Preventing Sexual Violence on Campus

Challenging Traditional Approaches through Program Innovation

Sara Carrigan Wooten, Roland W. Mitchell, Sara Carrigan Wooten, Roland W. Mitchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781134974917
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Amid the ongoing national conversation regarding campus sexual assault, this book thoughtfully explores existing programmatic interventions while wrestling with fundamental questions regarding the cultural shifts in our nation's higher education institutions. Stressing the critical importance of student inclusion in policy decisions and procedures, scholars and experts provide complex and nuanced analyses of institutional practices, while exploring themes of race, sexuality, and sexual freedom. This volume addresses many of the unanswered questions in the present dialogue on campus sexual violence, including: What's working and not working? How can outcomes be assessed or measured? What resources are needed to ensure success? This volume provides a truly fresh contribution for higher education and student affairs practitioners seeking to alter, design, or implement effective sexual assault prevention resources at their universities and colleges.

PART I

Students as Partners and Stakeholders

1
BLENDING VICTIM ADVOCACY AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION WHEN TRAINING STUDENT VOLUNTEERS ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES

Traci Thomas-Card and Katie Eichele

If you build it, they will come. For nearly 30 years, our campus peer advocacy and prevention education program has activated students from diverse academic, gender, and racial/ethnic backgrounds to contribute their time and energy to fight sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking on campus. Each year, our program, based at a large, Midwest, Research Institution, receives inquiries from colleges and universities of all sizes, both private and public, from states and countries all over the world, wanting to learn more about the work our student volunteers do and how our program is set up to train them. We have witnessed through trial and triumph that peer programs allow students to connect with each other effectively while providing campus-based victim advocacy services and prevention education.

As more campuses try to meet the growing needs of their students, a number of institutions are utilizing peer education programs on a variety of topics such as high risk drinking, mental health issues, academics, and leadership. Campuses that have sexual violence prevention programs have been successful at improving awareness and decreasing attitudes that support victim-blaming and rape culture, and increasing bystander intervention efforts on college campuses (Casey & Lindhorst, 2009; Palm Reed, Hines, Armstrong, & Cameron, 2015). However, comprehensive programs that provide both prevention education and peer sexual assault crisis counseling and advocacy services are not as common on campuses.

With 1 in 5 college women experiencing rape or attempted rape while in college and 1 in 71 men and 1 in 2 transgender individuals experiencing rape in their lifetime (Kenagy, 2005; Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2007; Black et al., 2011), campuses have had to increase their prevention efforts while simultaneously improving their response strategies. Why is it so helpful to have a comprehensive program that provides both victim advocacy services and prevention education on campuses? Aside from navigating the many protocols and systems that exist within colleges and universities, victim/survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence say their decision-making actually improved when they utilized victim services (Bennet, Riger, Schewe, Howard, & Wasco, 2004). A comprehensive program may ultimately help students access more services and increase the number of reports to authorities. Bennet et al. (2004) found that victim/survivor self-efficacy and coping skills increased through victim advocacy programs, which can help retention and graduation rates of student victims/ survivors. Additionally, peer sexual violence prevention education programs have been found to increase bystander intervention behavior to stop or prevent sexual assaults (Coker et al., 2011; McMahon, Banyard, & McMahon, 2015). Therefore, campuses benefit from having peer advocacy and prevention education programs that train students to teach their peers about violence prevention as well as to be sexual assault advocates who provide crisis counseling, campus-specific information, resources, and referrals.

Before volunteers ever answer a 24-hour hotline call or stand in front of peers to talk about consent or bystander intervention, we ask that they complete a comprehensive 40-hour sexual assault crisis counseling training curriculum. We do this so they can familiarize themselves with the knowledge and skills required to inform and support others around these complex issues. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (2015), nearly every state has domestic violence or sexual assault advocates and subsequent training for those positions. The peer advocacy and prevention education training model we discuss in this chapter mirrors many standard sexual assault crisis counseling trainings already established for community victim advocacy agencies. With the extensive experience we have implementing a campus-based student-focused sexual assault counselor and prevention education training, unique challenges and campus-specific nuances have been discovered that can provide guidance to facilitators hoping to implement a 40-hour campus-based advocacy training at their own institutions.

Our previous work identifies the key components to consider when creating a campus-based sexual violence program: policy development, peer leadership/ advocacy, direct services, education programs, and the importance of creating on-campus and off-campus collaborations to address sexual violence (Thomas-Card & Eichele, 2014). This chapter outlines factors for higher education institutions to consider when creating a comprehensive 40-hour advocacy training for student volunteers who will serve as direct service advocates and violence prevention educators. We begin by addressing the critical nature of student involvement in the movement to prevent sexual violence on college campuses, and assert the need for college campuses to craft a training that is compliant with institutional policy as well as state and federal laws. Next, we outline four pillars to execute such a training: (1) training development, (2) training design, (3) training implementation, and (4) training assessment. We discuss the challenges in developing a 40-hour campus-based training and offer potential solutions that may be used in resolving these issues. We conclude with suggestions to consider in adapting this training model to meet the needs of a wide variety of institutions.

Student Involvement

Most campuses are aware that responding to and preventing sexual and intimate partner violence is a multidisciplinary team effort, requiring strategic planning and assessment, staff to execute those plans, and input from administrators, faculty, staff, and most importantly students to influence the processes. Students must be involved in planning and implementing prevention and response strategies to effectively change student behavior. Berkowitz (2010) suggests students often underestimate their peers’ discomfort with problem behavior or may feel certain problematic behavior is the norm, and thus hesitate to take appropriate and healthy action. However, through effective peer education and by utilizing a social norms approach where students become the face of social change for each other by encouraging and validating individuals to engage in healthy behaviors (Berkowitz, 2010).

Student Motivations to Volunteer

We know that students are more likely to listen and respond to their peers (Fabiano, Perkins, Berkowitz, Linkenbach, & Stark, 2003). Therefore, we need students teaching students about sexual assault prevention. But how do we get volunteers to show up to begin teaching on such complex issues? Cnaan et al. (2010) indicate students participate in service learning or volunteer opportunities for several important reasons: (1) to help someone in their community, (2) to learn new work-related skills, and (3) to gain experience to benefit their future. Soria and Thomas-Card (2014) revealed similar findings in their study on students’ motivations to continue service postgraduation, which revealed that “many college students may pursue community service experiences because of an inherent interest, their belief that they can become better citizens and effect positive change in communities, and perceiving service affording opportunities to learn in different contexts” (p. 61). Our own peer advocacy and education training model is designed to address and promote interests and beliefs that encourage civic behavior among college students.

Public activism efforts clearly demonstrate that students care about sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Not only do they care, but they also want to make a difference. Becoming advocates, educators, or activists are a few ways students attempt to make change. Sometimes, students get involved after experiencing institutional betrayal or “wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution against individuals who trust, or are dependent on that institution” (Smith, Gomez, & Freyd, 2014, p. 459). The desire to do advocacy or activism often comes from experiencing or witnessing marginalization and wanting to create safe spaces (Linder, 2015). Other times, students get involved in advocacy, peer education, and activism efforts for motivations such as the ones described earlier in this section. Linder (2015) believes being an activist includes being informed and raising awareness about oppression and trying to create welcoming and inclusive environments. Our 40-hour advocacy training is designed with this idea in mind, so student-volunteers learn the knowledge and skills needed to create these kinds of open spaces. Students’ motivations to become involved in the campus antisexual violence movement as advocates or prevention educators are important for training coordinators to consider in recruiting volunteers, developing curriculum, and assessing their training models.

Compliance

In this section, we examine federal or state compliance needs that facilitators should consider when developing victim advocacy and education trainings and programs. In order to ensure the advocacy and education training is in compliance and meets any and all state criteria, we recommend contacting the state sexual assault coalition, if available. The U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women’s local resources website (2015) provides access to state coalitions where facilitators can learn if any curriculum standards exist for training sexual assault advocates as well as learn of any state statutes that exist for maintaining the “sexual assault counselor” title (U.S. DOJ, 2015).

Staff at the state sexual assault coalition may be able to provide campus-based centers with technical assistance, guidance, training resources, train the trainer opportunities, or contacts of other agencies that can help set up a volunteer training. Some states do not have compliance standards for sexual assault counselors or the state coalition is inactive; in this situation, the United States Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) provides numerous grants and has worked with many colleges and universities to start advocacy and prevention education programs on campuses.

OVC also provides excellent resources through the Training and Technical Assistance Center’s Sexual Assault Advocate/Counselor Training website on what to train advocates on and how to provide competent, effective crisis intervention services. Completing the training through OVC’s resources however does not certify trainees as advocates or counselors. That certification is often given at the state level or a recognized victim advocacy agency. Certification is important for providing advocates or educators confidentiality privilege regarding sexual assault, intimate partner violence, stalking, or sexual harassment disclosures, so as not to interfere with federal laws and campus policies outlining “responsible employees” or campus employees or positions that are obligated to report incidents of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, stalking, or sexual harassment to the institution.

Campus advocacy and prevention services funded through a Department of Justice or state grant often provide training requirements for staff and volunteers that can assist facilitators in determining the criteria needed to establish a 40-hour advocacy training. An example of a federal grant that helped our campus program successfully implement volunteer training is the STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Violence Against Women Formula Grants Program. Specifically, STOP grants help programs shape court advocacy skills, safety planning, crisis counseling services, answering hotline calls, medical advocacy, legal advocacy, and assisting victim/survivors with other mental health issues. Students who have completed our 40-hour advocacy training may accompany victim/survivors to a court hearing, to provide information regarding how to obtain harassment restraining orders or orders for protection, to support a victim/survivor at the hospital during a sexual assault examination, and to provide crisis counseling. Advocates in our program regularly offer these support services to victim/survivors who contact our helpline or come to our office. It is important for colleges and universities to determine early in their planning the scope of responsibilities for student-advocates, as doing so will assist training coordinators in determining the curriculum for the 40-hour training.

In addition to the services listed above, campus programs also have to be prepared to provide student-specific advocacy around academics, financial needs, housing options, and university conduct and Title IX systems advocacy. A prominent state coalition ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Students as Partners and Stakeholders
• Part II Challenging Assumptions About Race, Gender, and Sexuality
• Part III Ending Rape Culture as a Campus-Wide Mission
• Afterword: The Anti-Campus Sexual Assault Activism Movement Under Title IX
• List of Contributors
• Index