Prevention Education & the Intersections of Survivorship

A gender-based violence prevention educator shares her experiences of designing, implementing, and facilitating programming as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

Hello, and welcome to my first blog post!

The closest thing I’ve done to a blog post is when I would write in my Livejournal account in high school but I don’t think that counts. So here goes nothing!

I was given the prompt of ‘what should high schoolers be learning about?” in regard to violence prevention, sexual health, etc. Tons of people typically have a knee jerk reaction and are BEGGING to do consent education in high schools. I absolutely agree with this and think consent is important to teach about at all ages, but what I really truly think should be taught for prevention in high schools is supporting survivors.

Before I do a deep dive into why I do my work the way I do, I want to give some more context about who I am and what informs my expertise.

I am a licensed social worker in the state of Michigan and have been doing work around violence prevention and direct services with trauma survivors for almost a decade. I have been a therapist, a case manager, a peer educator, an advocate- basically you name it I’ve probably done it. I’m also a survivor of childhood sexual assault by a family member. I hold this identity and my experiences as a clinician at the core of how I design and implement my programming.

I personally function in an anti-oppression and survivor-centered framework when creating content and delivering workshops. This framework requires self-work and ongoing intentional growth. I don’t feel that most programs or institutions that claim they’re doing survivor centered programming actually are when you look at the system they are functioning in and that there are/will always be systemic barriers. If we are not creating programming for ALL identities of survivors, we are not doing enough. We can always do better.

I also constantly hear about “trauma-informed”and “intersectionality” in ways that are usually misleading. The services or programs that use these terms are typically not doing them justice. In higher education, I constantly hear those words used outside of their actual function. I worry that, although well intended, folks are adapting these terms for compliance and more so for appearance. These terms have been co-opted and appropriated into PWI's to appear welcoming and "safe" for minoritized groups. By misusing these terms, systems of power and those who operate within them are erasing the history and white-washing the work that was done by The Combahee River Collective on intersectionality (linked above).

What I'm essentially trying to say is that we are not doing all survivors justice if we are not talking about other forms of oppression. We know that women of color, people with a disability, and LBGTQIA+ experience gender-based violence at much higher rates. Simply giving people these statistics is not helpful or productive. We need to be talking about all forms of violence if we want to be intersectional.

This reminds me of a quote by my favorite radical black queer activist Audre Lorde.

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” - Audre Lorde

Anyway, enough about theory and whatnot, let’s talk about programming!

By the time most women are in high school, 1 out of 9 of them have already been sexually assaulted as children. Additionally, “Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault." There is a whole other conversation on these statistics using the terms "female" and "male" for their data, but we don't have time to unpack all of that.

So, from these statistics we can see that high school is when perpetration starts to occur for young women, and a large portion of women have already been sexually assaulted as children. When considering this, prevention education at this age is going to need to meet folks where they are at. And the reality of it is that most women in high school have already or are in the process of being victimized by gender-based violence. I think the statistic is probably even higher since sexual assault is the lowest reported crime.

To prevent further harm to survivors, and to create healing and transformative spaces for communities and survivors to foster growth, it’s imperative that schools are teaching students how to support survivors. Prevention education should focus on resilience and support.

A program for staff and faculty would also be beneficial, and it could include information on:

-Mandatory reporting

-Title IX

-Supporting survivors

In the programming that I build to support survivors I've provided some key points that are highlighted below. I function best in bullet pointed lists, so here you go!

• Provide definitions that adhere to Title IX and inform students of their rights and what is covered in this policy.

• Go over common reactions you may observe if someone has recently been sexually assaulted or is in a violent relationship. This information will portray that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to act as a survivor like society usually has us think.

• Outline why someone may not report. This is a section where intersecting identities with survivorship become more of a conversation. The criminal justice system was not built with survivors in mind, especially not marginalized survivors. It was constructed on the basis of white supremacy and benefits people with power.

• Provide tangible tools that students can use to support survivors.

• Introduce different micro-counseling skills that are taught to advocates such as active listening, empathy building, and supportive language.

• Use scenarios that give nuance to support and discuss how students would navigate situations that they envision being challenging. This could include discussions around what to do if you know the survivor AND the perpetrator (which is the most common).

To build this program, and any program, doing focus groups with the population I’m developing programming for is always my first step. This creates buy-in on multiple levels.

After I’ve met with stakeholders, collaborators, and folx receiving the training then it’s time to create the program. I use Canva.com religiously and recommend it to everyone for making presentations.

Here are a few examples of some slides I've created on Canva.

Once I develop a program I usually go straight to Qualtrics. This is where I design questions for the qualitative data I collect. When I make the assessment questions they are based off of the learning outcomes I've developed before I've even began developing my workshop or program. I decide what I want to measure, which is usually a shift in attitude around a topic relating to gender-based violence, and design questions that intentionally portray what I'm looking for. If I'm able to, I have a pre-test that helps measure these aspects as well.

I think that about wraps up what I would deliver to high school aged students in terms of gender-based violence programming. Thank you for reading my first ever bog post!