This session reframes lived experience as a form of expertise and a foundation for leadership. Moving beyond storytelling, it highlights how lived experience shapes the ways survivors analyze systems, build programs, and influence policy. Drawing on the realities of exploitation, survival, and healing, the session explores how survivors develop critical skills—such as strategic thinking, adaptability, empathy, and communication—that are essential for driving systems change.
It also examines how personal values like justice, dignity, and integrity, forged through lived experience, translate into professional pathways across advocacy, direct service, research, public education, and leadership. In addition, the session addresses the importance of aligning leadership development with ongoing healing, and the role organizations play in supporting sustainable, trauma‑informed leadership.
Participants with lived experience will engage with practical considerations for entering or advancing in the anti‑trafficking field, while organizations will gain insight into how to meaningfully support and include survivor leaders through trauma‑informed structures, professional development, and sustainable practices. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how to support, elevate, and collaborate with survivor leaders in ways that are ethical, effective, and grounded in lived expertise.
Presenter: Liz Stein
