New York | Atlanta | Global
Jae is a Researcher Advocate with 10+ yrs. experience in Public Health & Criminal Justice research, advocacy, public speaking and Consulting. After years of published research, policy and legislative actions, public speaking engagements and projects, her work is now centered in art, edutainment and community healing to improve health outcomes and reduce criminal justice involvement. Edutainment is appropriate for all audiences!
Liaison Consulting Services' mission is to:
- Advocate for and create access to compassionate care in health, human service and legal settings for members of hidden, often silenced and marginalized populations.
- Promote sexual health, disease transmission prevention and harm reduction in hidden populations.
- Reduce and prevent criminal justice involvement and increase recidivism prevention in hidden populations.
- Facilitate, foster and develop non-traditional paths towards self-sustainability for members of hidden populations.
Liaison Consulting Services improves service outcomes and bridges the gap in health, human service and legal settings through relationship building, educating emerging and established professionals and amplifying the voices of hidden service populations.
This includes serving the access and care needs of:
- People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA)
- Sex Workers
- Substance users/Chemically Addicted
- Street-based/houseless folks
- Formerly incarcerated individuals
- Child welfare system impacted
- Chronically/terminally ill
- Physically/mentally disabled
- Ageing/Seniors
- Professionals working with and within hidden professions
- and other hidden populations.
Liaison Consulting Services' vision is to eliminate inherently held biases within emerging and established professionals in the health, human service and legal sectors to improve service outcomes in all sectors.
Liaison Consulting Services' goal is to awaken a contagious awareness within law and policy makers, emerging & established professionals, practitioners and industry leaders around their professional footprint and its unique potential ripple effects.
Storytelling As Research & Advocacy
From 1996-2009 Jay was a NYC-based spoken word artist before pursuing higher education in Healthcare Management from 2010-2013. Her goal in healthcare was to apply her experience and education to support the health of hidden and marginalized populations' access to care.
In 2014 Jay was hired at both the Red Umbrella Project as a Court Advocate for Brooklyn, NY's first human trafficking intervention court, and Persist Health Project as a Health Navigator. In both roles, she was given the opportunity to utilize her personal, volunteer and arts backgrounds in collaboration with her undergraduate education to improve service outcomes for criminalized, marginalized and hidden populations.
During this time, the Red Umbrella Project team developed and facilitated creative writing workshops for current and former sex workers, giving the sex worker community space to share and address issues affecting them. She worked closely with her long-time business partner Jenna Torres conducting street-based outreach, creating, hosting and facilitating these workshops.
These collected stories resulted in five volumes of creative writing titled Prose & Lore, which highlighted real-life experiences in the sex trades. These stories were used for organizing, advocacy, research and to influence criminal justice and health policy recommendations in collaboration with other actions, tools and products developed by Red UP/Persist.
Prose & Lore and the renowned documentary/drama The Red Umbrella Diaries, an anthology around a Sex Worker based creative writing and arts showcase, became internationally known bodies of creative works amplifying the voices of Sex Workers. Jenna and Jay have remained close colleagues working on intersectional public health and criminal justice issues throughout the years to date.
Research Development & Data Collection
Her work with Red Umbrella and Persist Health led to her very first research project, launching her long-term career in criminal justice and public health research.
From 2014-2016 she was a Research Associate on the Department of Justice (DOJ) funded groundbreaking study with The Center for Court (Justice) Innovation (CCI) and is one of the Co-authors of the subsequent report, Navigating Force & Choice.
While working the CCI study, she was recruited as a Consultant & Research Associate collecting data on the ground for the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) surrounding HIV behavioral risks & disease transmission in marginalized, criminalized & hidden populations with The New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH) on the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Project for several population cycles (HET4, HET 5, PWID, Trans *Formative cycle*) between 2015-2019.
From 2018-2019 she worked independently as a CDC Research subcontractor collecting risk behavior and PrEP usage data on the ground in Atlanta's MSM Community.
She has been working as a Research Associate with Hacking & Hustling, Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective & Fund DBA Rouge Support Network & Cornell University investigating financial discrimination in hidden populations since December 2020 with an anticipated report release by 2025.
Edutainment
Jay promotes the healing power of creative writing, storytelling, poetry and all art mediums to amplify the voices of hidden populations. She provides (virtual & live) edutainment tailored to your organization and audience's needs.
Public Speaking
Jay makes talking about the hard stuff fun & easy!
Jay/Jae has spoken and presented at national and international conferences and summits, given lectures and trainings at colleges, universities, private events and fundraisers since 2014. Jay is available for professional, graduate, undergraduate, corporate and community-based lectures, organizational/corporate training, workshops & research project presentations. Take a look below to see where she's been!
Wait! When booking Jay don't be afraid to ask about experts in almost any area of Health, Criminal Justice and Human Rights Advocacy.
Her colleagues and professional network include individuals working in: public health (HIV/STI's, HEP C, Congenital Syphilis, CoVid19 in Nightlife), reproductive rights, restorative justice, land rights, corporate race relations (DEI), gender topics, criminal justice reform, prisoner's rights, victims' rights, harm reduction, housing issues, sex workers rights and so much more!
We can guide you through best practices and offer experienced insight in many areas. Many of us work within intersectionality and have worked together over the years. Many of us are connected directly to the communities we serve and amplify those voices through our work.
Select Speaking Engagements
The End AIDS Conference (2014 & 2015), Mount Sinai School of Medicine (2015), Weidner University School of Human Sexuality (2016) Lehman College School of Social Work (2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023).
In 2016, she presented Navigating Force & Choice study findings at The American Association of Criminology Conference and has been a guest on NPR radio's The Brian Lehrer Show discussing the findings and SESTA/FOSTA (2018).
In 2018 she spoke at a Lysistrata fundraiser at The Museum of Sex, Co-Created & Facilitated The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit Sex Worker Track in 2019, was a panelist at the Law & Society Association Conference (2021) & Co-hosted the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting/Conference Day of Dialogue (2024) to name a few.
In July 2019 Jay/Jae was featured in POZ Magazine & other publications including a narrative on Sex Work during global pandemics (2020)
Community Involvement
Jay is an active member of Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective & Fund/Rouge Support Network (2018-present), Hacking & Hustling (2021-Present), Best Policy Practices (2021-present), Black Sex Workers Collective (2018-present) & BiPOC Collective (2023-present). All of her work with the aforementioned organizations and collectives center Sex Worker access to health care.
If you've gotten this far, admit it, you're into what I do (here's where you smile).
Want to know my personal driving forces behind my work? Read more below.
Why Sexual Health & Sex Worker Health?
Legalities
In 2014 Jay/Jae was identified as a commercially sexually exploited child and a survivor of domestic sex trafficking by the New York State District Attorney's Office under State & Federal definitions. The NYS Office of the Appellate Defender represented her 440 motion since 2014, which she ultimately decided to abandon in 2021 due to unsafe procedural requirements.
Sex Work Criminalization
She holds personal and educated perspectives of the unique experiences of those in the sex trades within Public Health, Human Service and Criminal Justice settings.
Her criminal history includes over 14 sex work related arrests between the ages of 14-21 years old (1994-2001). She served time in both local and state penal institutions, including jail and prison sentences in two states.
Cycle: involuntary, voluntary
Her work in the Sex Industry began at age 14 with street-based work. She has worked as a Phone Sex Operator, an Erotic Dancer, an Escort (in & outcall) and back to street work again under voluntary and involuntary conditions.
Sex Worker Health
As a youth growing up in NYC's LGBTQAI community, Jay served as a peer sexual health educator in HIV/STI prevention with New York City's Manhattan Pride Center. It was her generation that developed and launched Center Youth Pride. She entered the foster care system at age 13, ageing out at age 24.5. During this time, she found herself in and out of ACS placements, jail and living on the streets. Being an unemployable youth, she engaged in sex work to provide for her basic needs. She became involved with substance use at age 14 which greatly impacted her vulnerability and susceptibility.
Many of her friends were street-based youth and sex workers. Despite access to education and prevention methods, they faced occupational health risks driven by criminalization, oppressive capitalism, and basic survival needs. They were the kids nobody wanted, and nobody would hire.
Many were mentally ill and/or substance users. Many were houseless or housing insecure. Many were LGBTQAI and Trans. These intersections of socioeconomic vulnerabilities led to the acquisition of HIV during the course of their work.
A large majority of her close friend group passed on in the early years, others over time. Only several remaining friends are with us to date.
It is their stories, their memories that drive Jay's work in destigmatized access to care and decriminalization.
Agency & Autonomy
In the early 2000's Jay became a BDSM provider through the advent of the internet. Internet accessibility gave her agency and autonomy over how she worked in the industry. BDSM work is how she has worked within the Adult Entertainment Industry since. In 2015 she semi-retired due to the anticipated passage of an anti sex trafficking legislation which would impact voluntary workers, FOSTA/SESTA.
Unique, Tailored Sex Work & Sex Trafficking Organizational/Institutional Training
What is Sex Work? What is Sex Trafficking? Is it the same as Human Trafficking? "Trafficking" is a hot topic all around us, but what is it? This training is designed to bring clarity to those questions and more.
Not what you think...
This training is designed to dissuade inherent biases through varying perspectives of Sex Work including voluntary, forced and the intersection between the two delivered around empirical data in a fun and interactive way for every audience.
Awareness of the socioeconomic & systemic paths into the sex trades and occupational health will be covered. Training also covers Federal and local laws.
We provide and encourage creative strategies to allow your establishment to offer victims of sex and human trafficking a safe way to disclose and ask for help in an emergency.
Thoughts to Consider
Each person's path into the trades is uniquely their own.
In the wake of FOSTA/SESTA passages, there is a greater need for access to compassionate care in health and human service settings.
It is for those of us who provide services to current and former Sex Workers and Survivors of sex trafficking to listen to each person's individually unique service needs.
Sex Work Vs. Sex Trafficking, Victim vs. Criminal, Survivor vs...Service Providers & Law Enforcement?
We cannot define the narrative for a people with expert testimony and inside knowledge of the realities within their hidden communities.
A growing body of empirical evidence has shown socioeconomic disparity and the constant need for survival under capitalism is the constant commonality between sex workers and sex trafficking survivors from all backgrounds.
Socioeconomic driving forces fuel the sex industry (not unlike any other industry with workers). The 'reasons' people become involved in the sex trades are limitless, as are the 'reasons' why people become involved in any trade or industry.
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