Building Pathways to Healing

Hi friend,

Did you see our September newsletter on our approach to Case Management? If not, you can catch up HERE. As individuals seek to heal from trafficking and build their futures, our team works alongside them to set goals that will help them both imagine and achieve that future. As we all know, setting goals, changing course, and trying new things can be challenging, intimidating, and frustrating at times. This is where Restore comes in, in part! Restore is a one-on-one support service that helps clients connect with their current and future selves.

What It Is

Restore is a somatically (to sense oneself through the physical body, an acknowledgment that the mind and body require integration) oriented approach to trauma recovery and healing, and aims to create individualistic and holistic supports for resilient responses to free and independent living for survivors of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Restore understands that survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation often carry the compounded weight of multiple vulnerabilities (shared in our previous HT 101 email) in addition to the complex trauma of exploitation.

These intersecting realities create profound barriers to accessing the whole self, but resilience is possible. Restore offers supports that are not only highly individualized but also creative, preventive, and deeply rooted in each survivor’s cultural identity and lived experience.

Why It’s Needed

For survivors of trauma, it can be difficult to move from pathways of protection to pathways of connection. A nervous system that is chronically searching for safety in environments of threat develops neural pathways that prioritize protection over all else. When these pathways become the way of relating to the world and people, they access the openness and receptivity to new ways of engaging with their environment.

To provide a concrete example, many survivors are often subconsciously scanning their surroundings, assessing for safety or threat based on past experiences. With this in mind, this program is intentionally designed to provide a predictable, consistent, and client-centered environment that can be trusted. From the very first visit, clients are welcomed to explore the space in a way that affirms their agency and voice. Through guided, curiosity-led observation, they are invited to place stickers on anything in the room they like, are curious about, or have questions about. This simple practice communicates a vital message: this space belongs to you, and nothing will happen to you without your participation and permission. Over time, as clients experience the environment, particularly the Restore room, as safe and dependable, their nervous systems can rest from constant vigilance, opening the door for relational trust and deeper healing to take root.

Anne Boon, Restore Director

Our Approach

Restore is grounded in a multidisciplinary approach led by staff with expertise in Speech-Language Pathology, sensory integration, disability support, Integrative Somatic Trauma Healing, and Unyte's Safe and Sound protocol. Restore focuses on guiding clients to connect with their core selves, cultures, identities, and innate capacities for healing. This foundation enables participants to envision and step into their future selves as they heal, set goals, prepare for employment, and establish sustainable daily living rhythms.

Building Pathways to Restoration

Every Restore session is a stepping stone toward building resilience that lasts a lifetime. Whether it’s a survivor receiving culturally responsive and relational holistic care that can lead to healing, a mom learning how to play with her child for the first time, or a young woman connecting with her aspirations to go back to school, each step allows a survivor to move forward into the future of their dreams.

If you have any questions about our team's work, please reach out! Your partnership makes this daily work of supporting survivors as they heal possible.

Thank you!

For Freedom,