Oakland-based Samuel Merritt University announced Thursday that it will use $1 million in California state budget funding to launch a new institute devoted to training health workers to spot and respond to human trafficking and violence.
The money, championed by state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, D-Oakland, will create the SMU Trauma-Informed Health Education, Research and Innovation on Violence and Exploitation — or THRIVE — Institute, the university said. Arreguín and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee joined SMU for a morning press conference at its downtown Oakland campus. The same budget package includes a separate $1 million for the City of Oakland's Department of Violence Prevention, EdSource and the university reported.
Building on a program that already trained hundreds
THRIVE will sit inside SMU's Center for Community Engagement and Ethnic Health Institute. University leaders said it expands an existing trafficking-prevention and response program that has trained nearly 700 current and future healthcare professionals since 2022, working with Oakland's MISSSEY and other partners, and that won a 2024 American Association of Colleges of Nursing innovations award.
Assistant nursing professor Sarah Koster, who helped launch that earlier training after seeing gaps while supervising students in clinical placements, said in the university's statement that most trafficking survivors encounter a healthcare worker while being trafficked, yet only about 30% of healthcare workers say they feel prepared to respond. EdSource noted that SMU trains the largest number of nurses in the greater East Bay.
What the $2 million buys locally
With its share, SMU plans a regional continuing-education academy, expanded training across its four campuses, published toolkits other schools can use, trauma-informed services through clinics and survivor-serving groups — including a master of social work fellowship offering free behavioral health care — burnout support for front-line violence-response workers, perinatal-health research, and youth prevention programming. Over five years the university expects to reach several thousand students, clinicians, patients and community members.
Oakland's matching $1 million is earmarked for wellness and leadership development for crisis intervention workers and for job training through Cypress Mandela Training Center for people leaving cycles of violence, Mayor Lee said. For East Bay clinics and survivors, the paired grants mean more trained eyes in exam rooms and more supports outside them — if the new institute can scale the model Arreguín said SMU has already proven.