Program creates safe haven

Students affected by sexual assault and relationship violence soon will be able to confide in faculty and staff equipped to handle difficult issues.

Women's centers at Duke University and UNC are sharing resources to launch the Helping Advocate Violence Ending Now program. The program, also sponsored by the UNC Dean of Students office, will train faculty and staff to help these students.

Funded by the Robertson Scholars Collaboration Fund, the initiative will tap into faculty and staff interactions with students. Organizers said affected students normally begin to seek support only when academic performance begins to suffer.

"Interpersonal violence and relational violence affect academic performance," said Chimi Boyd, assistant director of the Carolina Women's Center. "Faculty and staff are in a unique position to notice changing in performance."

The schools will hold separate training sessions that cover the basics of sexual and relationship violence, as well as ways that faculty and staff can guide students.

UNC Assistant Dean of Students Melinda Manning and Jean Leonard, sexual assault support services coordinator at Duke, will teach the sessions.

The first UNC training session is from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 28 in Union 2518A.

After completing the training, UNC participants will have a sign on their offices marking them as "safe places." More sessions are planned for the rest of the year.

The purpose of the sessions are two-fold, Manning said.

The first objective simply is to educate the faculty and staff about the problem of sexual assault. But the sessions, and the resulting "safe places," also should help serve affected students more effectively, she said.

"Students feel more comfortable talking to faculty and staff that they already know," Manning said.

Last year, 30 cases of sexual assault were reported on campus, Manning said, and reports of relationship violence and stalking are filed on a weekly basis.

"They're all too common," she said.

Next semester, students can participate in HAVEN by taking a class on gender violence offered through C-START - a program that allows undergraduates to create and teach their own courses.

"We'll examine violence from a cultural perspective," said UNC junior Lindsay Johnson, who will be teaching the course.

UNC organizers said they plan to train students in the spring.

The goal of any initiative, Leonard said, is to make violence awareness a part of everyday life.

"By having this network of staff and faculty and students who are knowledgeable about the complex issues, it may allow for different conversations in different and unexpected places on campus," she said.

"It's about changing campus climate."

 

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.