Friends of farmworkers, doing business as justice at work (jaw), will deepen legal supports to immigrant survivors of trafficking throughout pennsylvania, with a focus on survivors of labor…

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) awarded a $490,487 Project Grant under the Services for Trafficking Victims program (CFDA 16.320) to Friends of Farmworkers, Inc., doing business as Justice at Work (JAW), a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization. The grant will fund a three-year project to deepen legal supports for immigrant survivors of labor trafficking throughout Pennsylvania. Key services include providing culturally and linguistically specific civil legal aid, immigration legal services, employment assistance, and therapeutic case management. The project aims to increase the quantity and quality of legal services available to trafficking survivors, support their continued recovery and resilience, and create a sustainable model for survivors with complex needs. Justice at Work will collaborate with the sub-recipient partner La Puerta Abierta to provide case management and mental health services to project clients.

Friends of farmworkers, doing business as justice at work (jaw), will deepen legal supports to immigrant survivors of trafficking throughout pennsylvania, with a focus on survivors of labor trafficking, to promote the long-term success and self-sufficiency of trafficking survivors and their families. Jaw will utilize a two-pronged model that will provide employment and immigration legal services to immigrant survivors in the years after escaping their trafficking experience and receiving their t visa. The goals of this project are to increase the quantity and quality of legal services available to trafficking survivors to support their continued recovery and resilience by identifying and anticipating the complex needs of survivors, identifying resources to better support their recovery, and creating a sustainable model for survivors with complex needs who require enhanced services on an ongoing basis. Through this proposed project, immigrant survivors will receive culturally specific, trauma-informed services, in the survivors preferred language. This projects civil legal services will focus on wage theft, workplace discrimination on the basis of SEX, race, or national origin, legal remedies in response to unsafe working conditions, and wrongful termination. Immigration legal services will focus on applications for legal permanent residency, and citizenship, for trafficking survivors and their derivative family members. Jaws subrecipient partner, LA puerta abierta (LPA), will provide therapeutic case management services to support survivors ability to fully engage in their legal cases. Additionally, jaw will improve survivors access to other services by collaborating with law enforcement agencies, social service providers and other community organizations through referrals, trainings, technical assistance, and community outreach events.