Trauma-informed Mentorship Program
Empowering survivors to flourish and thriveTM
Our Hope Mentorship Program establishes supportive relationships with at-risk teens, young adults, and survivors of sex trafficking. As advocates, our mentors journey with survivors each step of the way in their day-to-day life, providing support and encouragement.
Survivors gain an authentic and unwavering relationship as they work on socialization and academic or career skills, goal setting, sharing a meal, and modeling healthy relationships. Through this program, our mentors are empowering survivors to thrive independently.
Ultimately, our mentors walk alongside survivors through the hills and valleys of life while expressing care, challenging growth, providing support, sharing power, and expanding possibilities.
Hope Mentorship centers around three overarching pillars: developing restorative relationships, encouraging growth and healing, and creating social support and connection.
Community Impact
“The Hope Inspire Love mentorship program helped me find my voice. They believed in me and gave me courage, they were by my side, and they never stopped fighting for me.”
Anna* - Survivor
*Pseudonym to protect her identity
“I have personally seen the services Hope Inspire Love has provided victims of human trafficking. Their trauma-informed and victim-centered approach has most certainly set them apart in this field. Their methodology allows them to provide the best possible short- and long-term care for survivors of trafficking.”
Trooper Jessica Williams
Pennsylvania State Police Organized Crime Task Force Human Trafficking Coordinator Eastern Pennsylvania
“The trauma-informed mentorship program developed and implemented by Hope Inspire Love is truly innovative. This program fills a much-needed gap in the long-term assistance provided to sex trafficking survivors. Amy and her team are always available and willing to assist victims and survivors in any way they can.”
Heather A. Castellino
Senior Deputy Attorney General Pennsylvania
“I no longer see myself as broken and irreparable but rather as a child of God, with a purpose in this life, because of the kindness and grace I have been shown through the Hope Mentorship Program. My journey of healing and restoration has given me the ability to see my true worth, value, and hope for the future.”
Emily* - Survivor
*Pseudonym to protect her identity
Trauma that happens through relationships must be healed through relationships.
Hope Mentorship centers around three overarching pillars: (1) developing restorative relationships, (2) encouraging growth and healing, and (3) creating social support and connection.
Developing Restorative Relationships
The first step of Hope Mentorship is to develop restorative relationships and rebuild a sense of trust, resilience, and self-esteem. These long-term one-on-one relationships provide emotional support and empowerment to push through the challenges that come their way and help them overcome trauma to reclaim their independence. Through a complex, multilayered approach, mentors, coaches, and coordinators advocate for them in their recovery journey. This powerful relational connection and support system ultimately brings about the greatest measure of hope and healing.
Encouraging Growth and Healing
The second step of Hope Mentorship is to encourage growth and healing. Our mentors take a trauma-informed approach as they provide empowerment, implement avenues to find renewed hope, drive, and bravery to become actors of change. By encouraging mentees to achieve and meet their goals, including improved and enhanced emotional regulation, self-esteem, self-confidence, and resilience, they are motivated to work towards healing and a beautiful bright future.
Creating Social Support and Connection
The third step of Hope Mentorship is creating social support and connection, which plays a critical role in helping mentees recover from their experiences. This evidence-based process allows them to feel valued, safe, and understood and can provide them with the practical and emotional resources they need to begin rebuilding their lives. These social connections can provide opportunities for socializing, engaging in meaningful activities, learning to resolve conflict, and developing new skills and interests in a healthy and safe environment.
Why Hope Mentorship?
Hope Mentorship empowers survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation to flourish and thrive.
Hope Mentorship aims to help people find meaning and purpose in their lives, fulfill valued roles and engage in life in a community of their choosing, see themselves as more than their trauma(s), help people identify and pursue avenues to reducing distress and problems in their lives and exercise personal autonomy and self-determination in making choices.
Hope Mentorship is a trauma-informed and evidence-based program and staff are fully trained by the Christian Association of Youth Mentoring. Hope Inspire Love staff has also been trained by the Allies, Inc’s Amplify Mentorship Training Program, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, and Wellspan Philhaven Training Center.
The Hope Mentorship Program adheres to the accepted best practices of the youth mentoring industry by promoting mentee safety and providing and supporting mentoring relationships where the mentee can experience personal growth. Most importantly, our mentors understand and consider the nature of trauma and promote a relationship and environment of healing and recovery without re-traumatizing survivors.
The best practices our program adheres to are the ones that MENTOR (National Mentoring Partnership organization) provides in their cornerstone publication, the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, which details research-informed and practitioner-approved standards for creating and sustaining quality youth mentoring programs, and consequently, impactful mentoring relationships.
By responding to survivors’ physical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional safety, they can start to find meaning and purpose in their lives while rebuilding a sense of control and empowerment. By shifting away from “What’s wrong with you?” to a trauma-informed approach of “What’s happened to you?”, we focus on a unique, long-term journey of restoration, healing, and care.