At Spokeo, we understand that information has the power to connect people, change lives, and build better futures. Our Spokeo Scholarship recognizes students who are committed to using knowledge and technology to help others. In Spring 2014, one such student stood out: Ashley S. Dillon, a psychology major from Port St. John, Florida, attending the University of Central Florida.
Ashley’s dedication to helping trauma survivors goes far beyond the classroom. As a student and intern at Out of the Life, a nonprofit helping individuals escape the sex trafficking industry, she’s seen firsthand how access to data and community resources can save lives. Her passion for this work is personal, informed by the experience of supporting a close friend through the aftermath of sexual trauma—an event that shaped both her academic focus and life’s mission.
In her winning essay below, Ashley makes a compelling case for the importance of accessible, actionable data in mental health, trauma recovery, and community support. From leveraging databases like Resource Point to advocating for prostitution diversion courts, Ashley argues that data isn’t just for researchers—it’s for anyone trying to build a more compassionate, informed society.
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Her essay is more than an academic reflection; it’s a blueprint for how technology, psychology, and empathy can come together to create systemic change. Read Ashley’s full essay below, and see why she was selected as our Spring 2014 scholarship winner.
Open and easy access to data is a potentially life changing thing for many individuals. Changing the world means making a positive impact in the lives of individuals on a mass scale, touching lives as far as our arms can reach and holding on to as many people in need as our fingers can grasp. So much of the way we reach people in need isn’t done in the ‘organic’ way that we typically think of when we consider helping others. Today, many helping tasks are organized and executed online through donating to and advertising for charities, general resource sharing, and making connections such as reuniting individuals with their biological parents, providing a person with the information they need to make the jump from college to a career or get their GED, exit an abusive relationship, or even receive therapy. Having access to all kinds of data, even if not research related, is vitally important to the success of our society.
I am a psychology major with a minor in cognitive sciences at the University of Central Florida. I am also an intern at a fantastic organization called Out of the Life. We are a small non-profit group that helps women, men and children exit the sex trafficking industry. We run on donations, miracles and most importantly, information. We are always looking at research to give us more information on how to best serve our clients. One of the ways we perform our own miniature miracles is through using an extensive database called Resource Point. This database allows us to enter basic information and the pressing needs of our clients into a searchable site where local organizations within our community can help us to meet these needs. Additionally, we can do the same thing for other organizations in return. If there aren’t enough beds at another organization such as Harbor House to house the current influx of people in need, we can see this and offer our housing to those individuals if we happen to have slots available. We have actually been able to do just that several times this year alone. Additionally, if an organization has an individual whose needs they are not equipped to meet, say a rape victim, they can notify us so that we can open our doors to him or her. None of these things would be possible without access to this information. Informational transactions are crucial.
To give a little back story, the reason I became involved in studying sexual trauma is through a close friend of mine and a particular traumatic event she endured that occurred when we were in high school. In the aftermath of her trauma, I felt like I was watching my best friend die from the inside out ever so slowly. Her personality completely changed. She was once a feisty, opinionated girl who didn’t take anything from anyone and always stood her ground. In the months, and now years, that have passed she has become the most passive and insecurely docile person I have ever encountered. She lost her fight and the will to be true to herself because, frankly, she doesn’t have any idea of who she really is. Sexual trauma robbed her of her identity and sense of self. Even today, I cannot convince her to seek treatment, even with studying and working in the field full of people who would help put her back together if given the chance. I believe this would be entirely different if she had been given access to the resources she needed when the trauma first occurred. She was incredibly ashamed of what happened and, for a while, I was the only person who knew. I hated being held to a promise of silence and did all that I could to talk her into seeing someone, even if just a counselor at school. She was afraid that word would travel, and honestly, rightly so.
Confidentiality is more delicate than one might think.
Data and resources should be made readily available to people in a variety of settings, not just in a counselor’s office or lobby where taking specific pamphlets is overtly conspicuous. Online support group sites (Psych Forums, for example) are a great way to circumvent issues like this either as a supplement to therapy or to help those too ashamed to seek therapy. Communities like these share vast quantities of information including social contacts i.e. names and numbers of friends, social workers, counselors, therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists (many of whom are becoming certified in out-of-office therapy which is ideal for individuals unwilling to be seen at an office). They also share personal experiences and data from research studies. These groups can also help their members lead each other back into the light or even the office of a psychologist.
In regard to data in the more technical sense, I will soon be pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a focus on sexual trauma and the role of PTSD specific to this trauma. A decade or more of my life will be dedicated to research alone. The most disappointing thing about successful research is how poorly it is circulated. The amazing discovery that could revolutionize the treatment of an illness (say, introducing scent into virtual reality treatment for veterans with PTSD to assist in the habituation process, as is being done at the University of Central Florida under Dr. Biedel) often fails to make it beyond the grapevine of researchers. It’s a miracle if such discoveries make it into a pop psychology magazine like Psychology Today where it is privy to broad circulation. Thankfully, however scholastically unworthy they may seem, sites like Reddit, Stumble Upon, and even Facebook and YouTube are very much capable of breaking the barrier between the research lab and society at large. Data is ultimately useless if it is not shared.
To expound upon this issue and the importance of useful data, I am currently searching for a way to establish a pilot study on the success rate of Out of the Life. I hope to conduct a study using several verified psychological assessments such as the Quality of Life Inventory and the Hamilton Anxiety and Depression Scales, among others. I wish to have a pre, mid, and post-assessment for each willing participant. If my data were to yield statistically significant results, I can submit the results of the study to the Orange and Seminole county courthouses in order to further a main objective of Out of the Life – establishing a prostitution diversion court. This court would handle charges related to prostitution and in many cases individuals would be assigned to court-mandated therapy for the length of what would have been their jail sentence. This method allows the underlying issues that contribute to prostitution and entry into the sex trade to be tackled. They would receive therapy in three modes: individual, group, and art therapy. In addition, they would have personalized case management, social skills and job training, access to housing after meeting certain criteria (unless, of course, they are in crisis and need an immediate safe harbor), assistance recovering lost identification papers with the help of iDignity (a very common problem as traffickers often confiscate this documentation immediately), and aid obtaining a GED or applying for jobs and/or college. Without the database that Resource Point provides, our organization would be unable to connect with many of the sexual trauma victims we serve. Furthermore, we would not have many of our current partnerships with other local organizations if Resource Point had not been there to connect us for the greater good of the community.
Resource Point has provided Out of the Life with ample support and many wonderful opportunities to assist our clients. Keeping that in mind, it is not able to attest to the success of any of the organizations it connects and serves. This is where empirical data from research comes to the forefront of the discussion. Without the support of empirical data, a diversion court will never be a possibility for my community and the clients at Out of the Life. While we are strongly involved and have a respected reputation in the court systems of Orange and Seminole county, the courts have their hands tied in regard to setting up a diversion court, regardless of supportive data obtained from various other diversion courts across the country. These two courts want to see the concrete results of our specific organization before they grant us full support, and understandably so. That said, I want to see these courts up and running before I am out of grad school. That is what I want for the future of the clients we serve.
Data is information; information is knowledge; knowledge is the power to make a significant impact on the world, even if only in one specific sector like sexual trauma. I will be spending the rest of my life trying to find the answers to research hypotheses and filling in the gaps in the lives of the individuals with whom I will work. My life is putting people back together and I will touch as many people as I can in the course of my life. If I don’t have answers, how can I help my future clients find theirs?