Ashley Poklar: Leading Systemic Change for Holistic Child & Youth Wellness 

What does it take for a person to change the world? Is the desire to do so enough? Or does it take power, money, and the right connections to do so? Where and how do they start with the change? When Ashley Poklar tried to change the way her clients at the juvenile detention center were treated, she was told, as her supervisor put it, she ‘didn’t have the right letters’ after her name. 

Ashley knew that the change she sought to bring must start with herself. As a result, she enrolled in a Counseling Psychology doctoral program. She then cultivated her career path in such a way that she was able to get an insider’s look into the various systems at play in a child’s life and used that information to inform her work. So yes, it was her desire, determination, and focus that helped her bring about the change that she is known for today.

The Commencement of Her Mission

A mother, an educator, and a child and adolescent psychologist, Dr. Ashley E. Poklar, is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and a passionate advocate for mental health and wellness. With a background in special education and extensive training in clinical mental health counseling and counseling psychology, Dr. Poklar has dedicated her career to supporting individuals and families through therapy and assessment services. 

She started her career as a special education teacher, working in alternative high schools with the ‘bad kids.’ The reality was, they were kids who had significant traumas. When Dr. Poklar had her oldest daughter, she wasn’t sure she could be the parent she wanted to be and the teacher she needed to be. So, she went back to school for a master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She did her internship in the juvenile detention center (where she had some of her old students) and then moved on to complete her doctorate. As a professor, she focuses on the real-world application of the theories students read. As a clinician, she works to support those who care for, and about, youth in need, particularly those who have experienced (or are at high risk of experiencing) sexual exploitation and/or trafficking.

Currently, Dr. Poklar serves as the Clinical Director at The Sentinel Foundation and the Clinical Coordinator at The Behavioral Wellness Group, where she supervises pre- and post-doctoral psychology trainees. She is also the founder of A Poklar Ponders, a platform where she shares insights on the connections between psychological theories, parenting, and education.

With a commitment to systemic change and holistic approaches to child wellness, Dr. Poklar has made significant contributions to the field of psychology, including her work as an adjunct professor at Capella University and her involvement with various community-based agencies. Her favorite quote, “I have found growth can occur in many different ways: upwards, outwards, and inwards,” reflects her belief in the multifaceted nature of personal development.

Guarding the Children

Sentinel Foundation was established in 2017 with the explicit goal of targeting child sex traffickers and saving children through direct and targeted operations. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in North Carolina.  While the overarching mission of saving children and targeting traffickers remains; Sentinel Foundation’s approach has evolved in the last several years, to include training and/or collaboration with law enforcement and aftercare providers, domestically and abroad, strengthening existing efforts to identify and fight trafficking while also effectively supporting victims.  

The foundation operates globally, using a combination of low-profile operations, full-spectrum surveillance, and cyber-enabled operations to track down and apprehend traffickers. Their efforts are supported by generous donations, which help fund their child rescue operations and humanitarian work.

They are also working to build awareness of trafficking and exploitation, ensuring families and communities have the knowledge and skills to protect the children in their lives.

Battling Barriers

Dr. Poklar joined Sentinel Foundation when the mission extended to considering victim supports and awareness-building models. One of the biggest challenges she faced, and continues to face, within the anti-human trafficking space is gaining financial support for the prevention and aftercare efforts related to human trafficking and child sexual exploitation. Many individuals want to know if their money is going to ‘save’ a child.  What they don’t realize is that ‘saving’ is more than just removing a predator from a child’s life or moving a child to a different physical location. The emotional toll that exploitation has on a child’s psyche can be a lifelong battle for that child.  Individuals who have been trafficked for an extended period of time, need time and space to heal; they missed key developmental stages, lost years of education, and have a completely different worldview than most individuals their age. 

“We need to recognize that a ‘rescue’ is a long-term, costly endeavor that goes beyond the removal of a child from a singular exploitative experience.  The reality is that most youth (some studies suggest about 80 percent!) who have been trafficked return to trafficking within 1 year.  If we are not providing the child AND their caregivers with appropriate resources, supports, and knowledgeable care, we are failing them, having not actually ‘saved’ or ‘rescued’ anyone,” she explains.

The way Dr. Poklar continues to try to overcome this challenge is exactly what she is doing here– she attempts to build awareness of this reality.  At Sentinel Foundation, she mitigates this concern by considering where kids will go post ‘rescue’ and working to strengthen the aftercare programming that is available to the children it is engaged with. “This allows us to say that we have vetted where youth go and are doing everything in our power to ensure the services are appropriate and extensive,” she says.

While these are the challenges that she needs to address after the rescue Is done, her team at Sentinel has to face several challenges during the rescue operations. Challenges in this particular space include having very limited information before an operation occurs.  It is easy to identify resources when one knows exactly what a child has experienced and might need, but often that is not clear until the child is removed from the situation (often even days or months later when the child feels comfortable disclosing what they experienced).  Additionally, it is imperative that Dr Poklar and her team understand the culture within which the child and the caregivers are situated.  What works well in an urban environment in the US is not necessarily going to be effective in a rural Ugandan location.  Developmental norms and expectations differ across cultures, as does what is expected of caregivers, social workers, and law enforcement.  Taking the time to understand the child’s worldview is key to navigating these potential barriers to supporting effective care.

A Team of Like-Minded People

The most unique methodology, per Dr. Poklar, in their fight against child trafficking, is the diverse team at The Sentinel Foundation.  It has one of the most (if not the most) diverse group of professionals working together to combat human trafficking.  Multi-disciplinary teams, it says, are really the future of any anti-trafficking, violence, or abuse-related response.  Sentinel’s team embodies that approach, with law enforcement, military, business leaders, and psychologists sitting at the table together.  This allows them to plan proactively, instead of reactively.  It also allows each of the members to leverage their existing professional networks, tapping into countless individuals and organizations across the globe and in various positions of power and influence, opening doors that would have remained invisible or locked to many similar anti-trafficking organizations.

“Because we are a small team, we can be flexible, meeting partner organizations where they are, working around barriers, and working within the cultural norms of communities and families.  While we do have access to a variety of specific methodologies and technologies, it truly is the people that we hire and the organizations that we choose to partner with that make us effective and successful in our work,” explains Dr. Poklar.

Making Impact

While there are individual stories that resonate strongly with Dr. Poklar personally and professionally, she also feels that every success story is impactful, every life they touch, whether through their operations or through training provided to caregivers or law enforcement, is one that hopefully has a greater chance at a long, happy, and healthy life, rippling out to future generations.  

A story Dr Poklar shares, especially as it has been shared in the news, is that of Haitian orphans The Sentinel Foundation transported to Jamaica. These orphans, all of whom had physical and intellectual disabilities, were at high risk of death as their food and life-saving medications were being intercepted by various gangs.  The operations team worked closely with several other organizations and the Jamaican government to transport the youth, via barge, to Mustard Seed Communities in Jamaica.  This is a beautiful example of multiple stakeholders coming together to better the lives of 59 youths, not just in the immediate moment, but for the rest of their lives.

Balancing her Roles

Dr. Poklar is a firm believer in integration over balance when it comes to one’s personal and professional lives–actually wrote a blog post about it on her blog space. Personally and professionally she has found more success and contentment by unapologetically integrating her children into her professional realms.  Her kids serve as test subjects for her students, her students serve as support for her clinical work, and her clinical work informs her parenting strategies.

“I am better at every single one of my roles because of the knowledge and experiences arising from the other roles; if I were to separate them from one another, they would all suffer.  Granted, there are times when one or the other role becomes overwhelming and, in those moments, I try to give myself grace and remind myself that “good enough is good enough,” she says.

Parenting in Modern Times

Dr Poklar suggests that parenting in the 21st century is particularly difficult due to the considerable technological advances.  Parents of teens today never had AI, their social media was MySpace or the beginning stages of Facebook.  The researchers keep pushing the age of adolescence further and further back, suggesting differing social and developmental norms. Parents can’t parent based on what they remember of childhood or adolescence because childhood and adolescence look and feel different now.  “We have to constantly educate ourselves, while also acknowledging that in this information age, everything we do is both 100% correct and 100% ruining our child’s life, depending on where we are getting out information!” she says. 

That being said, her top 2 suggestions to parents are to purposefully live their values and to lead with love. “If every big decision you make is tied to the values that you want to uphold for yourself and your family, the likelihood that you are growing children that value the things you want them to is very high.  When you lead with love, the relationship with your child is at the forefront.  This means even when you misstep, which you will (likely often), your child knows they are loved.  To throw it in there, my favorite parenting phrase is “good enough parenting is good enough” by Donald Winnicott.  I love that the reality is the best parents are the ones who aren’t perfect!  It is so affirming in a space where we often feel like we have to be superparents,” she shares.

Miles To Cover

Others might see Dr Poklar’s career as one with several milestones, but for her, it is difficult to identify moments in her career that she is proud of.  She explains the reason with an allegory in which an individual climbs the tallest mountain they can find, only to get to the top and see there are taller mountains in the distance.  So, they climb the tallest of those, only to find taller again.  And the story goes on and on.  That is what she experiences in her work…reaching what she thought was the pinnacle, only to identify the next goal.  She tries to be good about celebrating each mountaintop, but it is hard to identify which ones make her most proud. 

“If I had to identify something, it would be even getting to the point of a doctorate, particularly as I am a first-generation college student.  Then, it would be creating a career path that allows me to be a homeschooling mother, so I can achieve success in my career without giving up the connection with my children.  Finally, every specific individual child whom I interact with, every parent, every teacher, and every social worker who I influence in a way that makes the life of even a single child better is a moment to be proud of–even if I can’t fully describe the impact, knowing it happens is enough,” she says.

That said, her personal vision for Sentinel Foundation is that they continue to build and strengthen their partnerships both in the US and abroad, allowing them to solidify being experts in the field of anti-human trafficking, leveraging relationships, and ensuring rescues truly mean a life free of further abuse for the youth with whom they interact, directly or indirectly.  She would love to see the Foundation equip other organizations with the knowledge and skills necessary to build strong foundational partnerships, investigative practices, and operational procedures that ensure no child falls through the cracks.  

“Also, I would love to become a leader in the field of building strong communities of care that serve to prevent trafficking from occurring, arming parents, teachers, and community members with the knowledge necessary to spot and intervene in potential grooming situations,” concludes Dr. Poklar

A Quote to Live By:

One quote that Dr Ashley Poklar lives by (she actually quoted it in her dissertation) is: “Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible” by Albert Einstein.  

“The only way to make true, lasting, and systemic change in the world of human trafficking is to actually attempt it and to attempt it differently than it has been attempted before.  I live my life by these words, asking myself has it been done?  No?  Can it be done?  Maybe?  Then give it a try!”

Quote: “Sentinel Foundation’s mission is to counter child exploitation and provide crisis response to preserve human life.”