About the CSEC Action Team
What is the CSEC Action Team?
The Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) Action Team was established in 2013 as a workgroup of the California Child Welfare Council. It is a multidisciplinary body that brings together key stakeholders—community-based and grassroots organizations, public agencies, lived experience experts, service providers, parent partners, judges, lawyers, and community members to address the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth. Meeting quarterly and offering additional learning opportunities, the Action Team works to raise awareness, identify challenges, share promising practices, and develop tools and resources that support youth and families impacted by exploitation. Through these efforts, the Action Team aims to drive action across California to strengthen responses and better serve those impacted by CSE.
What is the CSEC Action Team’s Executive Committee?
The CSEC Action Team Executive Committee is responsible for planning and facilitating the quarterly meetings and learning opportunities, ensuring the meetings address the key challenges and needs of organizations and agencies serving youth impacted by CSE.
Executive team members who guide the Action Team’s work include:
Co-chair Kate Walker Brown, Senior Director, National Center for Youth Law (NCYL)
Co-chair Leslie Heimov, Executive Director, Children’s Law Center of California (CLC)
Hon. Craig E. Arthur, Juvenile Presiding Judge of the Orange County Juvenile Court
Susan Abrams, Deputy Director, CLC
Vida Castaneda, Senior Analyst, Judicial Council of California
Darla Chavez Chavez, Senior Program Associate, NCYL
Maria Contreras, Senior Community Policy Associate, NCYL
Julie McCormick, Policy Director, CLC
Sawan Vaden, Executive Director, Community Against Sexual Harm
What does the CSEC Action Team do?
The CSEC Action Team holds quarterly meetings and additional learning opportunities to grow awareness and address challenges. The Action Team also develops policy guidance, recommendations and promising practices, including:
Cell phone policy guidance for youth impacted by commercial sexual exploitation
Harm reduction guidance series for social workers, probation officers, law enforcement, caregivers, and the courts
Model Memorandum of Understanding template to support multidisciplinary collaboration among youth-serving agencies
Recommendations on how to improve data collection regarding identifying and serving youth experiencing CSE
Who does the CSEC Action Team work with?
The CSEC Action Team engages a wide range of stakeholders across California, including youth, lived experience experts, community members, service providers, and agencies working across systems. The Action Team partners closely with:
The Advisory Board – lived experience experts who work in tandem with the Action Team to guide strategies, policies, and services statewide.
California Department of Social Services’ Child Trafficking Response Unit (CTRU) – provides statewide coordination, guidance, and support for counties responding to child trafficking.
Child and Family Policy Institute of California (CFPIC) Preventing and Addressing Child Trafficking (PACT) Initiative – supports counties in building cross-system collaboration and advancing practices to prevent and respond to CSE.