Sexual assault is a world-wide issue that effects individuals of all genders, races, sexual orientations and socioeconomic status. There are preventative steps that can be taken to help reduce the number of sexual assaults that occur on our college campuses.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
The Importance of Bystander Intervention in Sexual Assault Prevention
After the introduction of the new federal mandates related to sexual assault reporting and education on college campuses, the new mandates can be found here notalone.gov, there has been an increase in the number of bystander intervention programs that are being created to help prevent sexual assaults. Bystander intervention is when a witness to a potentially violent crime steps in and attempts to prevent the crime from occurring (Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault, 2010). I have created a bystander intervention training for the students at UT Dallas that addresses sexual assault, dating violence, suicide, and any other potentially violent act that may occur on campus. My goal is to let students know that they have the power to step in and prevent these acts from happening on their campus. While creating this program I found a video that shows how bystander intervention can play a role in preventing sexual assaults in situations that many college students may face. I believe this is a great example of what can be included in a bystander intervention training that includes sexual assault.
Preventing sexual assaults on college campuses does take a number of different approaches and educational components and bystander intervention should be one of them. If students step in in the situations shown in the video, there may be a reduced number of sexual assaults on college campuses across the country.
References
Notalone.gov (2014). Schools. Retrieved from www.notalone.gov
Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault (2010). Bystander intervention. Retrieved from http://mscasa.org/bystander-intervention/
Whoareyou.co.nz (2011). www.whoareyou.co.nz [video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=iUj2OHLAG3w
Kacey, You'll either have 3 comments from me or none! My comment keeps getting swallowed!
At any rate, I think you did a great job on your brochure and presentation. It's a very important topic, and the fact that you've boiled it down to an hour presentation will likely make it easier to get and keep your audience's attention. It's also smart that you've made it so portable - it can go all over a campus and to every residence hall. It's an important topic that all students need to hear, especially those living on campus for the first time. Nice job. Kelly
Kacey,
ReplyDeleteYou'll either have 3 comments from me or none! My comment keeps getting swallowed!
At any rate, I think you did a great job on your brochure and presentation. It's a very important topic, and the fact that you've boiled it down to an hour presentation will likely make it easier to get and keep your audience's attention. It's also smart that you've made it so portable - it can go all over a campus and to every residence hall. It's an important topic that all students need to hear, especially those living on campus for the first time. Nice job.
Kelly