For Professionals
For professionals and lawmakers
If you work in police, health care, social services, or policy
You might meet someone like me this week. This page shows you what to do.
My booklet Loud Is Me Begging for Help shows what my records say and what Nevada can change in 2027.
My 3 biggest asks:
- When my case closes, leave me with one named advocate who will call me back, for at least 90 days.
- When I tell police I was trafficked or I'm being exploited, take the report and investigate, even if I'm upset.
- Before you decide I neglected myself, check whether my brain injury or disability is why I couldn't do it.
Tell me your role and what you can do. You'll hear back by email within 1 week.
It isn't one bad worker. It's the same gaps, over and over.
Every agency kept its own file. When one closed mine, nothing followed me to the next.
Forced into crimes, starting as a child
At 15, a 21-year-old man gave me a forged check to use. My court report called him my codefendant.
At 18, three weeks after I escaped a man who held me at gunpoint and planned to make me one of his prostitutes, I was arrested on my first adult felonies, with a married couple twice my age.
Traffickers make victims commit crimes. Then the record says criminal, not victim. Nevada protects kids from some charges, but not from other crimes a trafficker forces them into, like theft or drugs. Adults have no trafficking defense before a conviction. They can only ask a court to clear non-violent convictions afterward (NRS 179.247).
What would help: When someone says they were forced, ask about trafficking before you charge, close, or judge. Look at the whole record, not just the charges.
For lawmakers
Support AB 38 (2027). It would let people sue certain providers who abuse, neglect, exploit, isolate, or abandon an older person or vulnerable person, or allow it.
Pilot one named case manager. A 2-year pilot in one county. When APS closes the case of a vulnerable person who is a trafficking survivor, ADSD offers her one named case manager for 90 days. With her written consent, that person returns her calls, confirms each referral, and brings her providers into one shared plan. ADSD reports results to the Legislature before the 2029 session.
Forced into crime, starting as a child. Extend NRS 62C.015 to other crimes a trafficked child was forced to commit.
Timing: Most lawmakers' bill requests are due December 10. The 2027 session starts February 1, 2027.
I grew from a child into an adult while chances to protect me were missed. What will this meeting change?
Download the lawmaker sheet (PDF)
How to hear the ask (from my booklet Loud Is Me Begging for Help)
Content note: this talks about trafficking, disability, and system failure, without graphic detail.
When a survivor asks for help, it may not sound like asking.
- Quiet is asking. If she freezes, goes quiet, or sounds like a child, she is not refusing or lying. Give her time. A hospital wrote "The Pt presents as a unreliable reporter." (Pt means patient.) The same note confirmed my open FBI case.
- Loud is asking. Write her words down, even if she's upset or loud. Her trauma does not make her an "EDP" (emotionally disturbed person). When I called 911 to report trafficking, that's what they wrote about me, and nobody came.
- Make the call with her. Don't hand her a list. Make the first call together and stay on the line. A survivor agency told me: "You will have to be the one to call the police. We don't do that."
- Leave her with one person. Before you close her case, name one person who will call her back, for at least 90 days. My Adult Protective Services (APS) notes say: "has called APS repeatedly but has not received a telephone call."
- Check for disability first. Before you decide she neglected herself, ask whether a brain injury or disability is the reason. APS later wrote: "Self-Neglect: Substantiated." I have brain injuries.
Words in quote marks are copied exactly from my records and my recordings. Jada, supportjada.com
Find your role
Tap your job to see what you can do this week.
Police
- Keep everyone safe. Then take the report too.
- Don't surround her. Don't speak stern. Don't decide she's lying because she's upset.
- Ask: Were you forced, threatened, or controlled? Even if she says no, write it down.
- Call a victim advocate before you leave.
Hospitals and crisis units
- Check for brain injury before you decide she's non-compliant.
- Don't discharge her to nowhere.
- If she freezes, goes quiet, or sounds young, she isn't refusing. Slow down and give her time.
Caseworkers and Adult Protective Services
- Make the call with her.
- Ask her who her support person is. If she has no one, don't leave her with no one.
- Stay her person until she's connected to someone who will stay.
State agencies (Medicaid, disability services)
- Look at 4 of my asks: one named person who calls her back for 90 days; written reasons, and no turning her away because of a disability; talking to her in a way she understands; skills training at home.
- Tell me which ones you can start now, under current rules, without a new law.
Programs and nonprofits
- Don't screen her out as "not stable enough". She is the person your program is for.
- Don't hand her a list. Make the first call with her and stay on the line.
- If you can't serve her, find who can before she leaves.
Lawyers and law students
- Screen your client for force, fraud, or coercion, including threats, debt, and exploiting a disability.
- Ask her: Did anyone force, threaten, trick, or pressure you into this?
- Ask the court for disability accommodations (ADA) for your client.
Students
- You'll be the next nurses, social workers, lawyers, and officers.
- When someone doesn't fit the form, change the form, not the person.
Survivors and peers
- What you did to survive was asking.
- Keep your papers. Mine are why this booklet exists.
Parents, teachers, neighbors
- If a kid keeps running, is suddenly failing, or has an older friend giving her things, sit with her alone and ask: Is anyone hurting you?
- Believe her the first time.
When someone got it right
At 14, in a group home, someone stayed. I did not run once: "She did complete the First Step program without running away"
In 2025, I was scared and could not explain. Henderson police called a victim advocate for me "due to Jada's emotional distress and the fact that Jada advised that she was a past victim of human trafficking." They brought a woman. They treated me like a human being.
When someone stayed, I did well.
For lawmakers: my asks, and who acts on each one, are on one page: the lawmaker sheet.
My booklet Loud Is Me Begging for Help is free for training. Please share it with your team.
I'm willing to testify, speak at a hearing, or meet with your team.
Why, after 20 years, I still don't have help
I live with brain injuries. My disabilities affect my memory, my attention, my ability to organize and sequence things, and how much I can take in at one time. Those are the exact skills a person needs to get through phone menus, keep a stack of appointments straight, and re-tell their whole history to a new intake worker every single time.
So the disability that makes me need support is the same reason I keep getting screened out of it.
- Nobody is in charge of my case.
- I get a list, not a person.
- No one was trained for me.
If you're a survivor reading this: you were asking too, even if no one heard you.