A Chillicothe organization that stands beside survivors of human trafficking will have new state support for that work. The Garden Family Advocacy Center in Ross County has been awarded $16,335.66 through Ohio’s Direct Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Grant Program, according to a community announcement reported by the Chillicothe Gazette.
The award is part of more than $2 million being distributed statewide by the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services to organizations serving trafficking survivors, the Gazette reported. The Office of Criminal Justice Services is a division of the Ohio Department of Public Safety and serves as the state’s lead justice planning and assistance office.
The state funding can support the practical work that determines whether a survivor can rebuild a life: victim advocacy, mental health services, education and employment assistance, and shelter and housing programs, according to the Gazette’s report of the announcement. The program is intended to address both sex trafficking and labor trafficking in Ohio.
That mix of services matters in a county like Ross. Survivors who come forward — through law enforcement, a hospital, a school or a call for help — often need several kinds of support at once: a safe place to stay, counseling, help navigating the court system, and a path to a job and stable housing. A local advocacy center is where those pieces are put together, and grant funding like this award is what keeps the staff and services in place between crises.
Ohio’s commitment to funding survivor services directly is relatively recent. Gov. Mike DeWine launched the grant program in 2023, the Gazette reported, and the state’s fiscal 2026-27 operating budget continued funding for it, administered by the Office of Criminal Justice Services. The Ross County award shows that money reaching beyond Ohio’s big cities into the smaller communities where trafficking also occurs — along the highway corridors and in the towns of southern Ohio, not only in metropolitan areas.
For the Garden Family Advocacy Center, the $16,335.66 is not a headline-sized check, but in a small nonprofit’s budget it is the kind of money that funds real hours of advocacy and counseling for real families in Ross County. State officials designed the program on the premise that survivor services work best when they are local, delivered by people who know the courts, the shelters and the employers in the survivor’s own community.
The award also arrives in a season when Ross County organizations are leaning on each other. Later this month, the county’s Rural Health Day will offer free food, haircuts and health help to residents, and Chillicothe’s downtown is seeing new investment aimed at jobs and small business. Survivor services are the quieter part of that same safety net — rarely visible until a family needs them, and essential when that day comes.
Understanding what trafficking looks like in Ohio helps explain why the state funds local centers rather than running services from Columbus. Trafficking cases in the state have involved both labor exploitation and sex trafficking, and victims are often identified first by someone local — a teacher, a nurse, a deputy or a caseworker who notices the signs. A county advocacy center trains those front-line professionals, answers the call when a case surfaces, and then stays with the survivor through recovery, which can take months or years rather than days.
The statewide structure behind the Garden center’s award is built for exactly that long arc. Because the Office of Criminal Justice Services distributes the money to organizations in communities across Ohio, a survivor identified in Ross County does not have to travel to a distant city for advocacy or counseling. The help is in Chillicothe, from people who know the county’s courts, landlords, employers and treatment providers — and who will still be there when the next case comes in.
What happens next is the work itself: the Garden Family Advocacy Center will put the grant to use across the service categories the state program covers — advocacy, mental health support, education and employment assistance, and housing help — for trafficking survivors in Ross County. Residents who need help, or who suspect someone is being trafficked, can reach out to local law enforcement or the advocacy center; Ohio’s trafficking hotline also connects callers to local services.
Related coverage: Free Food, Haircuts and Health Help at Ross County Rural Health Day Nov. 19 and Chillicothe Downtown Incubator Gets $32,000 Boost Toward 10 New Jobs.