Chris Ash

Chris Ash (they/them) is an anti-violence advocate and educator who started their community healing work in 1994 as a suicide hotline counselor and LGBTQ activist/organizer. Currently, they are the Survivor Leadership Program Manager at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (Cast), where they manage the National Survivor Network.

Before coming to Cast, Ash was the Anti-Human Trafficking Specialist, and later the Prevention Education Program Manager, for the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NCCASA). As coalition staff, Ash provided training and technical assistance to rape crisis centers, dual domestic violence agencies, and human trafficking programs across the state. Before coming to NCCASA, Chris worked in sexual violence prevention and crisis response for a decade, answering hotlines, leading support groups, and providing hospital and legal accompaniment for survivors. Ash’s current work brings together lived experience and years of direct service and community-based consent and prevention education work, as well as graduate study in social justice, human rights, and gender theory. Ash is a member of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking and on the speaker’s bureaus for both Freedom Network USA and HEAL Trafficking and is known as a dynamic speaker, trainer, and writer. Their clients and collaborative partners include the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre, the University of Liverpool Centre for the Study of International Slavery, the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery, FreeFrom, Futures Without Violence, VALOR US, Survivors Agenda, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and the DHS Blue Campaign. They are passionate about violence prevention, harm reduction, and Full Frame Initiative’s Wellbeing Framework.

Their areas of expertise include: Violence prevention, Harm reduction, LGBTQ, Technical assistance, Survivor engagement