Melissa Kaiser serves as Director of Advocacy for the NCPTF.
Melissa is a licensed social worker with specialized expertise in anti-human trafficking efforts, multi-disciplinary team development, and addressing secondary traumatic stress and officer wellness. She brings a wealth of knowledge as a certified trainer in Green Dot, Compassion Fatigue, GEMS, Stand to Protect, My Life My Choice, and SHARP. Additionally, Melissa is trained in Child Welfare and Safe Zone. Over the past decade, she has provided national and international training and technical assistance to professionals working with victims and survivors of human trafficking.
Melissa currently serves as the Director of Advocacy for the National Child Protection Task Force (NCPTF) and is a member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's (NCMEC) Family Advocacy Network. She also maintains or has held contracts with organizations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), OUR Rescue, the National Criminal Justice Training Center (NCJTC), and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC).
Her diverse background includes case management and crisis response for human trafficking victims and survivors, treatment foster care, youth homelessness, victim/witness programming, prevention education, and work in psychiatric and addiction services. Notably, Melissa served as the first Human Trafficking Navigator and Victim/Witness Specialist in North Dakota, spearheading a decade of program development in the state. In 2020, she was nominated for the YWCA's Women of the Year award. In addition, she is a board member of the Fargo Police Foundation.
Since its inception in 2016, Melissa was an active member of the North Dakota Human Trafficking Task Force and assisted in the development of programming, multi-disciplinary teams, and response to victims to include Tribal Nations. She was the chair of the Lived Experience Subcommittee and vice-chair of the Labor Trafficking Subcommittee.
With over 15 years of experience in social work, Melissa has witnessed firsthand the toll that high-stress, high-pressure environments take on professionals. This led her to develop trainings and resources to help organizations better understand vicarious trauma and support wellness in their teams.
Throughout her career, Melissa has trained over 13,000 students and professionals, presenting at notable conferences such as IAHTI, GRIT Wyoming, Shared Hope, IACP, NCPTF, Dallas Crimes Against Children, National Cyber Crimes, and IHTSJ. Her expertise spans topics such as human trafficking, team building and development, Tribal Nations, trauma-informed interviews and approaches, secondary traumatic stress, and the creation of wellness programs for first responders.
Currently based in St. Petersburg, FL, Melissa continues to offer training and consulting services internationally.
