School bus drivers keep students safe by recognizing signs of trafficking.

Thousands of school-aged children in the United States and Canada are vulnerable to being trafficked. Some victims continue attending school during the day — and riding the school bus — even while they are being trafficked or groomed behind the scenes. School transportation professionals may observe red flags that a child on their bus is being exploited or can play a preventative role by noticing signs that a child is being groomed for trafficking.

School transportation plays a crucial role in identifying and responding to potential cases of child trafficking, especially as it is an integral component of the school environment.

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school transportation professionals trained on how to recognize and report human trafficking.

TAT partners with school districts, departments of education, school bus contractors and transit agencies with youth programs to ensure that all school transportation professionals receive human trafficking training.

Train all school transportation employees with TAT’s resources.

TAT’s training resources – including a video, wallet cards, an app, toolkit, driver room posters, etc. – are free of charge and specially designed for school transportation.

View the trailer to TAT’s school transportation training video:

Follow your internal reporting protocols.

Find out if your school has a policy on reporting suspicions of child trafficking and make sure all school bus drivers are familiar with the steps they should take. If specific protocols on human trafficking do not exist, follow protocols on reporting child abuse. For more on school-based anti-trafficking policies, refer to the U.S. Department of Education.

Spread awareness within your networks about human trafficking.

Introduce TAT to other school districts and your state or provincial director of pupil transportation to provide more schools with access to TAT’s free training resources.

Contact TAT to get started.

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Sunset Empire Transportation District bus

TAT in Action

A TAT-trained employee at Sunset Empire Transportation District (SETD) in Oregon received calls from both a concerned father and the Seaside Police Department, who were looking for two 14-year-old girls. The father believed they had run away to meet an “Internet friend.”

Working with law enforcement, the SETD team reviewed the video surveillance and found the two girls were on a bus en route to Portland. The supervisor immediately called the TAT-trained bus driver on the route, who was able to confirm that the two girls were on the bus. The driver, SETD staff and law enforcement were able to coordinate holding the bus at a scheduled layover. The driver, a former school bus driver, engaged the girls in conversation until police arrived and were able to escort them safely home.

Get involved today!

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