Carissa Phelps

In 2012, Carissa Phelps, a licensed attorney, founded Runaway Girl, FPC, a flexible purpose corporation, to organize survivors of human trafficking around resources, networks, business, and local efforts to protect and care for survivors and victims within their own communities. Runaway Girl trainings improve protocols and responses to child sex trafficking within communities, while offering employment and career development opportunities to runaways, former runaways, and survivors of trafficking.

In 2007, Phelps earned both a Juris Doctorate from UCLA School of Law, and an MBA from UCLA Anderson. In 2010, she was recently named one of the top 100 inspirational graduates by UCLA Anderson. As 2012-2013 Visiting Author, Phelps has joined The Respect Institute in their efforts to institutionalize respect by reaching 30,000 foster and incarcerated youth with their Respect on the Inside program.

In her memoir, Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time, Phelps shares how the unexpected kindness of a math teacher and a counselor transformed her life and helped her become a mentor and advocate. After missing 7th, 8th and 9th grades, Phelps returned to a continuation school and graduated from high school in two and a half years. She still loves math and credits her BA in mathematics from Fresno State for preparing her for her MBA, for business, and for life! She graduated in 2002 with a BA in mathematics summa cum laude from Fresno State, and taught high school math for one year at Hanford High School.

Phelps is CEO Creating Employment Opportunities with Runaway Girl, FPC a training company that offers high quality experiential trainings to improve outcomes for youth in communities, by supporting and enhancing local efforts to protect and care for those at-risk. Training & Event Organization Raising Awareness. Strengthening Community

Founder of Runaway Girl--A California Flexible Purpose Corporation We're a training and event organization that aims to create employment opportunities for former runaways and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

We're raising awareness, building skills within communities, and offering opportunity to local survivor-leaders! Being an FPC means we were founded on a charitable purpose. We chose to exist is to employ and create career opportunities for former runaways and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.