Youth & Shelter Services and its Des Moines branch, Iowa Homeless Youth Centers, will participate in a 12-month capacity-building effort to provide services to victims and survivors of human trafficking.

The Ames-based agency is one of 10 federally funded runaway and homeless youth agencies from across the country chosen to take part in the initiative. YSS will partner with National Safe Place Network, which is working to bring its “Human Trafficking: Recognize, Respect and Respond” (HTR3) framework to runaway and homeless grantee agencies across the U.S. through its operation of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center.

YSS staff members will receive technical assistance toward meeting organizational goals on developing human trafficking awareness and intervention services.