Certification Review Board

What is Safe House Certification?

Without proper aftercare, 80% of trafficking victims will be re-victimized. Aftercare is imperative to a survivor's ability to recover and heal from their trafficking experience. Programs offering residential aftercare services have the opportunity to create real change for survivors. Certification elevates the incredible work that safe house programs are doing on behalf of survivors. It articulates to donors, foundations, government agencies, and other non-profits the life changing impact of these programs. Certification provides clarity on the standards and best practices needed to serve survivors.

Safe House Certification Review Board

---

Mary Frances Bowley Founder of Wellspring Living, Founding member of the Georgia Governor’s Task force on human trafficking, GRACE Commission officer.

Mary Frances Bowley is the President and Founder of Wellspring Living, an organization fighting childhood sexual abuse and exploitation since 2001. She has been a leader in bringing the fight against child sex-trafficking to Atlanta and is a founding member of the Governor’s Task Force for CSEC Victims. Bowley was appointed to the Governor’s Commission on Domestic Violence in 2010.

Mary Frances is on the Advisory Council for Shared Hope International and Abolition International, and is a partner of PASSION conferences. Wellspring Living, under her leadership shares their expertise with a variety of leaders and over 8 start-up non-profits interested in the issue of the sexual exploitation of children through their mentoring program. She is the author of A League of Dangerous Women and The White Umbrella.

Mary Frances has received multiple awards for her work including:

• Martin Luther King Community Service Award

• The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Community Service Award

• The Soroptimist Ruby Award

• The DDG Lifetime Achievement Award

• Dorris J. Harris Humanitarian Award

---

Dr. Marlene Carson is the Founder and Executive Director of The SWITCH. An author, coach, and active member of the U.S. Advisory Council on Trafficking, Ms. Carson provides recommendations and to national policy and government officials about programs that will end human trafficking.

As the Executive Director of The Switch, Dr. Carson has built multiple social enterprise initiatives to employ survivors of Sex Trafficking. iTHRIVE Academy, iTHRIVE Media Group and the Social Justice Academy all provide vocational training opportunities for survivors, equipping them with the skills they need to thrive and gain employment.

Dr. Carson founded Rahab’s Hideaway in 2008, a trauma-informed residential housing facility for victims of sex trafficking. She also built, “Boujhetto’s Soul Food Restaurant”, a social enterprise that provides vocational training to survivors of sex trafficking.

---

M. Elizabeth Bowman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at Gallaudet University. She is also a minor domestic sex trafficking survivor, anti-trafficking advocate, mother of two teens, researcher, and speaker. In her clinical practice she works with trafficking survivors using trauma-informed yoga therapy and also has a clinical practice supporting children and adolescents with anxiety and other challenges.She holds clinical social work licensure in DC and Maryland and is a Registered Yoga Teacher, RYT-200. Her research areas include the intersection of child welfare and sex trafficking, organizational culture and supervision in child welfare, and special populations issues in trafficking including LGBT and Deaf youth. She is currently working with Changing Perceptions in DC to establish a restoration home for pregnant women and transwomen coming out of trafficking both nationally and internationally. Her upcoming book will address her experiences of trafficking and addiction as a child and young adult, redemption through faith, and how these experiences fit within the broader landscape of trafficking research and knowledge.

---

Tawfik Jarjour is a Consultant at Accenture who focuses on helping High Tech and Software companies thrive in a post-covid, purpose filled, and value driven world by leveraging the best of Accenture. Tawfik serves his alma mater Rice University through his work on standing committees and the CCD Advisory Board. He is a fan of cooking, hiking, traveling, and meeting great people around the globe.

---

Dr. Ashley Hodges is a Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing. She is certified as a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Hodges has over 31 years’ experience as an academician, administrator, and clinician. Her dedication to addressing the needs of women spans her career. Dr. Hodgesestablished a nurse practitioner led, residential multidisciplinary clinic providing care to female victims of sex trafficking. The clinic is the first of its kind and is recognized as a model for transforming care to this population. She provides behavioral health integrated care within a trauma-informed care model she designed for trafficked women with complex medical and behavioral health conditions. The provision of comprehensive longitudinal care led to her ability to impact survivor care, public policy, and health care provider education at local, regional, national and international levels. Dr. Hodges works to promote provider understanding of the complexity of the interplay of behavioral health and the unique health needs of these women and to increase understanding of their lived experience of sex trafficking, including the mechanism of entry into trafficking, lack of access to and inequity in care, exposure to overt and unconscious bias of providers, and hesitancy to identify as a trafficking victim.

Dr. Hodges received her BSN from the University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing and her MSN and PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing. She is currently working to complete her educational requirements in April 2022 to expand her scope of practice to include Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner.