MelKai
Consulting

Support

Melissa provides support and consultation for organizations, task forces, and teams with their anti-trafficking efforts, team development, person-centered and trauma-informed approaches, interview considerations, and wellness efforts.

brainstorm

Contact Melissa to implement ideas, problem solve, and improve your current efforts to enhance techniques and approaches, training, conference planning, policy, protocol development, and grant preparation.

training

Melissa is an experienced keynote speaker and presenter. She specializes in human trafficking, team development, and wellness for those working in high-stress work environments.

supporting efforts

how can I help?

Consultation and Assistance

1 – Planning sessions

  • Trainings and conferences 
  • Protocol and policy
  • Organizational response

2 – Anti-human trafficking efforts

  • Protocol and policy development
  • Outreach 
  • Victim and survivor approaches and interview considerations
  • Multi-disciplinary team (MDT) development and maintenance

3 – Wellness and Vicarious Trauma

  • Support for high-stress professions
  • Work-place culture change and considerations
  • Writing and editing of policies and protocols 

Public Speaking 

  • Human trafficking
  • Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)
  • Intersectionality of CSEC and social media
  • Cyber sexual abuse and human trafficking
  • Person-centered and trauma-informed approaches and interviews
  • MDT purposes, development and maintenance
  • Tribal considerations
  • Wellness, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue

Phase 3: The Cost of Caring 
Sign up (it’s free!) for the Network’s resources at the button below and receive access to Melissa’s five-part wellness and vicarious trauma series at a discounted rate. The series includes:

  • Materials specifically for any/all helping professionals and first responders
  • Professional credits/CEUs for completing courses
  • Worksheets, resources and videos
  • Free access to a network of human trafficking professionals, resources and curriculums

Retainer-Based Consulting Services

Consistent support is key to maintaining a healthy and resilient team, especially for professionals working in challenging fields like human trafficking. Ongoing support for your efforts can also help improve services for victims and survivors in those moments of need. Retainer-based services provide you with ongoing, personalized consulting designed to meet your organization’s evolving needs.

Benefits of Retainer-Based Consulting:

  • Ongoing Support: Regular check-ins to address immediate challenges and long-term goals.
  • Tailored Strategies: Solutions customized to your team’s specific needs, ensuring effective implementation.
  • Cost-Effective: A predictable monthly investment, allowing you to manage your budget efficiently.
  • Priority Access: Receive prompt assistance and priority scheduling for all consulting and training services.

Retainer Services Include:

  • Wellness and Resilience Training: Equip your team with the tools to handle stress, avoid burnout, and thrive in their work.
  • Vicarious Trauma Mitigation: Continuous support to prevent and manage the effects of secondary trauma.
  • Human Trafficking Expertise: Guidance for ongoing efforts in victim services, awareness, and response strategies.
  • Customized Consulting: Specific projects, policy development, and collaborative efforts tailored to your organizational needs.

How It Works:

  • Schedule a free consult with me.
  • Set up a regular meeting schedule to ensure we’re aligned on goals and deliverables.
  • Adjust services as necessary to ensure continued growth and success.
  • Schedule ongoing brainstorming sessions to enhance services, create resources and formulate ideas together.

To learn more about pricing or to set up a consultation, please contact me directly at [email protected].

media

what people say...

“Melissa has helped so much! From the basics of human trafficking, to supporting our team as we create protocols, she is a great leader, teacher, and facilitator.”

"Thank you for bringing awareness to compassion fatigue! This is the best training/resources that I have seen on this topic. I will be sharing this information and recommending this training to everyone...."

“I was unaware of how much I needed to participate in this webinar. It was super helpful to me. Thank you so much!”

“I would have been able to spend an entire day on this session alone because Melissa covered so much in the hour. Her references and slides are very well put together and I will be sharing with my home team. Thank you for an amazing presentation!”

 

“This was an excellent presentation. I feel like Melissa was able to convey things that people don’t really want to say out loud and made it okay to talk about. Great strategies suggested. Thank you.”

 

“Melissa is a phenomenal speaker! She covered a lot of ground in her presentation. I would love a part 2 of this.”

“This was by far the best presentation that I have participated in for this conference. I have a varied background working in social service positions and it definitely hit home for me.”

"I am a victim's advocate and had the pleasure of attending Melissa's recent webinar, What to do when your empathy is strained? So first of all THANK YOU for not calling it a "Self Care" webinar. Next, I tell you I attend all kinds of trainings and always lean to these so that I can add to my tool kit. Your last webinar really hit the spot. I loved the language used and seriously got so much out of it. Thank you! Well Done!"

“Content was exceptionally good and related completely to work in this field. Very easy to listen to presenter that used the time well. Overall Excellent!”

“One of the best, most comprehensive presentations on this topic I’ve ever seen!”

“The info was very timely and relevant. The content was very informative, and the presentation flowed
well and was full of helpful info. The explanation of how it relates and connects to HT by way of
explanation of the Power and Control wheel was fantastic. I also thoroughly enjoyed the connection to
Maslow’s Hierarchy and the discussion of how the victim perception of these gets intertwined and
twisted throughout the grooming process was a creative insert.”

 

“Melissa had a wonderful presentation. It included many strategies and information that I can actually use in my work/life balance.”

about

 

Melissa is a licensed social worker with specialized expertise in anti-human trafficking efforts, multi-disciplinary team development, and addressing secondary traumatic stress and officer wellness. She brings a wealth of knowledge as a certified trainer in Green Dot, Compassion Fatigue, GEMS, Stand to Protect, My Life My Choice, and SHARP. Additionally, Melissa is trained in Child Welfare and Safe Zone. Over the past decade, she has provided national and international training and technical assistance to professionals working with victims and survivors of human trafficking.

Her diverse background includes case management and crisis response for human trafficking victims and survivors, treatment foster care, youth homelessness, victim/witness programming, prevention education, and work in psychiatric and addiction services. Notably, Melissa served as the first Human Trafficking Navigator and Victim/Witness Specialist in North Dakota, spearheading a decade of program development in the state. In 2020, she was nominated for the YWCA’s Women of the Year award. In addition, she is a board member of the Fargo Police Foundation.

Since its inception in 2016, Melissa was an active member of the North Dakota Human Trafficking Task Force and assisted in the development of programming, multi-disciplinary teams, and response to victims to include Tribal Nations. During her decade of anti-trafficking efforts in ND, she was the chair of the Lived Experience Subcommittee and vice-chair of the Labor Trafficking Subcommittee. 

With over 15 years of experience in social work, Melissa has witnessed firsthand the toll that high-stress, high-pressure environments take on professionals. This led her to develop trainings and resources to help organizations better understand vicarious trauma and support wellness in their teams.

Throughout her career, Melissa has trained over 13,000 students and professionals, presenting at notable conferences such as IAHTI, GRIT Wyoming, Shared Hope, IACP, NCPTF, Dallas CAC, National Cyber Crimes, and IHTSJ. Her expertise spans topics such as human trafficking, team building and development, Tribal Nations, trauma-informed interviews and approaches, secondary traumatic stress, and the creation of wellness programs for first responders.

Currently based in St. Petersburg, FL, Melissa continues to offer training and consulting services nationwide.

ready to start?

Are you ready to receive support for your anti-human trafficking efforts?
Are you open to normalizing the experience of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue in your work place?
Reach out for remote training and consulting, in-person opportunities, and pricing. 

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank