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Join The Urban Rez for an exciting journey that dives into the intersections of culture, sports, and lifestyle with a fresh, global, inclusive perspective. Each 30-minute episode brings a unique blend of conversations, stories, and interviews that explore the passions and experiences that define our lives.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The following program contains discussions or descriptions of sensitive topics that may be triggering and not suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised the content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education, the urban
Marcus White 0:22
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and good
morning, everybody. Dr B, Today is Mother's Day. Happy
Dr. B 1:25
Mother's Day, oh my gosh, in our language and our dinner slash Navajo language, we call her mother Shima. So just acknowledging my Shima out there, Christina, Mom, I just wanted to recognize you and my grandmas and my aunties. Just have a beautiful bless Mother's Day and what you do for us in the family and our community and our culture. We just really, really cannot do this without you. You know, Navajo people, we come from a matriarchal culture, and so that matriarchy is really embedded in our language and our songs and our prayer and our ceremony about just how much we value women and and it means so much. And so I just really wanted to acknowledge that piece of myself and our family and our community,
Marcus White 2:18
and I agree with you, mom, Gwen, thank you so much for being the matriarch of our family and holding it down, for being the disciplinarian, you know, whipping our butts and helping us, you know, go in the way that we should go. And just want to say, I love you and greatly appreciate you and give you your roses and flowers while you're still here on this earth. So I appreciate you.
Christina Vela 2:38
Well, hi everybody. I'm Christina, and yeah, Happy Mother's Day. My mom Donna, an incredible woman who's now passed on, unfortunately, a couple years ago. So exactly to your point, Marcus, like right now that we can celebrate them, because in a moment's time, life changes. And so I hope my mom is watching down for me and cheering me on and telling me to, don't stop. And may I be that for my daughters and my children actually have three kids, so my daughters and my son so happy. Mother's Day to everybody listening. Awesome,
Marcus White 3:11
awesome. So today we are joined by Dr Christina Vela. She's the CEO of st Jews ranch for children. A true, a true, I'll tell you this again, a true change maker in this world of child and family advocacy. Dr Vela has spent over 25 years driving innovation in foster care, homelessness services and youth protection programs. With leadership experience spanning local, state and national levels. She's a callous for systems of change and a fierce champion for the most in need. Dr Vela holds a doctorate in public policy and has been nationally recognized for a groundbreaking work and humanitarian leadership. So let's welcome Dr Vela. Thank
Christina Vela 3:53
you. Happy to thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. B 3:57
Today's topic is hard hitting. We're going to talk about real issues that might bring some uncomfortability to people's ears, but this is a must have topic that we have to address and acknowledge. So we're not all ignorant and don't understand the huge context behind the disparities, especially here in the state of Nevada, and targeting even further down to Clark County. To give you all some statistical background, Nevada ranks number two nationally for reported human trafficking incidents per capita. In addition, we're one of the top 10 cities in the US that has high sex trafficking activities in 2023 Clark County accounted for over 85% of all trafficking cases reported in Nevada, and this is really hard. The average age of victims is between the ages of 12 to 14 years old, and 60% of trafficking victims had contact with child welfare or foster care prior to exploitation. So these numbers might be astonishing for some to hear,
Marcus White 5:04
and you're right. And again, as we're celebrating Mother's Day, I mean, this really tugs at me, the fact that we have this still continue, continuously going on. And so, Dr Vela, you spent 25 years working with vulnerable children and families. When you look at Clark County today, where do you see the biggest cracks that children are falling through?
Christina Vela 5:24
Yeah, so a few things to start. This is a courageous conversation, right? It takes a lot of courage to ask these questions and to talk about this real hidden form of violence, right? So there's a lot of hidden forms of violence in our community, from domestic violence to intimate partner to just, you know, all kinds of things that are happening, but that sex trafficking of children is hard to talk about. So let's just pause there, right? But what you said earlier is, if we don't have the courage to talk about it and to demystify things, then we can't see it. And if we can't see it, we can't name it. We can't fix it. And so I appreciate the opportunity to have this sort of courageous conversation about what we're seeing in our community. You know, I think the challenge is it is a hidden form of violence. And when you add that in combination with so many people come to Vegas to, you know, adult Disneyland, if you will, right? They come to Vegas to do the things that they might not ever do in their own community, right? They're gonna come party and enjoy all of the incredible things that Las Vegas culture has to offer. But the truth is, you know, the what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Mentality is like, yeah, on the backs of whom, right? And so this idea that you can come here and sort of get access to anything that you want, right? If you have enough money or connections anything you want, is like, not off the table, right? And so having sex with children is, unfortunately, one of those things. And so some of the cracks is, I mean, first of all, is like, we have to think about, you know, the the tourism that's coming here and the drive and, you know, I think it's hard for people who think that prostitution is legal. In Clark County, there are parts of our state where it is legal, whether you agree with it or not, right? I could go down a whole rabbit hole about how that's a problem, but we're going to stay out of that rabbit hole. But the problem is because it is legal in some places, people come to Vegas with like this, oh, like, you know, DOE eyed, oh, it's legal here, right? So it seems to give people permission to do more things here. Number one, number two is not all. Trafficking is just happening because of tourists. So let's be honest, right? There are local vegans, you know, pulas, vegans, engaging in the trafficking and the purchasing of children, and so that's a tough thing, right? And that comes to like, what's going on in our community, right? Where? Why do I mean disproportionately this is affecting black and brown girls that are being sold for sex, and generally speaking, we see traffickers being black and brown themselves. Most black and brown children do not grow up hoping someday so they could be hustling in the life or being sold for sex, right? So what's going on is the bigger question, really around poverty and marginalization and all of these big, big, complex issues. But here's what I'll bring it back to, generally, why we see so many young people falling into this life is we have kids with a broken heart looking for love in all their own places. As complex as it is, it comes back to some pretty basic things, which is, as humans, we need to belong. Right? Today is Mother's Day. Where would we be had we not had the belonging of our mothers? And you know that we were being taught along the way, and some of us might have learned some good things and not so good things from our parents, but the challenge is, we have so many kids that are have walking around this community with a broken heart and perpetrators pretend and front to love them and to provide safety and maybe something they never had in their home environment, and pretty quickly fall into this life without realizing what's around the corner,
Dr. B 9:04
right? I'm just it hits me heavy, and it hits me hard. As being Native American, we have the whole missing and murdered indigenous relatives epidemic, absolutely. And I've had people in my family encounter abduction and missing with no result of knowing what happened to our family members. Every native community member that I've met, at least 80% knows of someone in their family that has went missing and and so to me, how do we, how do we even start to, let's say, a have the conversation. You brought up some great areas of discussion about systemic and also social determinants of health. But how do we hear in our communities? How do we have that conversation? We talk about black and brown communities, we talk about perpetrators coming from our communities. For me, I would like to start there and to see how. Identify possible situations in those regards. Yeah,
Christina Vela 10:05
no good question. And yeah, it's hard, right? Certainly follow a lot of you know, efforts around Missing and Exploited and yeah, missing indigenous people across our country. And it's, it's hard to even fathom how, how's this happening, right? How is this happening? I think, I guess a place to start is where we know kids, and I'm talking specifically about children, right? So we know where so many of these kids are right now that are in the pipeline to becoming a potential victim of trafficking or exploitation or victimization, and those are kids already in title one hope schools that Clark County School District has identified that they're already experiencing homelessness with their families, so those kids are already at high risk. We already know it. If they're walking to school down in some parts of town, we know that as they're walking down the street. They are seeing violence and drug abuse and, you know, unaddressed mental health issues. We know who those kids are like. There's, you know, I don't even know how many title one hope schools in Clark County School District, but those schools are all those kids are all at risk, whether elementary, middle or high school. So we know that number one, number two, we already know kids in foster care, they're already a victim of abuse and neglect because their family has some dysfunction. There's something happening where parents not able to care for their child or protect their child safely. So we know those kids. We know there are 1000s of children in foster care in Clark County, so those kids are already at heightened risk. We know kids that are part of the juvenile justice system, right? They're running fast and hard. They're engaging in high risk taking behavior. And high risk taking behavior leads to, yeah, getting in the back of somebody's car who says, Hey, you want to go party, not knowing that the party is you, that you're going to be the party in an hour, right? And then in the middle of it, they realize, because when you're being raped or all these things that are happening, you're like, Whoa, like your head is spinning. And it's not so simple to just leave, right? So the truth is, I don't have the answer. I mean, I don't have the answer for where do we go? But I can tell you we know where to start. There's a lot of kids in this community that are already flagged for concerns. They're already homeless. They're already feeling hopeless. When hopelessness sets in, it's a really high risk time, right? Because, what difference does it make? What difference does it make? I probably won't live till I'm 18 anyway, so might as well run hard and fast. So it's really about combating and asking ourselves, where are those kids, and what can we do to support those those kids? I mean, all kids are at risk. If they're on social media, parents should be getting involved, like there's a whole thing we could talk about that also, but the kids most at risk. We know where they are. There's no There's no secret. We know who they are. And
Dr. B 12:49
when we talk about kids, let's explore the possible misconception that this is just a female driven issue only. Yeah. Let's talk about further, about the demographics.
Christina Vela 13:03
Yeah. Say all kids, yeah, for sure, from my experience, right? You know, all kids, boys and girls and young people that identify in the LGBTQ spectrum, right? Any transgender young person, all kids are at risk because they're naive. They think they know it all. I mean, how many of us, when we were growing up thought we knew it all right? And maybe some of us were lucky enough to have a healthy support system that said, Okay, I know you think you know it all, but no, you're gonna do it this way, right? But if you didn't have that apparent that mother or that you know family member helping guide you in the right direction, it's pretty easy to go south easily, right? You just like because kids think they know it all right. So girl, what we know is that girls tend to be trafficked much more publicly, out on the strip, out on this, on the, you know, on the track, down on boulder Highway over by the Orleans that those tracks, you tend to see girls walking up and down the strip. Boys are absolutely trafficked. But what we what we see in data, is that boys are being trafficked through online porn. So it's a lot. It's hidden. It is hidden online. It's hidden in somebody's bedroom, it's in a hotel room. It's all online, so they're not trafficked out in the public. And so unless people are seeing them, you know, and they're in the dark web, or they're seeing wherever this porn is being, you know, where you can purchase it, some of those websites where you can go on and purchase to see just about anything, that's where we start to see a lot more boys. And then, of course, all of our young people that are fleeing from unsafe homes because they've shared who they are, their gender, how they feel about themselves, are really at risk, right? Because their family is now rejecting them, and they're just hustling because they're thirsty, or it's hot and they want to take a shower, or it's really cold outside and they're looking. Somewhere to stay. And you know, perpetrators offer what seems to be like safety, what seems to be like love. And if you haven't had true love, or you haven't had true safety, you think, well, maybe, yeah, maybe this person is going to be nice to me, right? And it's pretty easy to fall into the trap, and once you're in, it's real hard to get out.
Marcus White 15:17
Absolutely, the urban RES is underwritten by the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Nevada's premier sports venue, hosting two NASCAR and NHRA race weekends and the largest annual electronic music festival in North America, the Electric Daisy Carnival. NASCAR will be in Las Vegas March 14 through 16th. For tickets and more information, lvms.com, so st Jude's ranch for children was founded in 1966 and you know, you all are not just treating symptoms. You're building like new new systems of care. Can you share a breakthrough moment that give you real hope that change is possible? Yeah.
Christina Vela 15:56
Well, it actually started before. Well, so, yeah. So, let me say so st Jude's ranch for children, incredible, extraordinary place that you know, for almost 59 years has literally been providing pathways to hope and healing for so many children and young people that come from hard places, the kinds of hard places we've just talked about, abuse, neglect, hopelessness, all of those things and incredible things are possible for them when we surround them with the support system of people that have the courage to stand with them and to help them, you know, to support that hope starts rising in their lives. But also we have to help them heal, right? Because a broken heart is a broken heart, and we've got to help them heal. And we know the effects of abuse and neglect are real, and the body is keeping score, and so we've got a lot of work to do. So st Gerrans ran for children for me, like I am so proud to be connected to this organization. I've been the CEO for almost eight years now, and I'm really proud of having a board of trustees and a staff that's willing to step out of the comfort zone and say, Who else can we help? I mean, that's a standard question we ask ourselves all the time. Where are kids falling through the gaps? Which kids need us? So it's not just trafficking victims. It's not just kids in foster care. We're serving all kinds of kids because we want to go there where the cracks are in the, you know, in the foundation of like the service array. For me, a real like awakening moment is before I got to st Jude's ranch in probably 2016 I was working at that time for the state of Nevada, so at that point, Governor Brian Sandoval was creating a new executive order to prevent, to create the first coalition to prevent the commercial sexual exploitation of children, or the C SEC coalition. And I got to be the coordinator for that coalition for about a year and a half where we were really researching, what is a model protocol look like? What? What? What should we be doing to combat child sex trafficking so it never happens in the first place. And then, how do we aid the victims, not criminalize them, but really create a continuum of services? And then three, how to hold the perpetrators of crime to justice, right? Not just the trafficker, but also, more importantly, the buyer. This is the supply and demand issue here. If there's no demand, there is no supply needed, right? So, you know, we got to think about, like, well, who are these buyers, and why are they buying? And all of these, you know, really sort of big questions. But, you know, at every meeting, I don't know about you guys, but I go to meeting, community meetings, and all we talk about all the things we don't have. Well, we don't have resources, and we don't have housing, and we don't have in all the gaps analysis, and I'm like, Oh my God, I don't want to talk about what we don't have. Let's focus on building what we need. And so I had this opportunity from, you know, unexpectedly, to come to St Jude's to be the CEO. So I left my role as the coordinator for the coalition. And for me, the breakthrough moment was when I sat with the board chairman, who's still our board chairman, and he said, like, why should I hire you? Like, what would you do? And I just out of left field said, we're gonna build this place called The Healing Center. And he said, What's that? And I was like, so he can care for child victims of sex trafficking. He said, like, why would like, why would we do that? I'm like, well, because it's a need. He's like, really, you know? And so then it took about a year or two to really do some education and really help people understand how it's not mission creep for st Jude's ranch for children, it is our mission, which is to provide pathways to hope and healing for children and young people from hard places. Child sex trafficking happens to be a very hard place they come from, and so the yeses that have come from this community of people who want to be part of the solution is absolutely extraordinary. And how we built the healing center is like, just riddled in blessings and things that don't quite make sense. How did we get that? How did that work out? You're like, well, it just it just happened, like the universe was definitely on our side,
Dr. B 19:40
absolutely. I love that. So let's continue on this solution based problem solving in community the positiveness of some of the outcomes. Can you give us an example of a success story from one of the youth in your program that the. You've identified and that have came out as a success story?
Christina Vela 20:03
Oh, absolutely. I mean, our community is full of incredible survivor, let me put it this way. Our community is full of incredible people that turn their pain into power, right? You know them. I know them. We might be them too, right? It might be us. You know that power when you say, Okay, that's enough, right? I'm gonna turn this pain that I have into something for good. And so it has. It's been incredible to watch Survivor victims turn into survivors, but that's not enough. We need them to be thriving members of society. We don't need to tokenize people's experience. We're like we're all carrying around in an invisible suitcase full of our lived experiences. And I'm so grateful to be surrounded by people who, from all kinds of challenges, are stepping into their power and are doing incredible things. There's one young person I am very proud of our work at St Jude's that when young people end up sort of aging out of this system, or they don't need us anymore. They become volunteers and they become our employees. So we have a young person. We have several youth advocates that used to be homeless. One of them specifically was a sex trafficking victim. Came to live at crossings, which is our homeless transitional living program just right up the street from from UNLV, and she's a sort of, she's a youth advocate, she's a peer support advocate, and so she's sitting across the table from a young person who's just starting their journey to accepting health, and she's saying like, and many of them, I have several of them who are like, I've been where you are. It is possible for you, because I could say that, but you know, I'm a 52 plus year old woman who's like, they're like, you're old or you don't know. So we've got to give young people access to other people like them, right? That look like them, that sound like them, that have had that same lived experience. And incredible things are possible when we surround young people with a safety net of support of people who are standing there that will pick up the phone at two in the morning when they're having a, you know, a crisis, because the spinning in their head won't stop, or that they're, you know, considering relapsing. I mean, we've got to stand there for people, right, and really accompany them. And I have just found that while the world is full of a lot of complex issues, and I wish I had solutions for all of them, I find that specifically in Southern Nevada, when I tell people about these issues, they say, How can I help? And so we activate them like we find a way. Do you want to donate? You want to volunteer your time? You want to mentor a kid, you want to offer them a job? What do you need? Because we'll, we'll put you to work, right, right? And it's, I think sometimes it just takes also the courage for us as leaders to not be apathetic. So if I have apathy, and I think like what nobody's going to help, or there isn't enough money, then I'm not going to attract people that want to help number one. So I got to believe it too, right? And my and my team, but really giving people opportunities to get involved. Most people want to help. Most people want to help. They just don't know how. They don't know with who and conversations like this might spark. Somebody who said, like, I do want to get involved. And like, go find it, whatever you're passionate about. It will make the world better for the children, for the animals, for for the earth, whatever it is, go find it, because the only way it gets better is through us,
Marcus White 23:29
absolutely and so you receive national awards for your leadership and innovation. But behind the scenes, what is one thing that still keeps you up at night about the children and families you serve?
Christina Vela 23:39
I mean, every day, honestly, the pain of a kid maybe not accepting the help right now, and you know, at the Healing Center, which is our new campus to care for child victims of sex trafficking, the kids will still run away because they want to run back to what's comfortable. Being in a program or treatment program can be scary, because we're asking you to consider doing things different, right? And those kids, when they're gone for an hour or a day or a week or a month, it weighs so heavy on me. I worry about their safety. I worry that they think we don't love them. I worry that they think they can't come back. You know? I worry about all of them. I worry about, the kids nobody knows about, that are stuck in some horrible situation that they don't have the courage to ask for help. So when you know about these things, it's hard to look away, right? So I'm constantly thinking, Okay, well, since I can't fix all the problems, how do I just help one more person tomorrow? Right? If I'm blessed to wake up tomorrow and I have one more day, how am I gonna hustle to help one more kid or one more family or, you know, activate one more person in the community to be part of the solution. So
Dr. B 24:48
I just wanted to ask we talked about how a lot of the youth are misconceived as they get into trouble or their runaways or their problem type. Files, and what is the pipeline of systemic shifts you feel we have to make, just to again, just kind of defray from those stereotypes, but also understanding a shift between foster care to sex trafficking within those type of pipelines. And then how does the education system play a part as well, if they're and you stages, how does the schools play a part in working with this issue?
Christina Vela 25:30
All right, you asked a lot of really good questions there, so let me work my way backwards. So you said about the schools? Well, I think it's great that Clark County School District and other big institutions have been doing a lot to train their staff, their teachers, their school counselors, about the red flags we know nurses, for example, are doing a ton of training about what sex trafficking looks like in those red flags, where maybe in the past, a girl might come in with some injuries, with a man who doesn't quite look like it could be a family member, and he's kind of controlling, and he's answering all the questions. Maybe in the past, nurses might have been like, that feels weird, but I don't know. I'm going to take care of them and then they leave. But there's a lot of training happening across our community. I'm sure there's populations that need more training, no doubt about that, but I think nobody's heads in the sand anymore about this issue. So So nurses and doctors and airline, you know, like at the airports and the flight attendants and a lot more people are having a lot of national training access around what the signs and like red flags are. So I think that's a great sign. So the school district is starting to identify, I think, more they're talking more about what kind of curriculum there is, some curriculum where they're talking a bit about trafficking. So, you know, I think it's one teacher at a time, to some extent too, right? You have one teacher managing 20 kids, 30 kids, something's different in a kid who's paying attention to what's different. Why is that kid tired all the time? Oh, I didn't sleep last night. Well, why not? What were you doing last night? Oh, I was out. What were you doing? Right? Like, it's just through one on one conversations where kids feel safe enough to say what's been going on in their lives. Number one, one of the questions I think you asked for me, like, where do we start? I mean, where, how do we fix this? I mean, so much of it is unhealthy families. You know, we have husbands and wives or parents that are struggling to care for their kids, and so helping families or adults with access to jobs and good mental health services and drug treatment is how we help children's lives be better. The parents need to be doing better. Children do better when their parents are better, not separate from their parents, but because their family is doing better. So I think we have some big conversations to have about poverty and just big community issues. And so it's a big, complex issue, and if nothing else, what I can say today is pay attention to the kids in your own lives, your neighbors, your best friend's kids, your nieces and nephews. Talk to them about what they're looking at on social media and those DMS, those DMS that are sliding in that you're so pretty and you could be a model and really helping kids sort of discern what what might be true and what might not be true is one really important thing to do, starting I think today, it's the thing somebody can do today, is talk to kids in your life about what's going on out in the world. Last
Marcus White 28:29
question for you, for people who are fired up about the conversation today, especially if they're in the Las Vegas Valley or anywhere around the world, what can people do to help and want to volunteer over at
Christina Vela 28:42
St Jude's, for sure. I mean, at St Jude's ranch for children, you can visit our website at St Jude's ranch.org We have lots of volunteer opportunities and ways for people to get connected, no doubt about that. But there's other organizations. There's a Southern Nevada Human Trafficking Task Force that we're proud to be a member of. So if people really want to get in on the trafficking stuff specifically, but anybody can reach out to us at St Jude's Ranch, you know, I'm happy to connect people to either our organization or there's lots of other organizations. You know, we're friends with lots of our you know, brother and sister agencies out there, if you will. So we can help people get connected in any way possible. But there's definitely lots of volunteer opportunities at St Juran for children. No doubt about that awesome.
Marcus White 29:24
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and having this tough conversation with us. We greatly appreciate you and everyone. Have an awesome Mother's
Christina Vela 29:33
Day. Thank you. Happy Mother's Day. Thank you. Thank you. Dr Vela, the urban
Marcus White 29:37
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