Unbound Now

Unbound Now provides 24/7 crisis response and on-going, relationship-based case management for youth and adult survivors of human trafficking in North Texas.

Unbound Now's Advocacy team uses evidence-based, trauma-informed, and survivor-centered practices to support effective healing and restoration. Our advocates are field-based, meeting survivors where they are, including a nearby breakfast spot, the doctor's office, and even the courtroom as they testify against perpetrators.

As a result, Unbound Now has seen many survivors reach their goals and find restoration. Unbound Now is endorsed by the Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Child Sex Trafficking Team, and is an official advocacy provider by local child sex trafficking protocol development groups in Tarrant, Denton, and Johnson Counties. For four years, we have served as the lead victim service provider for the Tarrant County Human Trafficking Task Force. 

Human trafficking survivors have years of recovery ahead and they sometimes return to their trafficker because the healing process is so challenging. Unbound Now’s advocates stay close to their clients and build trust over time - sometimes years. 

In October 2020, Unbound Now expanded support services for youth by opening the Underground Drop-In Center, located at One Safe Place near downtown Fort Worth. Open 24/7, the center offers youth through age 22 a safe place to rest, enjoy a meal, shower, and receive counseling and referrals for additional services. This refuge for services helps Unbound Now identify typically difficult-to-reach youth in order to intervene earlier in their trafficking experience, sometimes before they are exploited. Additionally, the Underground includes a soft interview room where youth who have been victimized can share their difficult stories in a warm, comforting, and therapeutic environment. 

The Underground staff have served youth through over 3,200 visits since opening. Those who exhibit clear-concern for human trafficking, as determined through the validated Commercial Sexual Exploitation Identification Tool (CSE-IT), are invited to work with an Unbound Now Advocate to help the survivor carry forward their restorative process for as long as needed. Others, who may be experiencing homelessness, family conflict, sexual abuse, or domestic violence are at a high risk of exploitation and receive care at the Underground, as well as referrals to services to prevent future trafficking situations. 

Unbound Now prevents trafficking through educating students on safe relationships. Through a partnership with Fort Worth ISD funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Unbound Now is training thousands of students, teachers, and counselors on how to prevent and respond to human trafficking. 

How does trafficking happen?

Traffickers slowly gain trust and build dependency through coercive control and exploitation of existing vulnerabilities in youth and adults. This can take the form of isolation, threats of violence, and sexual demands, coupled with affection and support, which can create a strong emotional bond with the trafficker, due to the way in which this type of interpersonal and invasive trauma affects the endocrine and parasympathetic nervous systems. 

Perpetrators of this crime use force, fraud, and coercion to profit from exploitation of another person for sex or labor. Traffickers use promises of love, a better life, a job, protection, or fulfillment of needs or desires to deceive those targeted. Those being trafficked often do not realize that they have been victimized or that help is available. Traffickers can also be family members, using close proximity and innate trust to take advantage of a child, or managers, who exploit someone’s immigration status through forced labor and withholding pay. So-called “guerrilla pimps” use violence or the threat of violence to force vulnerable people to do what they say.