The Illinois Rescue and Restore Campaign Coalition's awareness of and involvement with human trafficking

This study explored how the Illinois Rescue and Restore Campaign Coalition, the only federal-state anti-trafficking partnership, was involved in the implementation of the human trafficking policy in the State of Illinois. This coalition consists of 115 member organizations including public, nonprofit and private agencies. An exploratory, sequential, mixed method design, including a quantitative survey method, and a follow-up qualitative interview method, was used to explore the level of awareness of the coalition members of the problem of human trafficking and the related policies, their level of involvement in the implementation of these policies, and their perceptions of the coalition's effectiveness.;A total of 73 participants (81 percent response rate), representing 73 organizations participated in the study. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the survey data. A qualitative content analysis of the interview data was conducted.;The findings revealed that the low levels of goal attainment and performances of the coalition were less due to problems of commitment or involvement of its members in the implementation of the trafficking policy than to serious issues of coalition leadership and political support. Participants' perceptions and recommendations about this statewide coalition were analyzed. Limitations and implications for policy, practice, and research were discussed.;Keywords. coalition, policy implementation, human trafficking, and interagency collaboration.