The University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies is pioneering curriculum to bring awareness to human trafficking, defined as the recruitment, harbor, or transfer of people through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of commercial sex or forced labor. Authorities believe trafficking impacts over 50 million people worldwide.
Over the past five years, Deborah Salani, director of the school’s psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program, and her school colleague Beatriz Valdes—both members of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office Human Trafficking Task Force—have been honing their simulation-based human trafficking education initiative. So far, they have taught some 1,250 nursing students to recognize and respond to the physical, social, and psychological indicators of trafficking at the school’s S.H.A.R.E. Simulation Hospital Advancing Research & Education® (S.H.A.R.E.).
“Dr. Valdes and Dr. Salani have been doing a phenomenal job with education from day one. Their latest contribution is extraordinary,” said University nurse scientist JoNell Efantis Potter, who cofounded the Miller School’s THRIVE Clinic (Trafficking Healthcare Resources and Interdisciplinary Victim Services and Education) over a decade ago and still leads it.
Closing the Gap
Nursing faculty members Salani and Valdes debuted their online course at an in-service training open to UHealth staff this past January. Since then, 247 individuals and counting have completed the immersive two-hour course, most of those nurses completing it for credit.
The course, which was created at S.H.A.R.E., includes simulation-based scenarios using trauma-informed standardized patients, as well as evidence-based validated screenings, Florida-specific reporting requirements, and a directory of vital resources throughout the state, such as the Miller School’s THRIVE Clinic. Valdes said it will be updated every two years to ensure that the materials remain current.
Salani added that the course, which is eligible for two Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) contact hours, is available for free statewide, thanks to longtime school donor Maria Lamas. “We really thank Maria Lamas for her passion for this project and her amazing support and generosity,” she said.
“My commitment is grounded in the belief that education is one of the most powerful tools we have to protect victims and reduce the spread of human trafficking,” said Lamas, founder of the school’s Maria G. Lamas Featured Speaker Series for Human Trafficking Education and Prevention Endowment. “In the words of Elie Wiesel, ‘Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.’”
New Law Enacted
The idea behind the course is evidence that health care settings are a frequent point of contact with trafficked individuals, offering key opportunities to identify them, address some of their complex health issues, and attempt to connect them with potentially lifesaving assistance and resources. A new Florida law set to take effect July 1 is an important step to addressing human trafficking in Florida, which has the nation’s third-highest rate of reported trafficking cases.
Sponsored by Senator Gayle Harrell (R-Stuart) and Representative Robin Bartleman (D-Weston), the bipartisan bill (SB 340/HB 303) grew out of a call to action from University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies Dean Hudson Santos, who sought to extend Florida’s existing mandate for human trafficking education from license renewal to initial licensure.
“Nurses first go into practice without a requirement for human trafficking training until two years later, when they must renew their license. Our goal is to close that gap,” Santos said last January at the 2025 Annual State Attorney’s Office Forum on Human Trafficking. In just a year and a half, he has seen his idea adopted as statewide policy. Dean Santos credits Heidi Schaeffer, M.D. ’98, a Visiting Scholar at the school and nationally recognized advocate for human trafficking survivors, as the driving force in connecting with key lawmakers.
Thanks to their efforts and the support of Florida lawmakers, nursing students applying to take the NCLEX in this state on or after July 1, 2027, will have to have completed two hours of human trafficking education before sitting for their licensing exam.
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The University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. Register for the free human trafficking education course.
