UnSilenced: Battle Creek Anti- Human Trafficking Coalition

02/24/2026

You’re Invited — Join Us at the Table 🤝

We want to personally invite you to the monthly Kalamazoo Area Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition (KAAHTC) + UnSilenced Battle Creek Community Impact Meeting — a shared space where community partners, advocates, professionals, and anyone walking alongside individuals in need can gather on common ground to learn, collaborate, and create change together.

🗓 Next Meeting: Tuesday, February 24
🕡 Time: 6:30 PM (Eastern)
💻 Where: Zoom
🎯 Topic: UnSilenced Battle Creek Kalamazoo Monthly Community Impact Meeting
👤 Host: Sara Morley LaCroix

Ongoing Schedule:
This meeting happens every fourth Tuesday of the month (scheduled through June 2029), so once you join, you can stay connected consistently with what’s happening across our region.

Why attend?
• Hear what partners across the area are seeing in real time
• Share your perspective from the field or community
• Help identify service gaps and solutions
• Build meaningful partnerships
• Discover ways to get involved and make an impact

This is an open meeting — you don’t need a title or organization to attend. If you care about people and want to be part of solutions, you belong in this space. You will be welcomed, valued, and heard.

Join by Zoom:
Meeting ID: 897 5182 3378
Passcode: 468395

We hope to see you there as we continue building stronger, safer communities — together.

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02/19/2026

Are you looking for CEUs on Human Trafficking in or around Kalamazoo? Look no further—get your brain fed and your CEUs through the Training Department of Integrated Services of Kalamazoo. With UnSilenced, there is space at the table for you.

🗓️ UnSilenced Behavioral Health Clinical Human Trafficking Training

Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Integrated Services of Kalamazoo — 418 W. Kalamazoo Ave, Kalamazoo 49007, in the Basement.

Led by Robin Bolz (Survivor • Community Health Worker • Certified Peer Support Specialist) with powerhouse co-trainers and partners:
🔥 Nicole Nzioki (Survivor • LLMSW • Outpatient Therapist)
🔥 Survivor Guest Speaker: Leyna Luttrull
🔥 Danielle Sackrider (Zero Su***de Program — all things su***de awareness & prevention)

This training is for you if…

✅ You need CEUs / continuing education and want it to actually matter.
✅ You want to understand what trafficking really is (and what it isn’t).
✅ You want to recognize how trafficking shows up in behavioral health — anxiety, substance use, “noncompliance,” repeated crisis visits, dissociation, survival coping, homelessness, DV overlap… all of it.
✅ You keep hearing “sextortion,” and you’re like… wait, adults get targeted too?? (Yes. Yes, they do.)
✅ You want real-world tools for helping clients being sextorted online — without shame, without blame, with evidence-preservation and safety steps.

And yes — it counts for trainings you already have to do anyway

📌 Annual Cultural Diversity
📌 In-person Kids Hours
📌 Annual Trauma Training
…with a completed training report + certificate of completion.

👀 Calling all clinicians, interns, and students who need their hours in — this is your sign.
Come learn with us. Have conversations. Leave better equipped for the humans we serve.

✅ To register: email Danielle Sackrider at DSackrider@iskzoo.org, and she will get you registered if there is space available. If space fills up, feel free to register for one of the upcoming trainings listed below.

Human Trafficking Trainings at ISK:
2/26/26 from 9:00 am to Noon
5/15/26 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
8/6/26 from 9:00 am to Noon

***de

02/19/2026

My first attempt at creating wood-burned keychains to raise awareness about Human Trafficking and provide access to help. One side lists Michigan reporting information, and the other features the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Serves as a reminder that advocacy doesn’t always start big. Sometimes it starts with a simple idea, steady hands, and a heart committed to making support easier to reach.

02/17/2026

Leila Hallway Testimony (Now know as Bronson BC)

Perhaps some might see nothing more than tile floors, fluorescent lights, and directional signs in this basement hallway.

I see chapters.

I walked these halls before my exploitation began. I walked them during it. And I walk them now—after.

I remember being a kid here, waiting alone in the lobby because I was too young to go home by myself. Chairs became beds waiting for my mom to get discharged. Hallways became quiet companions. This building held some of the best memories of my life too—my children being born, laughter in the cafeteria, the comfort of care when people I loved were sick.

But it also holds one of the moments that changed my life forever. This is where someone in scrubs noticed me. Where grooming continued. Where manipulation sounded like kindness and touch and sexy attention felt good. Where vulnerability looked invisible to everyone else.

The same hallway. Same walls. Same lights.

You wouldn’t know any of that just by passing me. And that’s the point.

You never know what someone has survived just by looking at them. You don’t see the history attached to the places they stand. You don’t see the memories triggered by a smell, a sound, or a hallway sign overhead.

Trauma doesn’t announce itself. Survivors don’t wear labels. And pain doesn’t always look like pain. So before assuming. Before judging. Before deciding someone is “too much,” “dramatic,” or “difficult”—

Pause.

Because the person standing in front of you may be walking through a hallway you cannot see. Compassion should never require proof.

02/16/2026

We want to take a moment to honor two incredible men who consistently pour love, strength, wisdom, and hope into this community — DJ Ed from Heart-to-Heart Radio and Pastor Raul.

Ed uses his voice, his platform, and his presence to lift others up, reminding people that they matter, they’re seen, and they’re never alone. And Pastor Raul shows up with steady faith, protective prayer, and a heart that stands in the gap for those who need covering, encouragement, and truth.

These aren’t just partners — they’re family in this work. The kind of people who don’t just talk about serving… they live it, quietly, faithfully, and consistently.

We are deeply grateful to lock arms with Hood Church and Heart-to-Heart Radio. What you both pour into the community does not go unnoticed. Lives are touched, hope is restored, and light reaches places that once felt dark.

Thank you for walking beside us. Truly.

02/14/2026

From a survivor-centered lens: when a young person is being exploited, the system often mislabels what’s happening as “choice,” “runaway,” “prostitution,” “noncompliance,” or “refusing services.” And when that happens, the outcome can look like “returned to a harmful situation,” even if the paperwork says something else (released to a guardian, transported to an address, declined shelter, etc.). That gap between what the report says and what the survivor experienced is real—and it’s one reason these stories stick.

02/14/2026

OTR driver? Be on the lookout for these things...

Make the Call, Save Lives!

➡️Call 911 if you see a crime in progress.
➡️Call the hotline for victim services or if you're not sure what you're seeing:
1-888-3737-888 (US)
1-833-900-1010 (CAN)

02/13/2026

Listen to what she taught us without meaning to: "I just go through it and don’t take it personally." That’s how people survive exploitation.

If the client could hear everything you’re thinking about them… would they still feel safe with you?

Even if we don’t say it in front of the client, our face says it!

02/12/2026

Today a story dropped that I’m proud to share—because it highlights what happens when survivors, frontline professionals, and law enforcement choose a victim-centered, trauma-informed path forward.

The article talks about NHBP Tribal Police receiving a $900,000 federal grant to strengthen anti-trafficking work along Michigan’s I-94 corridor, and it includes our January event—Shine A Light: UnSilenced Community Awareness Day—where we gathered survivors, community members, and partners around the same table. 

One part that matters deeply to me: this work is being paired with Victim Services, so when someone is identified, they aren’t met with shame—they’re met with support, resources, and a real doorway out. 

Survivors are not backing down across the states. We are pushing change. And I believe the next few years will bring new laws, stronger protections for survivors, and more accountability for the people who cause harm.

Thank you to everyone who has stood beside me, supported UnSilenced, and kept showing up—your support fuels the momentum.

Read it here:

The Nottawaseppi Band of the Huron Potawatomi received a $900,000 federal grant to combat human trafficking in Indian Country through undercover operations, victim-centered interventions, and collaborative efforts with local law enforcement along Michigan's I-94 corridor.

02/09/2026

We are still here, we are standing together,
and we are not backing down!

02/06/2026

I updated our Kalamazoo & Southwest Michigan DV/SA/HT Resource Guide (updated Feb 5, 2026) and I’m dropping it here for quick access.

A lot of folks won’t walk by you and say “I’m being trafficked” or “this is DV/SA.” They show up with anxiety, depression, substance use, housing instability, relationship conflict, “panic attacks,” or just a gut feeling that something isn’t safe. Having resources ready lets us offer options without forcing disclosure, and it supports safety, autonomy, and dignity in real time. Share, take, spread and use!