Never send online messages to strangers. Keep personal details private from Internet predators’ prying eyes. Don’t post sexually provocative photos.

An estimated 1,740 freshmen and sophomores received tips on preventing human trafficking during training sessions this week at Toledo Public Schools’ six comprehensive high schools.

Mona Al-Hayani, a history teacher at Toledo Early College High School, spent her spring break voluntarily visiting other high schools.

On Friday, she took the message to Woodward High.

“This is not to scare you, and this is not to make you worried about talking to the old lady in the store at Kroger. It’s just to make sure that you know ways to keep yourself safe,” she told about 100 freshmen.

Last year in Ohio, law enforcement reported 102 human trafficking investigations that led to 104 arrests and 33 convictions, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office’s Human Trafficking Commission annual report, released in late January.

Ms. Al-Hayani has been working with the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition and the Toledo Federation of Teachers to train teachers, nurses, transportation employees, and students on the dangers of human trafficking. The goal is to offer training in all Lucas County schools.

In 2014, she presented the training she developed to about 2,600 TPS teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and nurses; and she followed that up with additional training to other school and coalition groups.

This year, the county coalition is focused on providing trafficking information to people who work in mental health systems, hospitals, and schools, said Celia Williamson, director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo and a member of the coalition’s executive committee.

Teaching people how to identify potential victims is part of the effort, and Ms. Al-Hayani’s work has helped expand that to include high school students.

“The schools are really interested in getting their kids educated and protected,” Ms. Williamson said.

Ms. Al-Hayani’s presentation Friday centered on sex trafficking, which she said is a problem in Toledo that affects youth.

Traffickers target the most vulnerable — runaways, those in foster care, abuse victims, those who have been through the court system or who use drugs and alcohol, she said. They may lure victims at spots where teens hang out, juvenile centers, and shopping centers. Many victims are trafficked online, groomed through social media interactions, and brought into bad situations, she said.

Avoid live-streaming with strangers, shield personal information, and only add people you know in real life as friends on social media networks, she advised.

School officials deal on a weekly basis with problematic social media posts because students don’t understand how the information they put online is perceived and who might view it, said Woodward principal Jack Renz.

TFT President Kevin Dalton said the teachers union has taken a lead in supporting efforts to provide human trafficking training because the better prepared students are when they enter a classroom, the better positioned they will be to succeed.

“We really took on this role and this responsibility because we see this as one of the epidemics that’s impacting the students in Toledo,” he said.

Contact Vanessa McCray at: vmccray@theblade.com or 419-724-6065, or on Twitter @vanmccray.

First Published March 12, 2016, 5:00 a.m.