now houses 78 orphans and educates 570 children on a thriving campus with four dormitories, eight classrooms, a playground, working farm, a new secondary school and a home for teachers and staff. They also house, educate and protect children with albinism who face extreme social stigma, isolation and violence in their communities.

In addition to Living Water, LWCF sponsors the Sherry Fine and Joanne McManus Academies in Tanzania, providing teaching supplies, computers, curriculum support and teacher development. In Nairobi, Kenya, LWCF subsidizes Joy House Education Center, a school situated in the city’s second largest slum, with rent, school supplies, teacher salaries, a nurse and a soccer program. LWCF also raises scholarships for graduates to go on to secondary schools.

In recent years, LWCF has broadened its reach to Haiti and the U.S. In Haiti, it supports a kindergarten as

A child plays in the orphanage founded and led by Sherry Fine, M.S.W. ’88

well as a youth program combining sports with leadership education, after-school activities, gardening, community development and peace education. In the U.S., LWCF has given educational materials, computers and playground equipment to the Te-Moak Western Shoshone community in Nevada. In addition, Robert Schulman and his team from Allied Prosthetics made artificial devices for a young Masai amputee from Tanzania in 2014. Schulman was so inspired that he joined the board of LWCF and has made a major commitment, having completed more than 20 prosthetics for young amputees in Haiti during the past three years.

Susan Munsey is the founder of GenerateHope, a residential program in San Diego for survivors of sex trafficking. Six women live in the GenerateHope house with two in-house staff members. They stay for two years, during which they work toward their GED and prepare for college or trade school, participate

The Living Water Children’s Fund provides education to more than 550 students in Arusha, Tanzania, seen here outside new classroom buildings.

in group and individual psychotherapy and build life skills. Volunteers also offer adjunct therapies, such as equine therapy, dance and art therapy and yoga, and community members provide pro-bono medical, dental and psychiatric care, along with legal services and tattoo removal.

Munsey, who had worked in an inpatient psych unit, a community mental health program, and in private practice, began GenerateHope in 2009 after she became aware of the epidemic in sex trafficking, especially in San Diego, which was among the top eight cities for trafficking in the country. Realizing there was no place for survivors to get treatment, Munsey and a group of colleagues launched GenerateHope, first as a half-day volunteer program,

Sherry Fine, M.S.W. ’88 poses with children who benefit from her nonprofit, The Living Water Children’s Fund, which extends special support to those living with, and often ostracized because of, albinism.

eventually expanding to full time.

The needs of the women who come to GenerateHope are profoundly complicated and intertwined. The average age of entry into sex trafficking is between 13 and 16. Most are coerced by traffickers, who gain their trust and keep them captive through manipulation, violence, addiction and threats to their families. Some are simply abducted. The majority of survivors have experienced some form of neglect, substance abuse and sexual and/or physical abuse. They’ve had limited formal education and little opportunity to develop basic life and social skills.

GenerateHope provides group psychology to address the trauma of the sex trade and individual trauma-informed therapy to address the women’s personal issues. They often come to GenerateHope with Stockholm syndrome or trauma bonding, and in the first several months of therapy must work to break emotional ties to their trafficker. They also focus on rebuilding a sense of self. “They’ve really been beaten down psychologically and physically and told that sex trafficking was all they’d ever be able to do, all they were good for, and that nobody else was ever going to accept them,” Munsey explained.

In spite of their adversity, Munsey observed that the women come to GenerateHope with significant coping skills and drive, qualities that helped

Fine and colleagues with students.

them survive their ordeal. A key part of their work is helping the women rediscover these abilities and to put them toward healing and becoming independent. “It’s a challenge, but something the women step up to—learning to see themselves as valuable individuals and discovering what their strengths and talents are.”

In its eight years, GenerateHope’s model has seen marked success. Measurements of the women’s depression, PTSD and self-esteem at six-month intervals show significant progress, and 75% of clients do not return to sex trafficking. Munsey is also preparing to open a transitional home where survivors can continue to build life skills while they reintegrate into the community.

While the work of organizations like GenerateHope is invaluable, the need for services for survivors of sex trafficking remains enormous. According to GenerateHope, sex trafficking is a multi-billion dollar business annually and is the fastestgrowing sector of organized crime. GenerateHope turns away an average of 20 women each month because of lack of beds and staff.

Both Munsey and Fine relish an influx of new social workers into their fields. To sustain the work they do, they are looking to practitioners with the same foundational skills that they built at Smith: excellent training in

group psychology and treatment planning and the versatility and creativity to meet a wide range of client needs. Unsurprisingly, given her work, Fine encourages any social worker to travel internationally and immerse themselves in new culture. “Living in a culture and being the only ‘other’ is an experience we should all have. It heightens your awareness and sensitivity.”

Because work with sex trafficking survivors is relatively new, Munsey noted, there are not yet best practices in the field. In the absence of these, she looks to practitioners with a firm grounding in trauma-informed practice and preparation to work with adolescents. “These women have been trafficked at around 15 years old, so their adolescence was stunted. We may have a woman who is 25, but she is really still in her adolescence and working through those issues.”

Munsey also recommended that practitioners learn to celebrate the day-to-day victories to keep from feeling overwhelmed in fields that have significant need. “We have to look at the seeds we’re planting and the piece of work we’re able to do in the window of the time we have these clients with us,” she cautioned. “We really have to look at those small successes and celebrate those for both the client and for us.” ◆