Assessing the Effectiveness of a Trauma-Oriented Approach to Treating Prostituted Women in a Prison and a Community Exiting Program

Abstract

Women who have been prostitutes are social work clients in many clinical, correctional, and community settings. Unique programming that addresses the high levels of trauma symptoms reported by prostituted women has yet to be explored. The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of a group trauma and abuse intervention for prostituted women from two settings, prison and a community exiting program. A quasi-experimental research design was used. Twenty-nine women participated in a 12-week psychoeducational trauma and abuse intervention program called Esuba. All participants reported decreases in trauma symptoms, but the prison group showed a greater number of significant changes in trauma symptomology than the community group. Implications for practice and future research implications are discussed.

Outcomes of Trauma-Informed Interventions for Incarcerated Women

“…Both groups reported highly traumatic incidents in childhood including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and witnessing domestic violence. Both groups showed a decrease in the scores for clinical subscales of the TSI, including statistically significant decreases in anxiety, depression, intrusive experiences, defensive avoidance, dissociation, and impaired self-reference (Ward & Roe-Sepowitz, 2009) Interestingly, the results indicated a greater change in levels of trauma symptoms for the incarcerated women's group when compared with the community sample group, which was contrary to the researchers' hypothesis.…”

Helping women transition out of sex work: study protocol of a mixed-methods process and outcome evaluation of a sex work exiting program

“…Dalla (2006) identified economic instability, mental health challenges, and existing relationships with significant others as barriers to women's successful exit out of sex work, while facilitating factors included community, familial and peer support as well as caring for children. To be effective at supporting women's efforts to exit sex work, interventions should be developed to address these issues in a comprehensive and coordinated fashion [8][9][10][11][12][13], however, few such interventions exist [14].…”

“…To date, very few interventions supporting women who want to exit sex work have been rigorously evaluated. Little evidence thus exists around how such interventions could be successfully implemented and how effective they might be in reaching their objectives [11]. While some psychoeducational interventions, such as the community treatment ESUBA: Women Helping Women Turn Abuse Around program, have been found to be effective in managing trauma symptoms among sex workers, their aim was not to support women's exiting process per se; they were therefore not evaluated for their impacts on women's involvement in, or exit from, sex work [11].…”

“…Existing interventions and programs that support exiting sex work may take on various forms. Residential treatment centres offer intensive time-limited psychoeducational programs targeting issues such as mental health, substace abuse or trauma [ 9 , 11 , 14 , 15 ], while diversion programs involve a collaboration between different community services (e.g., law enforcement, social services, and community members) to provide women with addiction treatment, mental health services, and housing or employment services, and support them in avoiding jail time and eventually exit sex work [ 16 , 17 ]. In a similar fashion, case management involves outreach workers linking their target clientele with community services including housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment services [ 10 ].…”

“…Little evidence thus exists around how such interventions could be successfully implemented and how effective they might be in reaching their objectives [ 11 ]. While some psychoeducational interventions, such as the community treatment ESUBA: Women Helping Women Turn Abuse Around program, have been found to be effective in managing trauma symptoms among sex workers, their aim was not to support women’s exiting process per se; they were therefore not evaluated for their impacts on women’s involvement in, or exit from, sex work [ 11 ]. Similarly, a secondary analysis of a US-wide evaluation of substance-use disorder treatment programs found that the provision of ancillary medical, mental health, and psychosocial (e.g., employment seeking) services to women involved in sex work correlated with their successful exit 1 year after discharge [ 12 ].…”