Women’s Home

Women's Home Program

The Women’s Home Program was created to provide a home and a family atmosphere for victims and survivors of human trafficking. It is a safe and compassionate environment where women who have suffered sexual exploitation and trafficking can begin to heal.

The Home is a beautiful 5,500 square foot refuge that offers a warm and loving environment that the women call their home. Our passion is to help every woman find love, healing, joy and, peace by choosing to work through her pain with our multidisciplinary support team provided to those in our program and receiving services.

The Home is the first and only of its kind in the state of Nebraska. We are the only faith-based home with both a short and long-term therapeutic treatment program specifically created only for survivors of human trafficking and exploitation. We allow our survivors to stay for up to two years and provide them in-depth trauma counseling, case management, free tattoo branding removal and cover-up, and free legal services during this time. We understand that each woman is in a different place in her healing, thus, we individualize treatment to give her the best care possible. We also focus on education, financial literacy, job training, career strengths and aim to teach her the much-needed life skills so that she can thrive and live independently.

Round-the-clock staff is present in the home to provide support, companionship, and safety for each survivor especially throughout the night as that is typically the most difficult time for her.

Key Objectives

Restored Wings has designed a program that utilizes paid and volunteer staff, therapists, mentors, processing groups, and psychoeducational classes to address the 10-steps of trauma recovery outlined in the Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy treatment model adapted for trafficking survivors by Becca C. Johnson, PhD. While the residential program is our primary focus, Restored Wings recognizes that there are many women who need and desire this type of intervention but may not qualify or choose to live at Restored Wings Home. Therefore, non-residents may apply to participate in day only programming.

The non-resident survivors still benefit from all the services as women who are residents. These women have secured safe housing elsewhere, yet still, need the support of Restored Wings on their path to wellness. The Restored Wings staff and volunteers undergo training on creating a secure foundation for trauma survivors. We provide a high level of care and always seek best practices. By providing the much-needed love and compassion, consistency and boundaries in our program, we set every program participant up for success.

Provides unconditional love and compassion for each survivor regardless of race or religious beliefs.

Make available opportunities for survivors to attend support groups, addiction groups, DBT, prayer, Bible studies, crisis intervention services, and other special activities throughout their stay.

Meet the needs of survivors with ongoing therapy by trained counselors and social workers. This includes a Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy program with a ten-step process. This leads each survivor to a place where she can verbalize her abuse and find emotional healing.

Provide access through our partners in the community for free legal and tattoo removal and cover-up services for those in the Restored Wings program.

Residents and day program participants benefit from life-skill classes focused on health and wellness.

Integrate survivors into a loving, safe community of support that provides assistance while addressing pressing legal, medical, and emotional needs.

Restored Wings works with other organizations to help recover survivors from situations and to find a temporary safe place to stay if needed until a long-term solution is found whether at our Restored Wings home or with another organization. We do what is best for her, not ourselves.

Services Provided by Restored Wings

At Restored Wings, our survivors pay no rent or fees. It is mandatory that she work or attend school part-time while living in the home once she has medical clearance from her therapist and is ready to re-enter the workforce or classroom setting. The home is open to help victims of human trafficking, any woman 19 years or older who is a survivor of any form of sexual exploitation and trafficking.

Restored Wings understands that healing is a process and we provide as many tools as possible to help her in this journey throughout her stay as well as our Aftercare Program. Graduation is only the beginning of a life of continued healing. There is no real completion or graduation when recovering from such abuse, control, and addiction, but it does mean that this is where the real journey begins.

Services Restored Wings provides:

Mental Health and Therapeutic Services

Mental Health Therapy

Survivors of human trafficking often deal with a tremendous amount of complex trauma, abuse, and addiction. Processing the psychological consequences of human sex trafficking in Nebraska and elsewhere requires long-term, comprehensive therapy. Mental health therapy is typically based on one or more theories of psychological treatment, the most prominent being behavioral, cognitive, and psychodynamic.

Behavioral therapy focuses on increasing desired behaviors and decreasing problem behaviors through environmental manipulation. Cognitive therapy works to change behaviors and feelings by altering how patients comprehend and understand significant life experiences. Psychodynamic therapy explains behavior and personality as being motivated by inner forces including past experiences, inherited instincts, and biological drives. It targets the patient’s subconscious.

It is common for human trafficking survivors to have depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or a more severe diagnosis such as Disorders of Extreme Stress (DESNOS). Trafficked survivors are often misunderstood and suffer from the mental health condition Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). According to The Cleveland Clinic, those with (DID) have two or more separate personalities that control a person’s behavior at different times. DID can cause gaps in memory and other problems. Various types of psychotherapy can help people manage the symptoms of DID.

Restored Wings understands that healing is a process and we provide as many tools as possible to help on this journey. Our counselors recognize that survivors of sex trafficking in Nebraska and elsewhere require additional techniques to build rapport with them and to reduce the mistrust that they commonly have about people. To best serve survivors, treatment approaches need to remain centered on survivors, empower them, provide safety and involve a multidisciplinary approach as well as her aftercare post program completion.

Therapeutic Support

We provide free counseling with our staff of licensed therapists who are dedicated to walking beside these women as they heal. We are aware of the various needs of the women we serve and we have strategically partnered with counselors who offer a variety of different types of therapy and treatment.

They include:

EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Complex trauma counseling
Equine therapy
Animal-assisted therapy
Drug and alcohol abuse counseling
Dialectical behavioral training
Art therapy

Our counselors are dedicated to the survivors of sex trafficking in Nebraska and elsewhere in our program and are passionate about enhancing their freedom and restoring their inner joy. Our counselors and therapists are happy to provide counseling AT NO CHARGE to women in our Restored Wings program and other survivors within our organization.

The counselors at Restored Wings provide whatever type of mental health support and counseling our residents need to help them achieve their goals and regain their self-confidence and sense of self worth.

* Source

Legal Support

Legal consultations and services are provided for human trafficking survivors in either our day or residential programs. They are provided free of charge by one of our legal partners in the community.

Some of the matters that our partner helps the survivor with include:

Housing and landlord-tenant disputes
Immigration
Custody
Representation during criminal charges against the victim
Identity theft

Branding Tattoo Removal

Restored Wings offers free branding tattoo removal for survivors of human sex trafficking in Omaha who are currently in our day and/or residential program through one of our partners.

Each tattoo branding that a victim receives is a constant reminder of the bondage she suffered at the hands of her trafficker. Branding tattoo removal is an essential part of her healing and recovery process while in our Restored Wings Program.

You can learn more about branding tattoo removal here and here.

Ritual Abuse Trafficking (RA, SRA, ORA) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Restored Wings is the only anti-trafficking organization providing housing and services for survivors in Nebraska that specializes in ritual abuse trafficking. RW is one of the only organizations in the United States that allow ritual abuse trafficking survivors with dissociative identity disorder to enter the program.

It is vital and is mandatory for the Restored Wings staff to attend regularly scheduled RA training so they are equipped to care for the individuals who have experienced RA. Learning best practices and creating new policies geared toward RA training is vital to the success of the Restored Wings Program.

As of June 2022, RW has seen an influx of RA survivors come through our doors. Over the past three years, approximately 80% of the women we serve have previously experienced RA trafficking. The majority of the women were children when the abuse and trafficking began and we continue to help adults who were raised with a history of RA. Childhood RA trauma lasts well into adulthood and have widespread negative effects on that adult’s life. This is why we believe in giving the RA survivors a chance.

Testimonials From Restored Wings Residents

“I no longer cry in tears of despair I cry because He has rescued me and set me free forever!” 11/23/21

RW Resident, “Esther”

“Being a part of the Restored Wings family, I’ve been able to build a community of women who have shown me that my past no longer defines who I am. I no longer feel like a burden.” 12/24/19

RW Resident

“I had been taken to many different locations under the power and control of human traffickers, little did I know the painful reality was it was the results of my mother’s greed. I finally decided I no longer wanted to do drugs, suddenly I wanted to plot my escape once and for all. I made a run for it, I ran and ran until I came to a pancake restaurant where two police officers sat. I went to the ER and then MIRACULOUSLY got onto a plane to Restored Wings with no I.D. arriving with only one outfit and small bag from the hospital. That’s a small part of the story of how God saved me and RW is a miracle that God sent me. I no longer am sleeping outside and strung out on drugs, I no longer have to stay awake and be scared of getting kidnapped and I am no longer being sold for unwanted sexual favors! RW reflects God’s character, and I am BEYOND blessed. Praise God.” 10/31/21
“Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it” ~ Luke 17:33

RW Resident

“Restored Wings has given me a place and the space to heal, and to relearn social skills healthy habits of everyday living.” 4/3/19

RW Program Graduate

Women’s Home

Women's Home Program

Key Objectives