Virginia's Building Healthy Futures Fund will create prevention funding

On May 7-8, 2012, representatives from 38 state domestic violence coalitions, national resource centers and the CDC gathered at the National Prevention Symposium to strengthen domestic violence prevention efforts, and highlight the work of the DELTA and DELTA PREP programs.

One of the most exiting workshops was the DELTA Countdown that shared resources and tools developed by DELTA grantees to support prevention efforts. These resources are also helpful for sexual violence prevention.

I recommend you check out these great resources to support building capacity to develop, implement and evaluate prevention programs.

1. All the great work that coalitions are doing to promote social change that will lead to prevent domestic violence
2. Virginia’s Building Healthy Futures Fund to raise funds for prevention
3. The Red Flag Campaign to prevent violence on campus
4. Alaska Youth Leadership program Stand Up Speak Out
5. EVE’s PEACE Toolkit: ending violence with policies to enhance & create equity (for Faith Leaders)
6. Safe and Respectful Relationships for All, Delaware Model Unit for schools on healthy relationships
7. Domestic Violence Prevention Organizational Capacity Assessment from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence
8. High School Evaluation: “plug and use” tool to analyze pre- and post-test data from the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence
9. Empowerment Evaluation Toolkit (listen to the Ohio Domestic Violence Network discuss this resource on a PreventConnect podcast)
10. Guidelines for the Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence & Intimate Partner Violence from (listen to the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance discuss this resource on a PreventConnect podcast)

Check out the newest edition of the Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance’s prevention newsletter Moving Upstream. They will continue to share insights about prevention practice while coordinating with other national prevention efforts.

In an attempt to pool resources and create a national primary prevention community around sexual and intimate partner violence issues, much of our content will now reference the impressive repository of information at PreventConnect. If you’re not already familiar with them, PreventConnect is a national project of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) with funding from the CDC.

Glad to continue to support this great resource. The newest issue has articles about prevention work on college campuses.

Here is a guest blog by Cordelia Anderson and Joan Tabachnick, co-hosts of the Ending Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) Web Conference Series that CALCASA’s national project PreventConnect is co-sponsoring with Ms. Foundation for Women.

This web conference series is sponsored by Ms. Foundation for Women.

With over 60 years of experience across the three eloquent speakers, the Ms. Foundation for Women (MFW) launched the new web conference series “Ending Sexual Abuse” to a sold out crowd.

The first web conference focused on highlighting Efforts to End Child Sexual Abuse within the Sexual Violence Prevention Movement. The three speakers, Gina Scaramella, Executive Director, Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, Donna Dunn, Executive Director, Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Sally J. Laskey, Director Special Projects, National Sexual Violence Resource Center all agreed that ending child sexual abuse was essential to their own work to stopping sexual violence across the lifespan of women.

Together, the speakers pointed to ways child sexual abuse has been addressed throughout the history of their organizations—from early speak outs, to advocacy with adult survivors, to collaborative work for social change.

Gina talked about BARCC’s work with early childhood education and how their own research showed that 70% of the early education and care workers saw some sexual behavior, but few of them any idea how to respond. The curriculum BARCC developed provides information about healthy sexual development and addresses practical questions such as how to deal with sexual behaviors in these settings.

Donna pointed to their statewide policy work to garner attention for prevention. MNCASA has been able to mobilize a broader community through engaging Voices of Experience and over 50 partners to Demand the Change for Children.

Sally highlighted the ways NSVRC learns from local efforts to develop ground breaking national resources based on collected knowledge, such as, research on bystanders, research on healthy sexuality and involvement in the National Coalition to Prevention to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation.

Together, each of the speakers sent a clear message that:

• Child sexual abuse is a foundational component of the sexual violence prevention movement
• There are many new ways of pushing for substantive change when we focus on ending child sexual abuse
• Finding the right partners can lift our work into the minds and hearts of our communities

The web conference ended with a long listing of prevention actions. What can you do? Here are just a few ideas:

• Attend or listen to a recording of a MFW Web Conference
• Read the blogs and tell us what you are doing – post your own ideas and programs
• Learn more from the links listed in each webinar and in this blog
• Tell someone about the work you are doing or the work you are reading about
• Know you can make a difference and be part of an inspiring, urgent, and effective movement

Click here to download the slides from this web conference and view the full presentation online (you will be asked to enter your email address in order to sign-on).

Sign-up to learn more about upcoming sessions.

We hope you will join us for one of the future web conferences or look in the archives for one you missed. For more information visit the MFW and PreventConnect websites.

Here is a guest blog by Cordelia Anderson and Joan Tabachnick, co-hosts of the Ending Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) Web Conference Series that CALCASA’s national project PreventConnect is co-sponsoring with Ms. Foundation for Women.

This web conference series is sponsored by Ms. Foundation for Women.

The Ms. Foundation for Women (MFW) has made the courageous decision to direct a significant portion of its resources towards ending child sexual abuse. Monique Hoeflinger, Senior Program Officer, Safety at the Ms. Foundation laid the ground work for why MFW chose this issue as one of its priorities by saying,

“Ending child sexual abuse is one of the most strategic things we can do to improve the lives of women and communities.”

Given the frequency of sexual abuse against children and the life-long impact of that abuse, focusing on child sexual abuse prevention makes sense. Among the approaches that MFW supports are those that move beyond traditional child-focused strategies and instead, engage adults and communities in prevention efforts.

As just one part of their broad efforts, the Ending Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) Web Conference Series is designed to bring the best thinking, programs, and insights they have seen to a larger community of stakeholders. Through this exciting new partnership with us (Cordelia and Joan), Prevent-Connect, and most importantly – all of you – we hope to build a stronger and more effective movement to end child sexual abuse. The goals of this series are to:

• Raise visibility and dialogue within prevention community
• Engage new communities in this movement
• Increase knowledge, resources and strategic action on child sexual abuse

Over the next nine months, we plan to cover the following exciting topics:

• Including Child Sexual Abuse in the Sexual Violence Prevention Movement
• Media and Prevention
• Preventing the Perpetration of Child Sexual Abuse
• Voices of Experience: the role of direct experiences in social change
• Healthy Sexuality and Caring Connections: Foundations for Prevention
• Policies Promoting and Derailing Prevention
• Depictions of Children in Media and Pornography: Implications for Prevention
• Activism in Prevention
• Using Art as a Catalyst for Social Change and Social Action

Look on the MFW or the PreventConnect websites for dates and time and more details. And if you miss one of them, don’t worry! Both the slides and audio are available to anyone.

We hope you will join us for one of these future web conferences. Sign-up to learn more about upcoming sessions.

Over the last several years, DELTA PREP, a national collaborative effort funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and CDC Foundation, has provided support to 19 domestic violence state coalitions to build capacity for primary prevention. This week, the effort is culminating with a National Prevention Symposium in Atlanta. DELTA PREP has been summarized in this project summary, which describes efforts from the 19 DELTA PREP grantees. Last December, PreventConnect released six podcasts from DELTA PREP. Below is an additional podcast describing efforts to prevent domestic violence.

(17 mins) Tess Cody of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) and Michael Shaw of Waypoint describe the work of the Iowa Men’s Action Network. Through ICADV’s involvement in DELTA PREP, they decided to engage men to support preventing domestic violence.

Listen: Tess Cody & Michael Shaw

Over the last several years, DELTA PREP, a national collaborative effort funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and CDC Foundation, has provided support to 19 domestic violence state coalitions to build capacity for primary prevention. This week, the effort is culminating with a National Prevention Symposium in Atlanta. DELTA PREP has been summarized in this project summary, which describes efforts from the 19 DELTA PREP grantees. Last December, PreventConnect released six podcasts from DELTA PREP. Below is an additional podcast describing efforts to prevent domestic violence.

(10 mins) Andrea Gleaves and Lynea Woody of the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence speak about how they use Twitter to advance prevention efforts. Purple Thursday and a flash mob were among the activities that were advanced through social media. DCCADV is a part of DELTA PREP to support domestic violence coalitions to integrate primary prevention into their activities.

Listen: Andrea Gleaves and Lynea Woody

More and more the field of sexual and domestic violence is using social change models as part of their prevention strategies. The commitment to social change and understanding sexual and domestic violence in the context of oppression is not without challenges. Learn from others whose approaches compliment or collaborate with a social justice approach in order to change the norms that support sexual and domestic violence.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

11 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific Time (2 PM to 3:30 PM Eastern)

Host:David Lee, CALCASA, PreventConnect

Aparna Bhattacharyya

Tony Porter

Guest Speakers:

• Tony Porter, Co-Founder, A CALL TO MEN
• Aparna Bhattacharyya, Executive Director, Raksha

Learning Objectives:

1. Engage in a candid discussion about the challenges and opportunities in developing partnerships and dynamic collaboration.
2. Provide examples of lessons learned from people and agencies with experience.
3. Identify opportunities to incorporate population-based efforts such as organizational practice and policy change within the collaboration.
4. Identify potential indicators for measuring the impact and outcomes of efforts.

Tonya Lovelace

Clara Lindstrom, Alison Smith & Pheng Thao

(24 mins) Tonya Lovelace of the Women of Color Network, Clara Lindstrom of La Mariposa Enterprises, Alison Smith of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Pheng Thao of A CALL TO MEN describe the upcoming National Call to Action Institute and Conference to be held July 9-13, 2012, in St. Paul, Minn. This institute and conference will bring together hundreds of women of color, white women, aspired allies and men of all races to build “Collective Empowerment and Collective Liberation.”

(13 mins) Kelly Miller and Brandy Sutherland of the Center for Healthy Teen Relationships, a project of the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence, describe how they engaged young people to discuss gender equity at the opening of the popular move “The Hunger Games.” The Center for Healthy Teen Relationships conducted a survey and have released a lesson guide for teachers.

Listen here: Interview with Kelly Miller and Brandy Sutherland

David S. Lee

(15 mins) David S. Lee of PreventConnect and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault spoke at Peace Over Violence‘s Violence-Free Teen Conference on Feb. 17, 2012 in Los Angeles. He spoke about Innovations in Prevention: National Overview of Trends in Teen Dating Violence Prevention. Watch his PowerPoint presentation below.

We need to tell more stories on what prevention look like. In recognition of the CDC Injury Center’s 20th Anniversary, the Injury Center is conducting a nationwide video contest to help raise awareness of injury and violence prevention. They are inviting people to participate in the video contest by submitting a short, creative video that answers the question “What does Injury and Violence Prevention Look Like in My Community?” The video should highlight real-life stories and examples of how injuries and violence are being prevented in your community.

Winners will be selected in the following three categories: General Public View, Injury and Violence Professional View, or Student View. The winning video in each category will receive a $500 cash prize and will be featured on the CDC’s Injury Center Website for thousands to see. The Contest runs now through July 31, 2012. Follow the contest and get the contest guidelines, rules and submission information at www.SaferLens.challenge.gov.

I hope to see many CALCASA rape crisis center sharing what their prevention work looks like.

Starting in May 2012, CALCASA will be offering trainings at Prevention topics at CALCASA regional meetings. These free trainings are 1-2 hours to develop specific skills for prevention. The first training will be on the topic of “Using Youth as Prevention Volunteers” on May 8 in Visalia (Valley region).  Other trainings will be held on the topics of “Bystander Intervention” (June 19 in San Pablo (Bay Region)  and “Community Mobilization and Engagement.”  Look for future announcements dates of additional trainings that will be provided in all regions.

California Rape Crisis Centers that receive RPE funding are encouraged to attend the training in your region and are invited to attend the trainings outside of your region.  Here are the trainings that are currently scheduled:

• Valley Region – May 8, 2012: Using Youth as Prevention Volunteers, 2-4pm (after the CalEMA Regional Training 10am-noon and Valley Region meeting 1-2pm) , at Central Valley Regional Center (CVRC) , 5441 W. Cypress , Visalia.
• Bay Region – June 19, 2012: Bystander Training, 11 am – 1 pm  (followed by the Bay Region meeting form 1pm-2pm) at Community Violence Solutions, 2101 Van Ness Street, San Pablo.
• South Region- August 24, 2012: Using Youth as Prevention Volunteers (location and time to be announced), at Peace Over Violence, 1015 Wilshire Blvd.,
  Los Angeles.

The following topics will be offered at the regional trainings:

• Bystander Intervention: This training will provide an overview of the principles of bystander intervention for primary prevention efforts. Participants will explore the potential benefits of integrating these concepts into existing prevention programs. CALCASA’s Alexis Marbach will lead this session using concepts from leading bystander intervention program throughout the country.
• Community Mobilization and Engagement: This training will provide an overview of community mobilization strategies to support rape crisis centers to integrate these strategies into their prevention programming. CALCASA’s Alexis Marbach will lead this training using many of the concepts from Project ENVISION, a community mobilization sexual violence prevention efforts in New York City that was highlighted in the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s Innovation in Prevention report released in January 2012.
• Using Youth as Prevention Volunteers: This training will provide an overview of strategies to use youth as prevention volunteers examining what volunteer roles youth can take, recruitment, training needs and organizational issues. CALCASA’s Leona L. Smith Di Faustino will lead this training drawing from her experience in working with youth as volunteers.

Please contact David Lee or Alexis Marbach if you have any questions.

Karen Cooper's husband & daughter accept the Visionary Voice Award, which was presented by Senator Jean Fuller & Assemblymember Connie Conway

In observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) highlights individuals throughout the country whose outstanding prevention work is making a significant impact in their communities. For the 2012 Visionary Voice Award, the NSVRC posthumously awarded Karen Cooper, Executive Director of Family Services of Tulare County, as the Californian recipient for this award.

Karen was nominated by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault for her life’s work to foster a community of healthy people in supportive relationships and safe environments.

“Karen will be greatly missed,” said CALCASA’s Executive Director Sandra Henriquez. “Her dedication and influence reached rape crisis centers and by extension, rape victims throughout the state. Karen’s efforts will continue in Tulare County and across California as we carry on her legacy.”

Karen Cooper

Karen is recognized for her outstanding work in the sexual violence field for the following accomplishments:

• She had been with the Family Services of Tulare County for 21 years.
• Growing an agency that includes a domestic violence shelter and a transitional housing program; operates the Rape Crisis program for all of Tulare County; provides domestic violence awareness programs; offers services for those affected by HIV/AIDS; has adult and children’s counseling centers; and offers classes in anger management and parenting.
• Her leadership in the field led to an appointment by Gov. Schwarzenegger to the California Domestic Violence Advisory Council, and she also served as chair of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.
• Her efforts have been rewarded with many awards over the years, including the Chamber’s Woman of the Year, Assembly District 34 Woman of the Year in 2008, the Ruiz Foods Danza Award in 2011, and the Soroptimist International Sierra Pacific Regional Women Helping Women Award.

Yesterday, CALCASA was pleased to be present this award to Karen’s family during its Denim Day event on April 25, 2012. We are grateful for Karen’s leadership in making changes across California and her community.

Transforming Communities has released its newest edition of its newsletter Catalyst Connections titled Disability, Disability Justice & Shared Values with Prevention. This newsletter raises many important issues for domestic violence and sexual violence prevention:

As prevention advocates, our commitment to meeting diverse needs is ongoing and complex. Both Disability Justice and Universal Design frameworks have much to offer our field in preventing violence across all communities. Activists in these communities have paid particular attention to intersectionality and are uniquely positioned to offer rich insights for our anti-violence work. What we do to address ableism and be inclusive of disability has an amazing ripple effect across other communities and issues as well.

Articles include a A Peer Dialogue on “Advancing Domestic & Sexual Violence Prevention Efforts through Disability Justice,” two sample activities, resources and a note on language. I recommend you check this out.

Willie Mays, Sergio Martinez, and Joe Torre at the Y Factor Summit © Futures Without Violence

CALCASA’s Chad Sniffen was happy to be part of a pannel about using “Social Media for Social Good” at Futures Without Violence‘s recent Y Factor Summit. As described by Futures Without Violence:

Our first-ever national summit, called the Y Factor: Men Leading By Example, launched on Thursday, April 12, and was a day filled with all-American heroes, unconventional advocates, committed public figures and journalists who helped us probe topics ranging from social media to the rise of sexual assault on college campuses. It was a day to salute the attendees – men throughout the world who are leading programs that teach youth about respecting women and girls, and ending gender-based violence. And it was the perfect occasion to thank Cindy Waitt (Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention) for the tremendous leadership support she has given to a movement that is teaching men and boys that violence does not equal strength.

Held in the new Futures Without Violence international conference and education center in the Presidio of San Francisco, the event was built around panel discussions, one-on-one interviews, and an all-star luncheon that paid tribute to baseball legends Willie Mays and Joe Torre.

Social Media for Social Good Panel © Futures Without Violence

The Summit was a wonderful opportunity to meet people from around the country (and Todd Minerson from Canada) who are engaging men and boys to prevent violence and abuse in their communities. Many projects and topics were highlighted during the day, including:

• Futures Without Violence’s Coaching Boys Into Men program and supporting research
• The short film “A New Kind of Strength: The Men’s Movement to End Domestic Violence” produced by Private Violence – a film and media project documenting domestic violence in America.
• Half the Sky – a transmedia project based on the book by Nicholas Kristof
• Using social media to accomplish social change work
• Critical issues of safety and social norms change for Colleges and Universities
• Building a global movement to engage men in gender based violence prevention

The full agenda for the day can be viewed here.

Photo from http://jezebel.com/5902031/military-may-be-gaslighting-sexual-assault-victims

Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the implementation of  new steps and sanctions to address sexual assault in the military. In recent weeks, attention has been drawn to increased rates of sexual violence in the military, especially at military academies:

The Defense Department’s “Annual Report on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies” for academic year 2010-2011 found there were 65 reports of sexual assault involving cadets and midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy. That was up from 41 reports of sexual assaults in the prior academic year. – CBS News

Additionally, a recent CNN report exposed how the military has been inappropriately addressing victims who come forward, labeling them with “personality disorders”, leading to their immediate discharge from the military.

In the military’s eyes, a personality disorder diagnosis is a pre-existing condition and does not constitute a service-related disability. That means sexual assault victims with personality disorder discharges don’t receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to help with their trauma. They can still apply for benefits, but it’s considered an uphill battle. – CNN

This is not the first time the military has been accused of inadequate responses to victims. In November 2011, MSNBC reported the 14 current and former members of the U.S. military bringing a lawsuit forward filed stating that the Pentagon turned a “blind eye” when they reported being sexually harassed, assaulted and raped by fellow service members.

Panetta’s latest comment on the re-energized effort to handle military sexual assault:

“This is a strong package. It is essential, we believe, to being able to prevent and respond to the crime of sexual assault,” Panetta said. “There’s no silver bullet when it comes to this issue. But what is required is that everyone, from the secretary to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs all the way down, every command level, be sensitive to this issue, be aware that they bear the responsibility to take action on these cases. The most important thing we can do is prosecute the offenders.” – CBS News

In addition to supporting victims, there seems to be a huge opportunity to do primary prevention and systems change work to create a culture shift within the military. There are some programs that have been implemented but are not frequently talked about, such as the I.AM.STRONG campaign and Hurts One. Affects All. 

What strategies have you used or seen on military bases to prevent sexual assault?

David Lee of California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Courtney-Christie Paul and Pamela Jacobs of SCCADVASA at the End Sexual Violence Conference in Columbia SC

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault’s Annual Sexual Violence Conference in Columbia. Over hundred people gathered for two days of presentations and workshops. My opening plenary session was titled “Our mission is to end the violence” where I described why primary prevention is an essential element of the work in creating change so sexual violence will no longer take place.

By weaving together stories such as Surgeon General Koop declaring violence to be a public health issue, recognizing the need to create news (drawing from Berkeley Media Studies Group analysis of media coverage of child sexual abuse at Penn State, and Hollaback‘s development of its I’ve Got your Back campaign to engage bystanders to prevention street harassment, I see great hope in our efforts to prevent sexual violence.

Click here to see the notes from my presentations.

When I think of capacity building, I think of resources: number of staff, funding, office space, printed materials, etc. When I read the March 2012 Technical Assistance Memo from the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, I started to reframe my thinking about “capacity” not as physical stuff we need to provide prevention education to the community but as a systems change within our agency.

“Embracing Prevention as Social Change” defines organizational capacity for primary prevention as “the agency’s ability to support and implement domestic and sexual violence prevention efforts”. When the agency fully embraces primary prevention, the work becomes part of the organizational culture, existing in all departments, volunteers, board members, and administrators.

What is the benefit of creating an organizational culture that supports primary prevention? “Primary prevention work can be an energizing social change endeavor that rekindles a spark of hope in the movement to end domestic and sexual violence. By incorporating prevention into all aspects of an organization’s work, the daunting task of changing the world will become more realistic and attainable”.

Read the full text of the article here: Embracing Prevention as Social Change- How to Build Organizational Capacity for Prevention

This web conference is sponsored by Ms. Foundation for Women.

PreventConnect is pleased to partner with the Ms. Foundation for Women to host a new web conference series on ending child sexual abuse. During 2012 there will be 9 web conferences to explore themes of how to end child sexual abuse and build the network of those committed to addressing this issue.

The first web conference on May 3, 2012, is titled “Including Efforts to End Child Sexual Abuse within the Sexual Violence Prevention Movement.” This session focuses on the power and possibilities of local, statewide and national strategies to highlight child sexual abuse prevention as foundational to sexual violence prevention efforts throughout the lifespan.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

This ninety-minute (90 min) session will start at 2 PM Eastern Time (1 PM Central, Noon Mountain, 11 AM Pacific, 10 AM Alaska, 8 AM Hawai’i).

Registration: The session is full. Please click here to join the wait list.

Sponsor: Ms. Foundation for Women

Web Conference Facilitators: Joan Tabachnick and Cordelia Anderson

Speakers:

• Sally J. Laskey, Director Special Projects, National Sexual Violence Resource Center
• Donna Dunn, Executive Director, Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault
• Gina Scaramella, Executive Director, Boston Area Rape Crisis Center

Sally Laskey

Donna Dunn

Gina Scaramella

Cost: Free

Learning Objectives:

1. Increased understanding of how ending child sexual abuse is relevant to sexual violence prevention efforts throughout the lifespan.
2. Expanded knowledge of local, state and national efforts to end child sexual abuse.
3. Ability to identify three actions that organizations can take to integrate prevention across the lifespan.

What is a Web Conference?
A web conference is an opportunity to attend an online workshop by watching a presentation on your computer screen (using your internet connection) and hearing presenters through your telephone. Prevent Connect web conferences feature an opportunity to participate in online question & answer sessions and live text chat between participants. If for some reason you are unable to join on your computer, you can download the presentation slides from our website and listen on your phone.

Real-Time Captioning Available: Instructions for accessing captioning during this web conference will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Compatibility: The iLinc web conference software used by Prevent Connect is compatible with both Microsoft® Windows® and Apple® Macintosh® computers. Click here for detailed system requirements.

“A Prospective Study of Sexual Assault and Alcohol Use Among First-Year College Women”, a study recently published in the journal Violence and Victims, examined the relationship between frequent binge drinking, frequent drinking, and sexual assault victimization. The authors hypothesized that: “a) frequency of alcohol use would predict sexual assaults, b) frequency of heavy episodic drinking would predict sexual assaults, and c) prior alcohol consumption would be a strong predictor of later alcohol consumption, whereas experiencing a sexual assault would be, at best, a week predictor.”

The study found that alcohol increased the perceived “suitability” of women as victims of sexual aggression :

 First, women who have been drinking are perceived as more vulnerable because of the cognitive and physiological effects of alcohol…Second, the consumption of alcohol has been theorized to result in a ‘focusing’ or ‘myopia’ effect (Steele & Josephs, 1990), such that alcohol consumption limits the individual’s ability to focus on all but the most salient cues in a given situation…Third, women who have been drinking are also perceived as more sexually uninhibited and available than sober women (pg 89-90).

As a prevention educator, I cannot ignore that there is some relationship between alcohol and sexual assault (as this study examined) but I wonder what the best way to talk about alcohol and its impact on sexual violence without traveling down the path of victim blaming. I worry about walking the fine line between delivering primary prevention and giving a “10 ways to prevent yourself from being sexual assaulted” talk.

For me the answer always comes back to culture change and social norms change. Is there a culture that promotes both frequent binge drinking and sexual assault perpetration and if so, how can we start our education there, at the root cause of the problems? What experiences have you had addressing this topic?

A Prospective Study of Sexual Assault and Alcohol Use Among First-Year College Women

Emily R. Mouilso, MS, Sarah Fischer, PhD, and Karen S. Calhoun, PhD. Violence and Victims, Volume 27, Number 1, 2012 , pp. 78-94(17)

Abstract:

This study prospectively examined the relation between alcohol use and sexual assault in a sample (N = 319) of first-year college women. Both frequency of drinking and frequency of binge drinking were measured. Over the course of their freshman year, 19.3% reported experiencing at least one sexual assault. Frequent binge drinking and frequent drinking predicted a subsequent sexual assault; however, experiencing a sexual assault did not predict changes in alcohol use. Frequent binge drinking demonstrated a stronger association with sexual assault than did frequent drinking. Findings help clarify the relation between alcohol use and sexual assault in college women and call for continued differentiation in assessment of alcohol use.

(54 mins) At the beginning of November, PreventConnect attended the 2011 Roots of Change Conference in Portland, Oreg., which was sponsored by the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force and Men Can Stop Rape. PreventConnect’s Chad Sniffen presented during this conference. Speakers and workshops addressed the primary prevention of sexual violence with a strong focus on media, entertainment and pop culture. Themes regarding men and masculinity were woven throughout the conference proceedings.

Keynote speaker Jaclyn Friedman, Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media, the editor of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape and the author of What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex & Safety, discusses how building a stronger relationship with our authentic sexuality is a powerful act of resistance.

Listen: Keynote address — Jaclyn Friedman

(37 mins) At the beginning of November, PreventConnect attended the 2011 Roots of Change Conference in Portland, Oreg., which was sponsored by the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force and Men Can Stop Rape. PreventConnect’s Chad Sniffen presented during this conference. Speakers and workshops addressed the primary prevention of sexual violence with a strong focus on media, entertainment and pop culture. Themes regarding men and masculinity were woven throughout the conference proceedings.

Keynote speaker Dr. Pat McGann, Men Can Stop Rape‘s Director of Strategy & Planning, talks about his journeys with masculinity through childhood, adulthood, marriage and his feminist transformation.

Listen: Keynote address — Pat McGann

(61 mins) At the beginning of November, PreventConnect attended the 2011 Roots of Change Conference in Portland, Oreg., which was sponsored by the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force and Men Can Stop Rape. PreventConnect’s Chad Sniffen presented during this conference. Speakers and workshops addressed the primary prevention of sexual violence with a strong focus on media, entertainment and pop culture. Themes regarding men and masculinity were woven throughout the conference proceedings.

Keynote speaker Dr. Rachael Griffin, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, reflects on the intersection of her experience as a black feminist survivor and Tyler Perry’s film For Colored Girls.

Listen: Keynote address — Dr. Rachael Griffin

The OVW FY 2012 Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus Program solicitation is now open and available on Grants.gov and the OVW website.  Applications are due by May 22, 2012. 

Thanks for School and College Organization for Prevention Educators (SCOPE) for sharing great ideas about prevention in their series of Thought Pieces on challenges and lessons learned. The third question they explore is What are the cutting-edge prevention best practices that you would recommend?

I especially like this point from Jane Stapleton from University of New Hampshire’s Prevention Innovations:

Our work has demonstrated that prevention is strengthened by a multi-dimensional application. Thus, prevention strategies that are one-time events are less effective than strategies that include a comprehensive approach to prevention, in-person prevention programs and passive social marketing campaigns.

To me the best practice is not really cutting-edge but is about being intentional and well planned. I do not see prevention programs as solutions-in-a-box where one size fits all. Instead, the best way is to carefully assess what you community needs and, more importantly, assess what are the strengths of your community that you can leverage to prevent sexual violence and domestic violence.I prefer to build prevention on a catalog of assets then a litany of deficits.

Here are a few examples. Mentors in Violence Prevention recognizes that athletes have influence so they work with them. In Men Can Stop Rape’s work in the Department of Defense, they appeal to service members sense of duty to prevent violence. Jerry Tello’s collection of curriculum for the Latino Community build upon the wisdom and resources from within the community.

And be creative. I do not see prevention as merely a curriculum. Prevention requires shifting social norms that will foster new behaviors. We need to take advantage of opportunities and new technologies to build that change. Later today I will be talking to the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence about how they are using the book and movie of Hunger Games to prevent teen dating violence. Check out PreventConnect for this podcast soon and see the great work they did using the Twilight movies and books.)

Transforming Communities‘ newest issue of “Catalyst Connections” provides excellent tools and resources about using evaluation to support communities to be empowered to take action. Participatory action research concepts such as collaboration and cooperation, democratization of knowledge, and participants are the experts guide evaluation efforts that support community-led change.

I found the discussion between Alisa Del Tufo of the Threshold Collaborative, Miho Kim of the DataCenter; Mimi Kim from Creative Interventions; Aimee Thompson-Aravelo of Close to Home, and Maria Elena Torre from The Public Science Project to be very helpful. For example, Miho Kim states

Our mission is to unlock power of knowledge for community change. We utilize a research justice framework to understand how the democratizing of research can strengthen grassroots organizing. Historically evaluation has not supported social justice frameworks so we need to re-define past models into one that becomes useful, powerful and liberating for communities.

And there are two activities (Five Questions in Five Minutes! and Values Leading to Positive Change) that provide concrete tools to use.

Click here to see this valuable resource.

Guest post from Holly Kearl, the lead organizer of International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

Thousands of people worldwide collectively spoke out against street harassment during the first ever International Anti-Street Harassment Week in March. During the week, the Internet, the streets, and classrooms swelled with discussions, messages, stories, and reclamations of public spaces. It was powerful to see so many people talk about the issue at once, amplifying each other’s voices, and bringing global attention to the unwanted sexual harassment that occurs in public places between strangers.

1. Read the thank you and wrap-up blog post
2. See the list of events that took place
3. View nearly 300 photos from events worldwide
4. Watch videos of events and messages from participants
5. See the list of media coverage

12 of the Anti-Street Harassment Week Initiatives:

1. In Canada, Women in Cities International released a report called Tackling Gender Exclusion: Experiences from the Gender Inclusive Cities Programme.
2. In India, Breakthrough launched a bystander poster campaign against street harassment, and groups like Let’s Talk and Safe Delhi Campaign organized rallies and activities to advocate for safe public spaces.
3. In Belgium, women walked to areas where they’d been harassed and reclaimed the spaces with sidewalk chalk messages.
4. In Yemen, across three days there were a series of discussions and seminars on different aspects of the issue of street harassment.
5. Women and men in New York City, USA, created a short video about responses men can have to men who are street harassers. It was viewed 200,000 times in just one week.
6. In Germany, women addressed street harassment by handing out 2,000 “red cards” against sexism and “pink cards” against homophobia.
7. In Norway, B Safe created a translation of the Stop Street Harassment website in Norwegian
8. College students at a university called SZABIST in Karachi, Pakistan, created a video PSA about street harassment as part of a class project and then held a discussion on the topic during the week of activism.
9. Film screenings took place in Turkey, Croatia, Canada, and the USA

10. Rallies, marches, sidewalk chalking, art exhibits, mud art, and flyer-ing took place in many places across the USA, including Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Washington, DC

11. Lots of activism and campaigning happened online. For example, the Women’s Media Center made their Wednesday Twitter #SheParty discussion about street harassment.

12. Hollaback, which is based in the USA and has chapters all over the world, launched a bystander “I’ve got your back” campaign.

Next year will be even bigger! I hope you can join in.

Each month, our partners at vawnet.org put out a resource guide for a “TA Question of the Month”. This month, vawnet.org is providing tips on the relationship between healthy sexuality and sexual assault with their guide “How Can I Talk About Sexuality to Prevent Sexual Violence”:

The 2012 Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) Campaign centers on the theme of healthy sexuality, letting everyone know “It’s time…to talk about it.” Healthy sexuality means having the knowledge and power to express sexuality in ways that enrich our lives (NSVRC, 2012). It means more than sex. Healthy sexuality includes building safe relationships, developing skills to communicate, positive and respectful behaviors and interactions, awareness of media and cultural messages, and it is always free from violence and coercion (NSVRC, 2012).

Sexuality can be viewed as an ongoing journey, something that grows and changes throughout our lives (NSVRC, 2012). It is important that information and resources on developing healthy sexuality be available to all people, from children to people in later life. Healthy sexuality relates directly to our work to prevent and respond to sexual violence. The ongoing process of active and informed consent is a key part of healthy sexuality and safe sexual relationships. Educating communities about consent and providing models for negotiating consent in relationships can enrich our lives in many areas.

As we work toward the primary prevention of sexual violence, some of our efforts include changing social norms. Gender norms, the “rules” or ideas about how a person should act based on gender, contribute to a culture of violence. Social expectations related to a person’s gender influence behaviors and sexuality (NSVRC, 2012). For example, gender norms suggest that men should aggressively pursue sex. Healthy sexuality counters this idea by promoting equal power and balance in relationships. Less restrictive norms can lead to healthier sexual interactions for all people (NSVRC, 2012). Gender norms can also support discrimination against anyone who doesn’t fit within the norm. People who identify as LGBTQ often face discrimination and violence as a result. To learn more, consider reading The Gendered Dimensions of Harassment and Bullying.

A successful SAAM campaign will reach out to both new and existing partners in the community. To begin building these connections, consider who can assist you in your community. Educating parents and caregivers about how to talk to their children may help you reach youth outside of the school day. Healthcare providers communicate with people of all ages, and may be a good source for expanding knowledge about healthy sexuality. Healthy sexuality and sexual violence prevention and response are not single-gender issues. Consider some helpful tips on partnering with men’s organizations, like emphasizing positive ways men can be involved.

Many resources are available to help you expand your knowledge and craft a great campaign.Resource kits include guides on various topics and a glossary of terms related to healthy sexuality. Many resources are available in Spanish (recursos en Español). With so many links to our work, starting the conversation on healthy sexuality can be a positive and exciting new adventure.

What are you doing to promote healthy sexuality?

Research on many issues show risk factors common to many different issue. Even more importantly, many have common protective factors. We will explore this theme in the upcoming PreventConnect web conference titled A Good Solution Solves Multiple Problems.

Here is a great example of recent action being taken to address the links between different topics Last week, President Obama issues a memorandum establishing a Working Group on the Intersection of HIV/AIDS, Violence Against Women and Girls, and Gender-related Health Disparities. This is an important opportunity to find common solutions to many related problems. You can learn more about this during the White House’s Open Office on this topic on April 4 at 11am Pacific (2pm Eastern) Time where Lynn Rosenthal, the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women and Dr. Grant Colfax, the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, will respond to your questions in real-time via Twitter. Use the hashtag #WHChat and follow @WHLive.

Implementing strategies with collaborative partners outside of the sexual and domestic violence field is a hallmark of innovative efforts. Learn how organizations are meeting their goals to prevent sexual and domestic violence by actively collaborating with community partners on efforts with shared outcomes such as health equity, youth leadership and mobilized communities.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012	Thursday, April 26, 2012

This ninety-minute (90 min) session will start at 11 AM Pacific Time (2 PM Eastern, 1 PM Central, Noon Mountain, 10 AM Alaska, 8 AM Hawai’i).

Host: David Lee, CALCASA, PreventConnect

Sahra Abdi

Christine Gilfillan

Guest Speakers: Christine Gilfillan, Director of Education & Community Outreach, Berks Women in Crisis; Sahra Abdi, Director, United Women of East Africa Support Team

Cost: Free

Learning Objectives:

1. Engage in a candid discussion about the challenges and opportunities in developing partnerships and dynamic collaboration.
2. Provide examples of lessons learned from people and agencies with experience.
3. Identify opportunities to incorporate population-based efforts such as organizational practice and policy change within the collaboration.
4. Identify potential indicators for measuring the impact and outcomes of efforts.

What is a Web Conference?
A web conference is an opportunity to attend an online workshop by watching a presentation on your computer screen (using your internet connection) and hearing presenters through your telephone. Prevent Connect web conferences feature an opportunity to participate in online question & answer sessions and live text chat between participants. If for some reason you are unable to join on your computer, you can download the presentation slides from our website and listen on your phone.

Real-Time Captioning Available: Instructions for accessing captioning during this web conference will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Compatibility: The iLinc web conference software used by Prevent Connect is compatible with both Microsoft® Windows® and Apple® Macintosh® computers. Click here for detailed system requirements.

Today is the national SAAM Day of Action. Our partners at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center have 4 ideas for how to participate in the SAAM Day of Action!

1.       It’s time… to talk about it! Get the conversation started 

Start the conversation about healthy sexuality and sexual violence prevention with your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, classmates & others. By opening the lines of communication, we can raise awareness and help others learn about prevention!

There are resources to help you start the conversation here. Or get a little inspiration from how we talk about it in our SAAM video.

2.       It’s… time to connect! Raise awareness online

Change your profile picture to a photo of yourself holding a clock to represent “It’s time!”

Use tweets, posts and status updates to spread the word about SAAM 2012.

Post a SAAM or healthy sexuality-related video to the NSVRC YouTube channel.

Tweet about it Tuesdays! Join us on Twitter for an hour-long chats starting on the Day of Action and each Tuesday in April using #TweetAboutIt.

Add a teal ribbon graphic, banner or background to your profile, website, etc

3.       It’s time… to get involved! Get active for SAAM

Find and support a SAAM event in your area.

Connect with the organizations in your state, community and campus to participate in events, volunteer or donate.
Can’t find something in your region? Host your own SAAM event – gather friends over tea and teal cupcakes. Share SAAM with your book club, trivia night, yoga or zumba class, faith group, etc. There are so many ways to get the conversation started.

4.       It’s time.. to prevent! Be an advocate for prevention

Healthy sexuality skills and characteristics enrich our lives with relationships that are consensual, respectful & safe. Learn more about these skills!

Share information about healthy sexuality, sexual violence prevention and the importance of SAAM with you community!

Be an active bystander by engaging and responding when you hear comments or notice behaviors that are unhealthy and represent negative attitudes and stereotypes. Talking about it means standing up to injustice, educating others, and creating dialogue.

This is a guest post from Becki Cohn-Vargas, director of Not In Our Schools.

Positive behaviors, like negative behaviors are contagious and can spread through social networks. This is a hopeful sign in the wake of the urgency to address the growing trend of sexual harassment, bullying and intolerance. If we are going to find sustained solutions to these issues that have devastating consequences, students themselves need to be in the driver’s seat.

We need to turn bystanders into upstanders who stand up for themselves and others. Students can learn to reject comments such as “that’s so gay” and “you throw like a girl” and speak up instead of egging on a fight. They can learn to refuse to participate in spreading a hurtful video or text with words such as slut or ho.

Not In Our School (NIOS) is a growing network of schools that mobilizes students to be upstanders who take action to create a climate that reflects the values of safety, tolerance and inclusion in these ways:

• Identification of problems of intolerance and bullying. We focus on problems that result from students bullying, harassing, or being exclusionary and hateful. Often students who are perceived to be gay are the target. In other cases, harassment is based on gender, race, religion and disability. The first step is to start with dialogue.
• Solutions defined by students and peer-to-peer actions. We believe that students need to define the problems and identify how to address them. Solutions need to incorporate peer-to-peer actions to make their schools safe and to help bystanders get the courage to become upstanders. When they are heard, youth are more likely to feel engaged and take ownership in solutions to resolve problems.
• Collective voice: The whole school community needs to come together to say NOT IN OUR SCHOOL. This could take many forms — buttons, banners, slogans, T-shirts, pledges, assemblies  and schoolwide activities — but it needs to grow out of authentic discussion and efforts to create a safe and welcoming environment for students of all backgrounds and gender identities.

Where does the urgency come from? In three horrifying hate crimes, high school students murdered a transgender Latina youth in Newark, Calif., in 2005; a Latino man in Patchogue, New York, in 2008; and an African-American man in Mississippi in 2011. As many as 20 people were involved or stood and watched the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a Richmond, Calif., high school homecoming dance in 2009. Every day, news outlets report cases of youth who are bullied because they are perceived to be gay. Young people report that relentless bullying can lead to serious emotional problems, multiple school absences and higher risk factors for suicide.

These incidents have raised national awareness of the need to address unsafe school environments and bullying. New anti-bullying laws in 48 states require schools to take immediate action regarding bullying. While it is significant that society-at-large and school leaders are taking the issue seriously, recent meta-studies have found that many anti-bullying programs are ineffective in alleviating bullying. In many cases, the programs are implemented in one-shot campaigns with a superficial approach that demonizes bullies and oversimplifies the problem.

From Bystander to Upstander
New research from sociologists Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee from UC Davis found that approaches to bullying and harassment have a better chance of success if bystanders, who make up the vast majority, are the focus of efforts to shift social norms. They found that the most popular and least popular students are not the main bullies. Rather, students seeking to move up the social ladder engage in acts of social cruelty, believing that it will increase their status. These researchers also found that, contrary to what students believe, bullying does not improve popularity.

This new research has important implications on how bullying and intolerance are addressed. Attention needs to be focused on the 85% who stand by, providing effective responses when they see someone getting bullied or teased. They need to be taught why and how to speak up.

Addressing the Links Between Bullying and Sexual Violence and Risk Factors for Suicide
According to the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, researchers are studying a new theory, the Bully-Sexual Violence Pathway, which examines the possibility that the perpetrators of bullying and anti-gay bigotry could eventually escalate to sexual violence. Although there is a difference between bullying and anti-LGBTQ teasing, an anti-bullying curriculum could include both, thereby addressing the small acts of hate that can escalate into more serious acts of hate, harassment and sexual violence. Changing attitudes that condone abusive and demeaning treatment of women can also be incorporated.

Not In Our School: Models for Change
The Not In Our School website provides interactive tools and films that showcase inspiring examples of students taking the lead in standing up to intolerance. Short films such as What Do You Say to That’s So Gay? and Students Take on Cyberbullying address gender-based bullying. These films are coupled with lesson plans for opening dialogue and taking action. The entire set of NIOS resources is also available in the NIOS Video Action Kit.

In our newest PBS film Not In Our Town: Class Actions, a middle school student described what had changed for her after the NIOS anti-bullying initiative that reached 50,000 students following two suicides of local youth in Lancaster, Calif., “The phrase ‘not in our school’ means a lot more now, sometimes people could be bullying some other people and the people around them will say ‘not in our school, not in our school.’ And they’ll just be like, ‘What?’ And then they will just stop. The phrase has really helped out a lot.”

In the film Class Actions, Superintendent Regina Rossall of the Westside Union School District reported that, prior to the anti-bullying program, 62% of the students said they felt safe at school. A survey taken subsequently showed 92% of the students felt safe at school.

A simple starting point can be identifying teaching students ways to intervene to stop the use of hurtful language like fag, ho, slut and racial epithets. Efforts to build empathy and involve students in the change process can shift the school culture to one where it is not seen as cool to offend or hurt another either in person or online.

To quote researcher Robert Faris, “Not In Our Town documents the good that can happen when people face the problems in their communities. Research has long shown that the more people who witness an incident, the less likely any one of them is to intervene. These stories provide powerful counterexamples to that tendency, and demonstrate that these seemingly intractable problems of intolerance and cruelty can be solved when people have the courage to stand up.”

School and College Organization for Prevention Educators (SCOPE) has continued its series of Thought Pieces with the question What have we learned to date in our prevention efforts that practitioners should know about? Beth DeRicco noted how the field has learned that prevention is a process, not a simple set of activities. Brett Sokolow recognized the value of centralized coordinated prevention efforts and Jane Stapleton highlighted the importance of understanding the target audience.

Theare are all important lessons. What I have learned from prevention efforts is that the solution needs to be nested within the community. We cannot rely solely on increasing individual knowledge, but need to unleash our creativity to make community-wide change. Yesterday I heard representatives of the Start Strong Teen Dating Violence Prevention Initiative share how they used online strategies to enhance the reach and impact of their prevention efforts. This is an excellent example of focusing on community wide engagement in order to change the paradigm of how this issue is seen.

What lessons have you learned about prevention?

We are excited to join domestic violence and sexual assault organizations from around the country in celebrating the launch of NOMORE.org. NO MORE is “the first unifying symbol to express support for ending domestic violence and sexual assault”, drawing attention to these two forms of violence and highlighting the ways in which we as service providers, advocates, and community members can unite to achieve a common goal.

NO MORE provides a single visual image and logo that can be used to promote awareness and generate conversation around sexual and domestic violence. The logo is designed for use by and integration with your logos. How can you get involved and utilize the NOMORE.org site?

kNOW the warning signs of domestic violence and sexual assault (link to: http://www.nomore.org/2012/03/recognize-the-signs-of-child-teen-and-relationship-abuse/)

Say NO MORE by signing on here (link to: http://www.nomore.org/take-action/)

Share NO MORE by using facebook, twitter, and other social media sites (link: http://www.nomore.org/2012/03/share-no-more/)

Join the We Say NO MORE Photo Gallery (link: http://www.nomore.org/2012/03/join-the-gallery/)

This web conference will explore the findings from the recent article “Coaching Boys into Men:” A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial of a Dating Violence Prevention Program, which was featured in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Speakers will share insights about implementation of this evidence-based prevention program with coaches serving as messengers for prevention. Coaching Boys into Men equips coaches with the tools to help young athletes build respectful, nonviolent relationships.

Host/Presenter: David Lee, CALCASA, PreventConnect

Elizabeth Miller

Brian O'Connor

Guest Speakers: Brian O’Connor, Director of Public Education Campaigns & Programs, Futures Without Violence; Elizabeth Miller, Chief, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Cost: Free

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe the findings of the article “Coaching Boys into Men:” A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial of a Dating Violence Prevention Program.
2. Describe the value of utilizing coaches as messengers for violence prevention.
3. Identify opportunities to apply lessons learned from Coaching Boys into Men for participants’ communities.

What is a Web Conference?
A web conference is an opportunity to attend an online workshop by watching a presentation on your computer screen (using your internet connection) and hearing presenters through your telephone. Prevent Connect web conferences feature an opportunity to participate in online question & answer sessions and live text chat between participants. If for some reason you are unable to join on your computer, you can download the presentation slides from our website and listen on your phone.

Real-Time Captioning Available: Instructions for accessing captioning during this web conference will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Compatibility: The iLinc web conference software used by Prevent Connect is compatible with both Microsoft® Windows® and Apple® Macintosh® computers. Click here for detailed system requirements.

PreventConnect is pleased to announce its 2012 web conference series titled “Connect for Success: Enhancing impact through innovative partnerships.” Success in the field of sexual and domestic violence prevention has always required partnerships. This year we will focus on innovative relationships or “connections” that enhance the reach and impact of sexual and domestic violence prevention efforts. Five types of opportunities will be examined with regard to their distinct challenges, success and potential for collaborative work. During the web conference participants will learn and share via candid discussion with peers and national experts. Join us as we explore the connect in Prevent Connect.

PreventConnect web conferences are free online interactive events for prevention practitioners, researchers and funders to explore how to advance the prevention of sexual violence, domestic violence and teen dating violence. Each session has presenters and practitioner guests (to be announced) along with hundreds of members of the PreventConnect community.

At the bottom are dates and topics for PreventConnect web conferences. Registration opens three weeks prior to each session. You must subscribe to PreventConnect to receive notice when registration opens. Many web conferences fill quickly. Click here to subscribe. All web conferences take place at 2pm Eastern, 1pm Central, noon Mountain, 11am Pacific, 10am Alaska and 8am Hawai’i.

• April 24 & 26, 2012: A Good Solution Solves Multiple Problems
  Annie Lyles & Carolina Guzman, Prevention Institute
• May 22 & 23, 2012: Social Change and Social Justice: Building Bridges Between Movements
  Annie Lyles & Carolina Guzman, Prevention Institute
• June 13 & 14, 2012: Don’t Let Prevention Stand Alone: Integrating Prevention Efforts in Your Agency and Community
  Annie Lyles & Menaka Mohan, Prevention Institute
• June 18 & 20, 2012: Expanding the Evidence Dialogue I: Exploring Research, Community Context and the Experiences of Practitioners to determine What Works.
  Sally Thigpen, Helen Singer and Natalie Wilkins, Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• July 31, 2012: How Can We Help? Developing Shared Goals For Diverse Community Priorities
  Annie Lyles and Larry Cohen, Prevention Institute
• August 15 & 16, 2012: When Place is the Focus: Connecting Prevention Approaches to Place Based Initiatives
  Annie Lyles & Menaka Mohan, Prevention Institute
• September 18 & 19, 2012: Expanding the Evidence Dialogue II: Balancing Research, Community Context and the Experiences of Practitioners to determine What Works.
  Sally Thigpen, Helen Singer and Natalie Wilkins, Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

You can find recordings and materials from web conferences PreventConnect hosted earlier in 2012.

• Links between Bullying & Sexual Violence: Possibilities for Prevention
• Findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: Implications for Prevention
• Web Conferences from previous years

See you online!

So often when I go to a training or web conference, the presenter goes through a Powerpoint presentation with too many words and just provides information on top of information. While there is content, this is not very conducive to actually learning.

I am impressed with this graphic of Adult Learning Principles from Nicole Legault’s blog Flirting w/ eLearning. As we are developing and implementing sexual and domestic violence prevention efforts, Adult learning principles provide useful guidance to creating interactions that are meaningful and are more likely to lead to change.

And adult learning principles do not apply only to adults. These are helpful in our work with youth.

During PreventConnect web conferences we try to build on the knowledge of our audience and create opportunities to interact. That is why we have such a vibrant chat. I believe the best learning takes place as we are engaged, not when we are merely taking in information.

I tried to incorporate these concepts when I speak publicly, but it is easy to fall back on just providing information.

How do you use adult learning principles in your training and prevention work?

CALCASA’s national project PreventConnect has been named the partner spotlight for March 2012 by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on its VetoViolence Facebook page. PreventConnect is an online community dedicated to advance the primary prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence. CDC supports this project and is a valuable partner to strengthen our prevention efforts.

Please make sure you like PreventConnect and VetoViolence on Facebook (as well as CALCASA).

Last night, Sarah Harper of VoiceTool Productions organized a rally to celebrate Anti-Street Harassment at the 16th Street BART station in San Francisco, to raise awareness and offer people resources to fight street harassment in public spaces. Why BART? A recent New York Times article “Sex Crimes Pass Under the Radar on Public Transit” stated:

Bay Area public transit riders, especially women, said in interviews that they often face unwanted sexual advances

from strangers in the form of masturbating and groping on buses, on trains and in stations. Rider advocates and others who study such behavior on mass transit say the crimes are vastly underreported and so police statistics understate the problem.

Sarah made the following comments about the event:

Meet Us on the Street San Francisco met its goal:  to make it clear that street harassment exists, is a problem, and can and should be addressed.  Our crew of activists, students, and community members spoke with a variety of passersby at the 16th St. BART station on the issue of harassment.  We engaged many in dialogue about the effects of harassment as a reality in many women’s daily lives.  We also provided fliers for passersby (in English and Spanish) so that they may share the information with others.

The fliers included quick “how to’s” for dealing with harassment in-the-moment:  effective body posturing and phrases victims and witnesses may use to remain empowered while keeping themselves safe.  The fliers also detailed what constitutes harassment, so that potential harassers may begin to identify and change their harassing behavior.

This event was a seed-planting opportunity; we are already planning upcoming events to nourish that seed.  Follow our work and get involved!  Together, we can stop street harassment.

As someone dedicated to advancing prevention, I was very interested reading the responses to this the question “What are the critical challenges facing the prevention field?” in the Thought Piece released today by School and College Organization for Prevention Educators (SCOPE). Thoughts on this topics were shared from leaders in the prevention field like Alan Berkowitz (check out this PreventConnect interview with him) and Jane Stapleton from University of New Hampshire.

I think the panelists raised interesting points about challenges from resources, using evidence effectively and finding support. For me, I think prevention efforts need to leverage the linkages and connections between different issues. There are too many prevention efforts that are treated as separate problems with separate solutions. By breaking down the silos, we can build stronger prevention efforts. This is a theme that the PreventConnect community will explore in their 2012 Web Conference series that will be announced next week.

I also think prevention has to figure out how to go beyond being a set of services. To create the change necessary to prevent sexual and domestic violence require more than prevention programs. To effectively change our norms we must be engaged in efforts that catalyze a movement for change. That is why I am excited by efforts like Move to End Violence and SPARK Summit – these are not just programs but are opportunities to advance a movement dedicated to social change.

What do you think are the critical challenges facing sexual violence, domestic violence and teen dating violence prevention?

Graphic created by Wordle.net

As we continue to celebrate Anti-Street Harassment week, we have more and more opportunities to explain the importance of sexual harassment and street harassment. As “Stop Street Harassment” states,

Street harassment is any action or comment between strangers in public places that is disrespectful, unwelcome, threatening and/or harassing and is motivated by gender. In countries like India and

Bangladesh, it’s termed “eve teasing,” and in countries like Egypt, it’s called “public sexual harassment.” Street harassment is a human rights issue because it limits women’s ability to be in public as often or as comfortably as most men. The mobility of  all members of the LGBQT community is often restricted as well because of harassment and hateful violence motivated by the person’s actual or perceived gender expression or sexual orientation.

Here are 3 Ideas for collective action that you along with your community can take to end street harassment:

1. Engage your community. Hold an awareness-raising event, march, or create street team activism (including organizing people to hand out fliers). Show a relevant documentary or hold a speak-out at the event to generate awareness and a discussion. [Idea Guide]

2. Evaluate your community. Conduct a survey, community safety audit, or create a mapping project to document where street harassment occurs. [Idea Guide]

3. Educate your community. Teachers/coaches/mentors/leaders talk to students about street harassment.

Please share your ideas for taking collective action!

Emily May, Executive Director of Hollaback!

(8 min) Hollaback! is a global, grassroots effort to end street harassment. In this interview with Emily May, Hollaback’s Executive Director, we talk about the development and launch of Hollaback! “I’ve Got Your Back” campaign to encourage bystanders to intervene in street harassment, and Hollaback’s partnership with Green Dot, etc.

Listen

Why should we care about street harassment? Thembi Ford at Clutch magazine writes: 

Whistles, arm-grabs, flashing, random sexual comments and insults, thrown objects, or even just what pretends to be an innocent “hollla” that turns into physical assault…the list of what young women (and

for that matter old women and some men) can face while simply walking down the street is endless. It’s happened to almost everyone, and anyone who’s experienced it knows that street harassment isn’t just “boys being boys.” These interactions leave victims feeling powerless, unwelcome, and wear at feelings of safety and self-esteem over time. And it happens everywhere, every day.

Here are 3 ideas for personal level participation:

1. Talk about street harassment with friends/family/coworkers/classmates/neighbors. Share your stories with them. Think about what a safe community would look and share that vision with them.

2. Raise awareness online.

* Change your Facebook profile picture to be the Anti-Street Harassment Week logo (see example on the right, or visit the tools page to access logos in 12 languages)

* Write and post a street harassment story on a blog, Tumblr, twitter, or Facebook.

* Tweet about street harassment using #NoSHWeek.

* Write an article, op-ed, or blog post about street harassment. [Idea Guide + special offer from the Op-Ed Project]

3. Raise awareness with the arts. Tackle the issue of street harassment in an entertaining, compelling way.  Post it online or offline, use it to generate discussions about street harassment and public safety. [Idea Guide]

How are you planning to fight street harassment?

What does a year of international grassroots work against street harassment look like from inside an organization? Hollaback! gives us a look in their first annual “State of the Streets” report released in December 2011. It includes Hollaback’s impact, their model, and profiles of thirteen of Hollaback’s sites internationally.

The National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation has released its new and updated National Plan to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation. The National Plan provides practical steps that individuals, organizations, businesses and policymakers can implement to promote positive youth development and prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation.

CALCASA has been glad to be part of this coalition for many years. By focusing on prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation, the Coalition has brought together many important partners committed to creating change.

Click here to see the National Plan.

I recently came upon a healing medium for sexual trauma survivors called Project Unbreakable: The beginning of healing through art. Grace Brown, a photographer that uses her craft to help survivors heal from sexual trauma, photographs survivors holding up posters with quotes from their attackers. The pictures are shocking and so poignant that I’m compelled to provide a caveat for those that may click on the link provided because the power of these words may just “hurt” you.

When I was first learning the ropes of prevention work a colleague and dear friend of mine that I often shadowed during presentations would start off with discussing the power of words. She’d ask the group what they thought about the old nursery rhyme about stick and stones and words never hurting anyone. It was rare to have some one say words never hurt, in fact audience members would go on in great detail about the power of words and both the positive and negative effects they have on individuals.

It was during my clinical work with clients that I really discovered how powerful words can be for an individual. Those words of reassurance and validation I provided during sessions when they were at their lowest in their process. The little spoken words of epiphany they often experienced when as one client remarked, she was able to connect the dots of how it really wasn’t “her fault”. Yet there were still words that could halt the process of healing, stop a survivor in her/his proverbial tracks if you will, and send her/him spiraling back to that moment in time when another chose to harm them.

Those words were ones of rage, lust, and at the most heartbreakingly hurtful, ones of a perverted love. The, “Don’t worry you’ll like this”, “This is how we show love”, or “Sluts like you deserve this” words that haunted survivor’s each day to the next. As a clinician I could sit there and point out the fallacy of such statements until I was blue in the face but the words often still hung there between us, permeating the healing process until the survivor learned not necessarily how to make the words never hurt them, but to deconstruct the power they held over them. This type of deconstruction can have many facets and manifest itself in a variety of ways for survivors. Project Unbreakable happens to be one of the most visually compelling of them.

Grace will be coming to California, making stops in San Francisco and Sacramento. We will keep you posted as we learn more about her trip. To learn more, visit her website:

http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/

And her Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/projectunbreakable

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is a nationwide observance that encourages people to take action in the fight against HIV/AIDS and raise awareness of its impact on women and girls coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health (OWH). On Wednesday, March 14, from 8:30 AM to 10:45 AM Eastern Time, the White House will host a special event that will highlight linkages between gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS. You can follow the conversation from @PEPFAR and @AIDSgov on Twitter – just use the hashtag #NWGHAAD. You can also check it out on www.whitehouse.gov/live.

(From https://www.facebook.com/VetoViolence)

Over the several years I have been a member of the Prevention Committee of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) where I appreciate learning about the contributions to prevention from those who work in the treatment of sexual abusers.

At ATSA’s 30th Annual Research and Treatment Conference held in Toronto November 2011, several ATSA members shared about their work in prevention.

ATSA is dedicated to preventing sexual abuse before an offense is ever perpetrated. Although the majority of ATSA’s prevention work has focused on research, treatment and management of those individuals who have already abused, many ATSA members are also active in primary prevention activities. I applaud ATSA’s commitment to advance primary prevention. As we learned in previous PreventConnect podcasts, ATSA along with survivors and advocates provide a perspective that helps us fully understand prevention strategies.

Also, check out this slideshow about prevention that was shown at the ATSA conference in Toronto.

Attention PreventConnect community!

We are very interested in your assessment of our activities.

If you or your primary prevention organization participate in PreventConnect (i.e., web conferences, podcasts, blog, e-mail group, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), we are launching a survey to gather information about your experiences with these activities. PreventConnect is a national online project of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Your feedback will help us better understand the impact of PreventConnect as well as how we can improve our services and resources to better meet your needs.

All completed surveys will be entered into a raffle to win a new iPad!

Click here to complete the survey by March 27, 2012 so you can enter to win.

CALCASA is joining multiple national, state, and local partners to celebrate Anti-Street Harassment week this March 18-24.

We appreciate the hard work of “Meet Us On the Street” and the core team of activists lead by Holly Kearl. Here’s what they have to say about street harassment and the goal of this awareness building and action week:

What’s the Problem?
Catcalls, sexist comments, public masturbation, groping, stalking, and assault: gender-based street harassment makes public places unfriendly and even scary for many girls, women, and LGBQT folks.

What Will Happen? 
Meet Us On the Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week is an opportunity to collectively raise awareness that street harassment happens and that it’s not okay.

There are 6 options for how people can participate.
We hope you will sign up and get involved!

Why a Week?
Amazing activists and ordinary individuals around the world work hard year-round to make public places safer…but there is strength in numbers. During the third week of March, everyone will join forces to collectively raise awareness that street harassment is a global problem and work toward solutions. March 24 will be the biggest day of activism.

What Happened to International Anti-Street Harassment Day?
On March 20, 2011, after only a month of planning, more than 2,000 people from at least 13 countries participated in International Anti-Street Harassment Day. Read an article by founder Holly Kearl about how it went. Due to feedback from participants, in 2012, the day of activism will be expanded to run a full week.

Why Hold it in March?
The third week of March is the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. While street harassment occurs year-round, spring is a time when there is an increase in the harassment because of the increased daylight hours and warmer weather that brings people outside. Street harassment is often seen as an inevitable part of the change in seasons, but it shouldn’t be. Spring is no excuse for street harassment.

How can you get involved?

Young people are speaking out against teen dating violence through dance. Here is a video of a flash mob at Peace Over Violence’s Violence-Free Teens conference held last month.

Across the country, young people organized flash mobs to prevent teen dating violence. Here is news coverage of Start Strong Oakland‘s Relationship Remix Flash Mob from February 25, 2012 in San Francisco’s Union Square.

“A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
– Lao Tzu, Chinese Philosopher (604BC – 531BC)

Check out this blog from Pixel Project about 16 easy ideas on how someone can start to take action to end sexual violence and domestic. Here are the ideas:

Idea 1: Tweet It. If you are on Twitter, make it a habit of tweeting or retweeting a piece of news about violence against women each time you log on to tweet. It’s an easy way to help raise awareness about the issue. Not sure what to tweet? Follow us on Twitter where we tweet VAW news and info 24/7 365 days a year as @pixelproject and start retweeting!

Idea 2: Blog about it. Pay attention to the headlines to catch any major news about violence against women and write a blog post about it. It doesn’t matter if it is a short blog post – what matters is that you are speaking out against violence against women.

Idea 3: Facebook It. Join groups and pages on Facebook that are campaigning to end violence against women. Join in the discussions or start one. Post news about violence against women on your profile page to raise awareness amongst your friends and family.

Idea 4: Get volunteering. Are you able to spare a couple of hours or more each week? Consider giving your local battered women’s shelter or rape crisis center a hand. If you have less time or have unpredictable hours due to work, you can try virtual volunteering or seasonal volunteering during holidays.

Idea 5: Sign a petition. The next time you hear about a petition to stop a woman from being stoned or to protest against a gender violence atrocity such as wartime rape, step up to sign it.

Idea 6: Write a letter. If you see a movie, a magazine, a song or any other high-profile pop culture item that trivialises violence against women, write a letter to the producer/the editor/the artiste/the director to protest and tell them why you are protesting. Remember: Keep it civil – abrasive and foul language never got anyone anywhere.

Idea 7: Set a good example. If you have children and young people in your life, start setting a good example by opting for non-violent solutions when resolving interpersonal problems. Show them that it is possible to both respect and disagree with another person without resorting to sexism, degradation or violence.

Idea 8: Listen. If you know someone who is facing gender-based violence in her life such as domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, forced marriage etc, start by being a good listener for them. Don’t judge – just listen. Victims frequently feel isolated and helpless and having someone listen to them is the first step towards getting help for themselves.

Idea 9: Be an upstander. If you see a woman or girl being attacked in any way, step in to help. It could be dialling 911 immediately if the situation is too dangerous. It could be stepping in to stand up to the perpetrator to get them to back down and stop the abuse. Whatever you do – do not walk away. It may cost someone her life.

Idea 10: Mark your calender (and take action). Whenever occasions such as International Women’s Day, Domestic Violence Awareness Month or International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women happens, find a campaign that is happening online or near you and participate!

Idea 11: Give what you can. Find a reputable local or global nonprofit working to end violence against women and make a small donation – even just US$5 or US$10 helps. Every single penny/cent counts and the best nonprofits make every penny stretch.

Idea 12: Hobbies that help. Good at knitting? Fabulous at baking? Consider starting a small fundraiser or awareness-raising effort involving your local community with the proceeds donated to your local battered women’s shelter or rape crisis centre.

Idea 13: Gift ideas. If you are getting married or celebrating your birthday, ditch the gifts. Instead, ask your friends and family to donate their money or volunteer time to your choice of nonprofit organization working to end violence against women.

Idea 14: Forward it on. If you have received a call-to-action for any campaign to stop violence against women via email, don’t delete it. Forward it on to 5 or 10 of your friends whom you know would be interested or open to learning about the issue.

Idea 15: Wear it well. Wear the purple, white or purple-and-white ribbons that are associated with the cause to end violence against women. More often than not, seeing the ribbon would spark conversation, giving you an opening to help raise awareness about the issue.

Idea 16: Nip it in the bud. If you are witness or any conversation or interaction that trivializes, reinforces or urges violence against women, step up and speak up. Don’t remain silent because it is not okay to denigrate women and to trivialize violence.

What are you going to do?

Photo from Howzey.

This month the Journal of Interpersonal Violence published “Predicting Perceptions of Date Rape: An Examination of Perpetrator Motivation, Relationship Length, and Gender Role Beliefs”, a study conducted by David Angelone, PhD, Damon Mitchell PhD, and Lauren Lucente, BA. As many of us who work in the field of sexual violence prevention and intervention know, rape victims are often scrutinized by their peers, families, friends, and the criminal justice system. This study carefully examined how knowledge of the perpetrator’s motivation and the previous relationship between the victim and the perpetrator would influence the way that male and female college student’s viewed both the victim and the perpetrator. The current study “suggests that knowledge of the offender motivation legitimized the victim as the aggrieved party rather than excusing the perpetrator’s behavior”. 

The study looked at both situational and observational variables. Situational variables refer to the personal characteristics of the victim and perpetrator and the environmental context in which the sexual assault occurred. The authors state, “In general, the closer the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator (e.g., marital vs. acquaintance vs. stranger) the more likely observers are to perceived the assault as consensual and the less likely they are to view the incident as a serious concern (Monson, Byrd, & Langhinrichesen-Rohling, 1996).” Observer variables are personal characteristics of the study participants, such as gender and gender role attitudes.

To learn more, visit the Journal of Intimate Partner Violence.

“Predicting Perceptions of Date Rape: An Examination of Perpetrator Motivation, Relationship Length, and Gender Role Beliefs”

David J. Angelone, PhD, Damon Mitchell, PhD, Lauren Lucente, BA

Published online before print, on February 10, 2012, doi:10.1177/0886260512436385

Abstract: The purpose of the current study is to examine the influence of multiple offender motivations (including no indication of a motivation), relationship length, and gender role beliefs on perceptions of a male-on-female date rape. A sample of 348 U.S. college students read a brief vignette depicting a date rape and completed a questionnaire regarding their attributions about the victim (culpability, credibility, trauma, pleasure) and perpetrator (culpability, guilt, sentencing recommendations). Results indicate that providing observers with information about the perpetrator’s motivation was associated with lower victim blame. Relationship length is not predictive of rape attributions. Egalitarian gender role attitudes are associated with lower levels of victim blame. Overall, gender role attitudes exert a more significant influence on rape attributions than participant gender. The findings suggest that knowledge of an offender’s motivation as well as observers’ gender role attitudes can influence attributions about the culpability of victims and perpetrators of date rape.

(6 mins) Jeff O’Brien, National Director of Mentors in Violence Prevention, describes the upcoming national conference “Bystander Intervention: From Its Roots to the Road Ahead” to be held in Boston, Mass., May 31 to June 1, 2012. This conference will explore bystander intervention to prevent gender-based violence.

Listen: Interview with Jeff O’Brien about conference on bystander intervention

Another Green Dot guest post! Today Nick King from Verity in Sonoma County has provided an update on the Green Dot program that he and the Verity team are rolling out at El Molino High School. Great work Nick!

In August of 2011, Daniela Bravo and myself (Nick King) met with Doria Trombetta to discuss the overview of the program. She introduced us to Matt Dunkle, the Vice- Principal of the school since he would be my consistent contact to the school. Over the next couple of months (September – December), I spent a couple days out of the week meeting students during their lunch break building relationships, and identifying the existing resources that school already had for us to build on. I was also attempting to identify early adopters. As of now I think I’ve probably identified about 8-10 potential people. The great thing about this school is that they already have a program called Safe School Ambassador’s, which is a bystander intervention program that has approximately, 30 students in it. We plan on training at least half of those students since they are already doing the work. Green Dot will simply add to their tool kit regarding bystander intervention.

In moving forward with our implementation, I’m working with the Vice Principal to start scheduling Overview Speeches for February and March. Once we have completed our rounds of speeches, we are planning to recruit early adopters for 2 separate trainings that will take place in March and April, possibly May depending on the timeline of our speeches. We are also planning on having at least one booster activity after our trainings and also one after summer is over for the fall to keep them engaged in the philosophy.

Over 200 people gathered at last week’s Violence-Free Teens Conference organized by Peace Over Violence.  In its fourth year, this conference brings together prevention educators, teachers, parents, and especially youth, to share ideas and resources to prevent teen dating violence and promote healthy relationships and communities. Through theater, flash mobs, presentations, policy and networking I saw some of the best work in prevention.

Keynote speaker Lyn Mikel Brown described the work done to combat the sexualization of girls through effort like Healthy Girls Hearty Women, SPARK Summit and Powered by Girl.  She described each of these efforts as demonstrating how “fighting like a girl” means being an activist to promote change.  I especially liked the Projection Project as a creative way to use the arts to build a movement.

We learned about the exciting work done by Start Strong Los Angeles and the 13 other Start Strong sites.  By hearing the voices of youth, I am reminded how much their work will take prevention to the next level.

Soon I will share my presentation on trends in teen dating violence prevention.  Thanks Peace Over Violence for this event.

This week we have a guest post from Della Duncan and Stacey Carlotta of the YWCA of Silicon Valley (both pictured at left)! They have been busy, getting their community excited about Green Dot and inspired to take action. Read on to hear about how they did it…

Green Dot YWCA Silicon Valley has officially launched! We had our big launch event on campus a few weeks ago when we attended De Anza Club Day. We spent the afternoon at De Anza talking to club leaders, students, faculty advisors, etc. getting the word out about Green Dot, networking, and identifying interested students. We also recently connected with the Department of Human Sexuality and had the opportunity to do two overview speeches to their classes. We currently have three more presentations in our calendar with other classes on February 21 and 22nd. We are collaborating with various club leaders to do overview speeches for Women’s History Month, the International Students Volunteer Club, and the Occupy De Anza Movement. Additionally, we are in contact with the faculty advisor of De Anza clubs to work out an opportunity to present a 3-5 min speech about Green Dot to all of the club leaders. Also part of our launch, we have connected with the newspaper at De Anza, La Voz to coordinate an interview. In the meanwhile, we are also still conducting research about De Anza and have just finalized a survey for students and alumni alike to continue to flesh out our understanding of De Anza and how to best implement Green Dot on their campus. These are exciting times as the movement to reduce violence in our community continues to spread. Stay tuned for more Green Dot updates to come!

The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence is hosting three events in recognition of Teen Dating Violence Prevention and Awareness Month. The first will share strategies for advocates to engage youth through social media, and the second and third will highlight the critical role of parents and caregivers in preventing and responding to teen dating violence. Check them out!

• Twit Chat – Engaging Youth Through Social Media – Wednesday, February 15, 2012 ~ 1pm Eastern, 12pm Central, 10am Pacific
• Webinar – Helping Youth Develop Healthy Relationships: The Role of Parents & Caregivers – Thursday, February 16, 2012 ~ 1pm Eastern, 12pm Central, 10am Pacific
• BlogTalkRadio Program – Helping Youth Develop Healthy Relationships: The Role of Parents & Caregivers – Thursday, February 23, 2012 ~ 2pm Eastern, 1pm Central, 11pm Pacific

Dr. Dorothy Espelage

Join Dr. Dorothy Espelage and Dr. Kathleen Basile as they discuss their recent Journal of Adolescent Health article, “Bullying Perpetration and Subsequent Sexual Violence Perpetration Among Middle School Students.” Heather Carter of the Youth Suicide Prevention Program in Seattle, Wash., will join the conversation as she will describe efforts to prevent LGBT-based bullying and harassment. In this interactive web conference, we will explore the potential implications for sexual violence and other prevention efforts.

Monday, February 27, and repeated on Friday, March 2, 2012

This ninety-minute (90 min) session will start at 11 AM Pacific Standard Time (2 PM Eastern, 1 PM Central, Noon Mountain, 10 AM Alaska, 8 AM Hawai’i).

Click here to register and get materials on the PreventConnect web site for this web conference.

Host/Presenter: David Lee, CALCASA, PreventConnect

Guest Speakers:

• Dorothy Espelage, Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign;
• Kathleen Basile, Ph.D., Division of Violence Prevention, CDC
• Heather Carter, MA, OUTLoud Project Manager, Youth Suicide Prevention Program

Cost: Free

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will describe the findings of a the study “Bullying Perpetration and Subsequent Sexual Violence Perpetration Among Middle School Students.”
2. Participants will explore a potential bullying sexual violence pathway.
3. Participants will identify potential implications for prevention efforts.

What is a Web Conference?
A web conference is an opportunity to attend an online workshop by watching a presentation on your computer screen (using your internet connection) and hearing presenters through your telephone. Prevent Connect web conferences feature an opportunity to participate in online question & answer sessions and live text chat between participants. If for some reason you are unable to join on your computer, you can download the presentation slides from our website and listen on your phone.

Real-Time Captioning Available
Instructions for accessing captioning during this web conference will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Compatibility
The iLinc web conference software used by Prevent Connect is compatible with both Microsoft® Windows® and Apple® Macintosh® computers. Click here for detailed system requirements.

CALCASA loves this SAAM toolkit! For Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month (SAAPM), the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) has a national campaign that will employ both traditional and non-traditional methods through the use of social media, social marketing and social change.

Rose Luna writes on the agency blog,

The theme of TAASA’s 2012 SAAPM packet is “Get Social”. The intention behind this theme is to emphasize the connection between community, it’s stakeholders and our agency. It also represents the importance of collaboration and building of relationships in creating awareness and change.

The comprehensive 32-page packet includes information about social media; how it can be used at your agency; social media activities; how social marketing differs from social media; and ideas that rape crisis centers can use during April and the rest of the year to raise awareness about sexual violence. For agencies that are new to social media, this packet is a great starting place with plenty of supportive content.

CALCASA will be using parts of this great resource during our SAAM 2012 activities!

Download the “Get Social” SAAPM packet.

During the Super Bowl last night, I was not watching the game but following the Twitter hashtag #notbuyingit where people were protesting about the many sexist ads, such as those by Kia, Telefora, Fiat and GoDaddy. Today’s Mother Jones article Twitter Talks Back to Sexist Super Bowl Ads described how this campaign started by Miss Representation is taking off.

Do online petitions actually make a difference? After looking at recent events, I have to say the online activism can and does make a difference. Several articles in the last few days documented the role online activists have to make change. The AltanticWire article 2012 Is the Year of the Virtual Protest and Nickolas Kristof’s Sunday New York Times column After Recess: Change the World both highlight the impact online efforts using services such as Change.org have. As Kristof wrote about these successes:

And therein lies a story of how new Internet tools are allowing very ordinary people to defeat some of the most powerful corporate and political interests around — by threatening the titans with the online equivalent of a tarring and feathering.

Our efforts to change the culture can start with online efforts. How will you use our new technology to promote a world free of sexual violence and domestic violence?

Yesterday, Men Can Stop Rape launched their new bystander intervention campaign geared towards addressing sexual violence on college campuses. “Where Do You Stand?” uses a number of tools such as trainings, posters, and media materials to encourage young men to become active bystanders to end sexual violence.

According to Men Can Stop Rape’s press release, “Where Do You Stand? continues Men Can Stop Rape’s commitment to primary prevention by creating everyday solutions to prevent men’s violence against women and girls,” said Men Can Stop Rape Executive Director, Neil Irvin. “This campaign builds on young men’s ability, desire, and commitment to being strong without being violent.”

Continue reading to view the full text of the press release.

PRESS CONTACT: Amy Terpeluk
Tel: (212) 593-2792
Cell: (917) 826-2326
amy@finnpartners.com

COLLEGE MEN LAUNCH WHERE DO YOU STAND?, A NEW NATIONAL INTERVENTION PROGRAM TO STOP SEXUAL ASSAULT ON CAMPUSES

Leading men’s prevention organization, Men Can Stop Rape, collaborates with American Association of University Women to increase the number of men on campus who intervene to prevent dating violence and sexual assault

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 31, 2012 – Today, Men Can Stop Rape, a leading national organization mobilizing boys and young men to prevent violence against women, is launching a new nationwide intervention movement to empower college men to speak up and prevent violence on campus.

This new push to build safer college campuses is a direct result of the many recent incidents of rape, sexual assault and dating violence that have occurred on campuses. Sixty two percent of undergraduate students say they have encountered some type of sexual harassment⁽¹⁾, and a recent survey shows that nearly half (43 percent) of all dating college women report having ever experienced violent or abusive dating behaviors ⁽²⁾.

Men Can Stop Rape is taking an entirely new approach to preventing these incidents. For the first time, they are focusing on male bystanders who witness potentially violent situations and teaching them how to step in before situations escalate into actual physical or sexual violence.

This initiative involves several elements including the launch of an innovative public awareness campaign called Where Do You Stand?. This campaign uses a variety of media materials including billboards, posters and t-shirts, displaying provocative visuals and messages that illustrate how easy it can be for men to speak up and prevent violence.Where Do You Stand? also uses bystander intervention trainings and peer-education sessions that equip them with the necessary skills and tools to intervene.

“Where Do You Stand? continues Men Can Stop Rape’s commitment to primary prevention by creating everyday solutions to prevent men’s violence against women and girls,” said Men Can Stop Rape Executive Director, Neil Irvin. “This campaign builds on young men’s ability, desire, and commitment to being strong without being violent. We look forward to using Where Do You Stand? to deepen existing relationships and build new partnerships with college campuses across the country.”

The collaboration with the American Association of University Women’s 100,000 members nationwide, illustrates the spirit of teamwork that Men Can Stop Rape aims to incorporate onto every campus where this new campaign will take root. Men Can Stop Rape hopes to continue to build these powerful collaborations with women’s groups to help support existing rape and violence prevention programs on campuses and to increase these groups’ resources by bringing men and women together around these important issues.

“It’s crucial that both women and men address sexual harassment and violence on campus. This is not just a women’s issue,” said AAUW Program Manager, Holly Kearl. “By joining forces, we can work together to challenge the culture that fosters those dangerous behaviors, involve more men and give all students nationwide the tools they need to be part of the solution.”

The initiative will also seek to increase the presence of Men Can Stop Rape student leaders on college campuses by building more student-led chapters of their Campus Men Of Strength (MOST) Clubs. MOST Club members serve as activists for violence prevention on campus. They facilitate trainings, plan events and partner with other community and campus organizations to educate men about stereotypes that perpetuate violence, different ways to approach potentially dangerous situations and how to overcome men’s reluctance to confront their peers when they see unhealthy interactions they suspect could become dangerous.

Today, college men from Georgetown, American University and George Washington University, along with area high school students, will come together at Georgetown with collaborators from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and the School and College Organization of Prevention Educators (SCOPE, www.wearescope.org) to launch this new violence intervention movement at a meeting of Men Can Stop Rape student leaders.

“Intervening in the presence of disrespect toward a woman can be easier said than done,” said Matt Scott, sophomore at George Washington University and Campus MOST Club member. “Everybody faces challenges in life where women, and men for that matter, are being degraded in front of them. It is tough to know how to handle it but Men Can Stop Rape makes it easier for men to challenge stereotypes and take a stand.”

Universities across the country have already requested the new Where Do You Stand?intervention materials and programs and are highly anticipating the opportunity to introduce this national campus movement to their students. Additionally, partners from the District of Columbia Office of Victim Services have joined with Men Can Stop Rape with the goal of distributing Where Do You Stand? materials to campuses city wide. The college men leading this movement are working to ensure every campus has violence and sexual assault prevention and intervention programs in place.

The Where Do You Stand? materials, trainings and programs and the Campus MOST Club programming are available to be activated on campuses nationwide. For more information about Men Can Stop Rape, visit www.mencanstoprape.org.

About Men Can Stop Rape
Men Can Stop Rape is the leading national organization mobilizing boys and men to prevent violence against women. The program has reached over 2 million boys and men in the past 10 years with a message of “strength without violence.” Men Can Stop Rape’s cutting-edge prevention programs are grounded in the social ecological model which recognizes that individual actions profoundly affect entire communities and ultimately all of society. Utilizing a proven curriculum, awareness campaigns, prevention and intervention trainings and programming, Men Can Stop Rape is engaging men and boys to build safer and healthier communities. For more information about Men Can Stop Rape, visit www.mencanstoprape.org.

¹ Harris Interactive® online survey conducted on behalf of the AAUW Educational Foundation, 2005

² Liz Claiborne Inc.’s Love Is Not Abuse 2011 College Dating Violence and Abuse Poll, 2011

Today marks the beginning of Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month.  In February, there will be activities throughout the country addressing violence in young people’s relationships.  I appreciate that this month is not only about awareness, but includes a focus on prevention.  This is a time to take action.  During this month there will be rallies, forums, media campaigns and flash mobs to mobilize young people to prevent teen dating violence.

In his Presidential Proclamation on National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, 2012, President Obama said

Reducing violence against teens and young adults is an important task for all of us.  This month, we renew our commitment to breaking the silence about dating abuse and fostering a culture of respect in our neighborhoods, our schools, and our homes.

Check out some of PreventConnect’s archived materials about teen dating violence, including

• Healthy Break-Ups and Why They Matter
• Prepare for National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month with That’s Not Cool
• Campaign for the third choice: dating violence prevention and Eclipse
• Understanding teen dating violence prevention: CDC’s Dating Matters
• Respect WORKS!: a comprehensive teen dating violence prevention model

The recently released findings from the Center for Disease Control & Prevention’s (CDC) National Intimate Partner & Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) recognized that almost 1 in 5 American women have been raped in their lifetime. This is a wake up call to recognize how sexual violence is widespread. However, last week, in a Washington Post opinion column, Christina Hoff Sommers claims this report is comprised of “inflated statistics and sensationalism.”

Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has a long history of criticizing information about violence against women in her articles and books such as “Who Stole Feminism?” In the Washington Post article, she argues the validity of the CDC’s research in comparison to the number rapes reported to the F.B.I. (which used a definition that recently changed because it was too restrictive) and those reported on the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey. Sommers writes,

The [CDC's] figures are wildly at odds with official crime statistics. The FBI found that 84,767 rapes were reported to law enforcement authorities in 2010. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, the gold standard in crime research, reports 188,380 rapes and sexual assaults on females and males in 2010. Granted, not all assaults are reported to authorities. But where did the CDC find 13.7 million victims of sexual crimes that the professional criminologists had overlooked?

The CDC survey finds so many more victims than the criminal justice-based statistics because it asks about people’s actual experiences. It is a strength of this survey that it asks behavior-specific questions and includes many types of unwanted sexual violence experiences, in addition to rape. The FBI — until this month — only recorded statistics of vaginal rape that are voluntarily reported by the police departments. The National Crime Victimization Survey asks only about rape as part of series of questions regarding various crimes. The CDC has developed a survey that recognizes sexual violence is not only a crime, but it is also a public health problem.

At the same time as these crimes are continuing to occur, funding is in jeopardy for rape crisis centers across the nation. There are already more survivors than social service agencies have the ability to serve. In order to provide services to more survivors — and also to do the primary prevention work to stop violence before it occurs — the rape crisis centers need to increase funding.

Whether your rape statistic is 84,767 or 188,380, sexual violence is still happening, which should make this a priority issue for rape crisis centers, media, funders and other social service agencies. This survey suggests that the problem is even bigger and requires more attention.

Instead using energy that minimizes the prevalence of sexual violence, let’s put our energy toward creating more programs to prevent sexual violence and opportunities to support survivors in their healing.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the concept of bystander intervention. There are so many ways to intervene but when the time comes will I know which one to use? Will I need to go get another friend? Will it be so obvious that I am trying to intervene that it will actually make the problem worse?

This comic reminded me that bystander intervention can be a simple act that has a huge impact.

We first saw this comic through the awesome team at Hollaback! but the original can be found here.

What are some of the simple and easy ways you’ve practiced bystander intervention lately?

When looking to transform our culture to end sexual violence and domestic violence, we have to look at the music we listen to. For many years I have pointed out many troubling songs from “He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss)” by the Crystals (co-written by Carol King) to the Beatles’ “Run For Your Life” (lyrics start with “I’d rather see you dead, little girl/ Than to be with another man.”) as well as look for positive songs like the list of 16 Songs About Violence Against Women (and Staying Strong and Positive) that I recently blogged about. During PreventConnect web conferences we have explored topics like Masculinity, Sex, and Hip-Hop with Byron Hurt and Shira Tarrant.

In this podcast from BitchMedia, Tracy Wright from the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Althea Hart from the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault discuss Jay-Z’s “Glory,” the history of female emcees, and strategies for using hip hop and pop culture in conversations about sexual and domestic violence. This podcast was recorded after their presentation at the Roots of Change conference called “Hip Hop and its Exploitation of Communities of Color.”

PreventConnect will soon be releasing other podcasts from the Roots of Change Conference.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Photo from raremusicvideo1‘s Flickr photostream

I love going on facebook. As much as I try to deny it, I love it. It is the way I connect with friends who I can’t see everyday, share important news pieces, learn about social events, it is the way that I feel connected to the world around me. But facebook and I have also had a few tense moments that have caused me to swallow the giant lump in my throat and think critically about my engagement on the site. One of those moments was when facebook suggested that I become friends my abusive ex-partner. I wanted to scream at facebook (yes, the computer, the site, the whole company), and just felt like they should have known better!! How could this happen?! Six years later, and I felt as though no time had passed, I was instantly just as hurt and just as angry. New York Times online Opinionator column addressed this very issue of social media and it’s power to reconnect to potentially triggering individuals in recent weeks.

On January 13, the New York Times published an opinion column written by Dorri Olds called “Defriending My Rapist”. Olds describes how a facebook connection with her rapist had lead her to confront him about the feelings that she still held on to about the situation.

In a private message directly to her rapist, Olds wrote:

“I hope that night has haunted you. I was naïve and a virgin. I see you have a teenage daughter now. Better keep her safe from guys like you.”

Olds continues by saying that:

 “I wanted to hate him and hurt him but realized that the only way to be free was to let it all go. When I defriended him I felt strong. The past was the past, and my mouth wasn’t covered anymore.”

In the age of social media and interconnected, often overlapping, social networks, I can’t help but wonder how to best negotiate new arenas to confront previous trauma. I do know that we, as prevention and intervention specialists and members of the sexual assault movement, have an opportunity to reach out to our communities and talk about this emerging topic. I still believe that social media is an overwhelmingly positive tool that allows us to reach out to members of our community through exciting new channels, encouraging a greater number of people to join our movement and engage in our work. The challenge for us may be in harnessing the power of sites like twitter and facebook to get out a positive message about prevention education, survivor support, and community resources while counterbalancing and addressing the potentially negative consequences of being connected online.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section about how you feel we, as a prevention and intervention community, can speak to our communities about social media and its power to connect survivors with resources and support. 

(21 mins) Lili Herrera of Peace Over Violence in Los Angeles describes the comprehensive primary prevention programs her agency offers in Los Angeles. Their curriculum In Touch with Teens is a foundation for a wide variety of activities. Peace Over Violence has adopted this programs to serve gang-affiliated youth. This program was featured in the 2011 report Innovations in Prevention from the  National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Listen: Interview with Lili Herrera about primary prevention programs

Amy Bush Stevens

(11 mins) Rebecca Cline and Amy Bush Stevens from the Ohio Domestic Violence Network. They describe the Empowerment Evaluation Toolkit. Developed as part of ODVN’s DELTA Project, this 163-page toolkit provides useful resources on measuring the impact of prevention.

Listen: Interview with Rebecca Cline & Amy Bush Stevens about the impact of prevention

Zerlina Maxwell writes in her recent article Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped in Ebony Magazine that

Holding women and girls accountable for preventing sexual assault hasn’t worked and so long as men commit the majority of rapes, men need to be at the heart of our tactics for preventing them.  Let’s stop teaching ‘how to avoid being a victim’ and instead, attack the culture that creates predators in the first place.

While I strongly agree that we need cultural change and to engage men in rape prevention, I think there is an important role for women’s empowerment in rape prevention. What do you think?

(21 mins) Wanda Powless, Kim McArthur and Mark McDanial of Oregon’s Klamath Crisis Center describe their work to engage men to prevent sexual violence in a rural community. PAWS for Change (Prevention, Awareness, Wellness and Strength) is a collaboration of local organizations in Klamath County to engage men and boys as allies in an effort to prevent all forms of violence. This program was featured in the 2011 report Innovations in Prevention from the  National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Listen: Interview with Wanda Powless, Kim McArthur & Mark McDanial about engaging men and boys

(14 mins) Strong Oak Lefevre from the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition describes the community-based prevention work of Visioning Bear Circle to prevent sexual violence in Native American communities.

Listen: Interview with Strong Oak Lefevre about community-based prevention work

(11 mins) Mary Worthington of Network of Victim Assistance in Bucks County, Penn., describes the agency’s prevention curriculum for students with autism spectrum disorders.

Listen: Interview with Mary Worthington about prevention curriculum

(16 mins) Bari Rosenbluth and Barbara Ball, of Safe Place in Austin, Texas, describe their prevention efforts with adolescents. The programs, Expect Respect and Start Strong Austin, show comprehensive programs that involve youth leadership, community partnership and policy change to prevent violence.

Listen: Interview with Bari Rosenbluth and Barbara Ball about prevention efforts with adolescents

(10 mins) Alex Leslie of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center describes Youth360, a youth leadership program for the primary prevention of sexual violence.

Listen: Interview with Alex Leslie a youth leadership program

(16 mins) Julie Evans of Pittsburgh Action Against Rape describes the Parenting Program, a four?workshop series for parents to prevent child sexual abuse, and the Middle School Social Norms Campaign to promote positive social norms.

Listen: Interview with Julie Evans about preventing child sexual abuse

PreventConnect.org

National Intimate Partner & Sexual Violence Survey

In December 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the initial findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS). This survey became the subject of hundreds of news stories about the prevalence of sexual violence, intimate partner violence and stalking. In this web conference, we will share results of the survey and explore the implications for prevention efforts.

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012 and repeated on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012
This ninety-minute (90 min) session begins at 11 a.m. Pacific Time (2 PM Eastern, 1 PM Central, Noon Mountain, 10 AM Alaska, 8 AM Hawai’i). Click here to sign the wait list if the sessions are full.)

Host/Presenter: David Lee, CALCASA, PreventConnect

Guest Speakers: Michele Lynberg Black, Ph.D., Division of Violence Prevention, CDC; Matt Breiding, Ph.D., Division of Violence Prevention, CDC; Kathleen Basile, Ph.D., Division of Violence Prevention, CDC

Cost: Free

Materials and Recordings: Click here to get this materials at PreventConnect.

What is a Web Conference?
A web conference is an opportunity to attend an online workshop by watching a presentation on your computer screen (using your internet connection) and hearing presenters through your telephone. Prevent Connect web conferences feature an opportunity to participate in online question & answer sessions and live text chat between participants. If for some reason you are unable to join on your computer, you can download the presentation slides from our website and listen on your phone.

Real-Time Captioning Available: Instructions for accessing captioning during this web conference will be provided with your registration confirmation.

Compatibility: The iLinc web conference software used by Prevent Connect is compatible with both Microsoft® Windows® and Apple® Macintosh® computers. Click here for detailed system requirements.

Media coverage of the Penn State child sexual abuse case looked at institutional accountability in a way that most other media coverage of child sexual abuse has not done before. However, the media coverage still failed to examine potential prevention solution, according to a new report from the Ms.Foundation for Women and the Berkeley Media Studies Group. The report analyzed media coverage of the first nine days of Sandusky Penn State case, serving as a timely follow-up on the 2011 report on media coverage of child sexual abuse.

FIrst, the good new – instituational accounability was a big part of the media story:

The attention to Joe Paterno, in sports and general news, was also attention to what he—and what others with authority at Penn State—did not do. In addition to the intense focus on Sandusky and Paterno, however, the first week of coverage also introduced a story about institutional accountability. This is unusual and important. The personal failing of Sandusky for committing the alleged abuse and of Paterno for not doing enough once he learned of the accusation were consistently present in the coverage, so much so that the coverage often seemed to be more about the downfall of Paterno than about Sandusky or child sexual abuse. But the news also calls out the University for its failing as an institution. This broader perspective was all but absent in our earlier study of typical reporting on child sexual abuse.

While the issues were named, media coverage did not focus on the potential solutions such as prevention.

As we found in our earlier study, discussions of how to prevent child sexual abuse were virtually absent from news coverage. In the Sandusky coverage, nearly one-third of the general news included a mention of a potential solution or policy measures to reduce or prevent future abuse, and only 5% of sports news did so. The most frequently named solutions focused on individuals after the fact, such as reporting abuse. There was some discussion, though minimal, about broader societal prevention strategies such as changing cultural norms so we can talk about child sexual abuse and make it unacceptable.

This report helps us consider the lessons learned from the media coverage and plan for how to continue to improve focusing the story on how to prevent child sexual abuse. The report has recommendations for child sexual abuse prevention advocates and report. Click here to see the full report.

(11 mins) Christine Gilfillan of Berks Women in Crisis describes Camp Peaceworks, a primary prevention program featured in the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s recent report on Innovations in Prevention. Camp Peaceworks has adapted the curriculum “Making the Peace” by Paul Kivel to develop a five-day camp for young people that establishes a foundation for young people to take action to prevent violence. This program was featured in the 2011 report Innovations in Prevention from the  National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Listen: Interview with Christine Gilfillan about a five-day camp for youth

Many primary prevention programs target youth as the intended audience. But do those programs identify youth only as the audience, or do they find ways to support youth as the agents of change in their communities?

The newest issue of Partners in Social Change, a publication from the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, highlights youth led efforts including Youth 360 from the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center and STAND & SERVE from Phoenix’s Peer Solutions. (PreventConnect will soon have an interview with Alex Leslie speaking about Youth 360 and check out this interview of Jennifer Rauhouse and Elizabeth Gonzales from STAND & SERVE.)

In Kat Monusky’s opening article, she states

While programs may go by many names (“youth led,” “youth driven,” “peer leadership,” “by and for youth,” etc.), the concepts are the same: creating opportunities for youth to be meaningfully involved and take ownership of prevention in their communities.

How does your prevention program promote youth leaders?

Click here for a link to this publication.

(11 mins) Holly Kearl, author and founder of Stop Street Harassment, talks about some highlights of her recent series of blogs on anti-street harassment successes in 2011. She also talks about the upcoming International Anti-Street Harassment Week, which will be held March 18-24, 2011.

Listen: Interview with Holly Kearl about street harassment

Sexual violence is a pervasive public health problem in the United States. In December 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Throughout the country, headlines of local and national papers described that rape is more common than previously thought.

Today an article published in on Significance Magazine’s web site, a publication of the American Statistical Association and Royal Statistical Society, compared these rates to those of smoking – 18.3% of women over 18 reported being sexual assaulted in their lifeline while 17.4% of women reported smoking. Let consider this as we set health priorities.

Just as in smoking prevention, preventing sexual violence before it happens in the first place is crucial. NISVS demonstrated that sexual violence often first happen when peopel are young, thus early prevention efforts are vital.

For more information on NISVS go to CDC’s NISVS page. You can also find materials on PreventConnect, VawNet’s NISVS Resource Page and the NSVRC’s NISVS Page.

Photo from Raul Lieberwirth.

(9 mins) Adrian Velasquez, of Migrant Clinicians Network in Texas, describes Hombres Unidos contra la Violencia Familiar, a primary prevention of both sexual and intimate partner violence in the Hispanic migrant community. Drawing on a promotora model, Hombres Unidos has trained men to facilitate session with their peers.

Listen: Interview with Adrian Velasquez about Hombres Unidos

President Obama recently proclaimed January 2012 to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. In Obama’s proclamation, he stated:

“Our Nation was founded on the enduring principles of equality and freedom for all.  As Americans, it is our solemn responsibility to honor and uphold this legacy.  Yet, around the world and even within the United States, victims of modern slavery are deprived of the most basic right of freedom.  During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we rededicate ourselves to preventing and ending human trafficking, and we recognize all who continue to fight this serious human rights violation.”

To learn more about Human Trafficking in the United States and abroad, visit the U.S. Department of State’s “Trafficking in Person’s 2010″ site. Please share human trafficking resources that you utilize in the comments section!

January is National Stalking Awareness Month and this year, the Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime have created this website dedicated to providing resources and information to advocates and community members. The “Stalking: Know it. Name it. Stop it.” website provides sample status updates, PSA scripts, news releases, outreach materials, and resource guides to promote stalking prevention and intervention work in your local area. Visit the site to learn more about how to support the over 3.4 million men and women over 18 years of age who are stalked each year in the United States.

Banners in the conference room from the recent UNITY Advisory Meeting

Last week I had the opportunity to join the UNITY Advisory Meeting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia. It was so appropriate to meet at a center for organizing for non-violence and promoting human rights. At this meeting we explored how we can advance the linkages between a range of types of violence (community violence, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, teen dating violence, child maltreatment and suicide) and other important social issues. I appreciated the dedication of this group representing diverse issues while being committed to preventing violence.

While the focus of my work at CALCASA is to advance the prevention of sexual violence, I am reminded of the value of connections. (CALCASA’s national online prevention project is called PreventConnect.)  I see an important part of primary prevention as promoting what we want. We need to find the common protective and resiliency factors in our communities to create positive change in many issues. As we see in the most recent results of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, we need to focus on prevention.

This past week, David Lee and I traveled to Atlanta to provide trainings for the Georgia Network to End Sexual Assault (GNESA) on primary prevention and bystander intervention. Laura Fidler of the New York City Alliance to End Sexual Assault joined us to provide training on community engagement and to share her experience working on Project Envision. After weeks of conversations about budget cuts and intense media coverage about child sexual abuse at Penn State among other institutions, the positive response we received from the participants of the two-day conference was inspiring and uplifting, reinvigorating my passion for sexual assault prevention work.

The 60 participants came from a wide range of backgrounds but shared a common goal: ending sexual violence in their communities. David started the conference by framing primary prevention, and exploring where our movement has been and the directions in which it is headed. One of the most valuable pieces of this workshop was the conversation about the way we, as prevention educators, can foster behavior change. Take home message? Focus on community level change efforts. Primary prevention is about changing social norms, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors in a community. Response from the crowd? Overwhelmingly positive — David’s message reaffirmed what they knew to be true from the work they are currently doing and wanted to focus on in their communities.

I took on the second half of day 1 by addressing bystander intervention and the way that bystander intervention curricula and concepts help to create community change. We, as educators, are able to engage the entire community as potential bystanders, instead of being potential perpetrators and potential victims. Bystander intervention also opens up the doors to engaging men and boys in new ways, creating a social movement and empowering community members with concrete action steps to address sexual violence. Bystander intervention also challenges us to confront our own tolerance of violence, as it calls on us to intervene each and every time we witness violence or the precursors to violence. What a heavy load to carry alone! My take home message: The more people who you can engage in bystander intervention work, the greater the number of people who will take on community safety as their responsibility. We can create a paradigm shift together, as a united community, intolerant of violence.

Laura followed on day 2 with concrete action steps for engaging your community in these efforts. Laura spoke about her work on Project Envision. In conjunction with 11 of the city’s rape crisis programs, in 2008 the Alliance initiated the second phase of Project ENVISION, a six-year sexual violence primary prevention demonstration project. In this phase, the Alliance trained community researchers in participatory action research methods to conduct needs assessments in three New York City communities: Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the South Bronx and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Participatory action research was utilized as a community mobilizing strategy. By emphasizing meaningful community involvement at all stages of the research and generating awareness about sexual violence prevention, this approach acts as a component of a primary prevention intervention. Laura conducted an exercise called asset mapping, where she invited participants to examine a map of the Lower East Side and determine how they would locate and identify a number of resources and assets (see picture below). She encouraged participants to reframe and rethink their community assessment methods to identify strategic partnerships, identify influential community members and organizations, and to create an ongoing dialogue with the neighborhood through interviews and focus groups. Take home message? Work with and alongside your community. Give them the power to voice concerns, opinions, goals, challenges and successes. Engaging your community in the process of creating solutions to end sexual violence is essential.

Stay tuned for our resource lists from the presentations to get more information on primary prevention, bystander intervention and community engagement!

Click here to be directed to CALCASA’s NISVS Page.

On Wednesday, Dec. 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS). This is an ongoing, nationally representative survey that assesses experiences of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence among adult women and men in the United States. This large-scale ongoing study confirms many realities that advocates and educators already know about sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and stalking: These forms of violence continue to be pervasive and deserve more attention and funding. It also sheds new light on the scope and context of these forms of violence.

Click here to be directed to CALCASA’s NISVS Page.

Greetings again from the YWCA Silicon Valley Green Dot Team! After three successful Green Dot speeches, we gathered our first audience for a trial run of the Green Dot Training last Saturday, December 3^rd. Fourteen people who work or volunteer at the YWCA Silicon Valley gave up their Saturday to help us test our clickers and learn more about the Green Dot Strategy. The training ran relatively smoothly and everyone came away from the day feeling empowered and inspired to act. Not only did we get to run through the material, but we also got to use evaluative techniques to gauge what we can improve upon for future trainings. Here is some of the feedback that we received:

“My favorite part was the way the presenters communicated and integrated the audience into the presentation. They left me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what we were about to hear next.”

“Hearing people’s personal stories really helped to connect the training to real life.”

“I really liked the entertaining videos, the inspiring personal stories, the interactive clicker activities, and the passionate trainers.”

Until next time fellow Green Dotters!

Guest post provided by Stacey Carlotta from the YWCA of Silicon Valley. For more information, please contact her at scarlotta@ywca-sv.org

As I have been reading all of the news about the sexual abuse at Penn State, Syracuse and others, I see a lot of anger at a few individuals who do not act or did not do enough. In his recent article in the Huffington Post, Larry Cohen of the Prevention Institute clearly states that we have to consider what institutional changes needs to take place to prevent sexual abuse:

Of course, we all know that it is not a child’s job to protect themselves from sexual abuse and the predators that perpetuate it; it is the job of the adults and institutions that surround him or her. It is not one or two individuals who have failed the survivors of child rape and sexual assault at Penn State, Syracuse University, and in our churches and schools across the country. We are failing our children. We have created a system that often colludes with perpetrators, supports them and creates a norm that allows sexual assault and child rape to continue. And by blaming individuals alone, we lose the opportunity to upend that system and create policies and systems that protect our children, instead of perpetuating harm.

I agree with Larry when he says that “we must re-examine and revise policies and practices to not only ensure reporting but promote a climate that insists on the safety and health of our children in the first place.” As I said when I spoke last month in Idaho, we need to go beyond describing the problem of sexual abuse, we have to promote the solutions. Not only the individual solutions, but community-wide prevention and policy solutions.

Last week, I had the opportunity to talk to Sara Zatz & Amita Swadhin about Secret Survivors, an interview-based theater project featuring adult survivors of child sexual abuse telling their personal stories on stage. Sara is the Associate Director at Ping Chong & Company, a non-profit tour that creates works of theatre and art that explore the intersection of race, history, culture and technology. Amita is the Project Coordinator for Secret Survivors and she brought the idea for the project to Ping Chong & Company.

In this interview, Sara & Amita discuss the need for conversation about child sexual abuse, and the response the performance has received since its March debut in at El Museo de Barrio. As part of an initiative to expand the impact of its theater production in order to end child sexual abuse in the United States, Ping Chong & Company has been awarded a grant from the Ms. Foundation for Women to develop an educational DVD and toolkit to accompany the live performance of Secret Survivors.

Listen: Interview with Sara Zatz & Amita Swadhin about Secret Survivors

The Pixel Project is celebrating 16 Days of Activism to End Gender Violence with a selection of 16 Songs About Violence Against Women (and Staying Strong and Positive). The selection of songs emphasize women being empowered. Examples include Ani DiFranco’s The Story, RESPECT by Aretha Franklin, Pink’s 18 Wheeler, Fighter by Christina Aguilera, and twelve more. (Click here for the full post.)

I am glad to go beyond listing songs that are about violence against women (though we have a great list of songs and movies on the PreventConnect wiki.) We need more songs (and plays and poems) about taking a stand to stop violence and rape.

What songs inspire you in efforts to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault?

Today, the Sacramento Bee featured an article about WEAVE’s work with violence prevention among young men. The article focused on the “Coaching Boys Into Men” program, a curriculum developed by Futures Without Violence. ”The Futures Without Violence, formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund, Coaching Boys into Men (CBIM) program invites men to utilize their influence to unique position to prevent domestic and sexual violence. First launched in 2001, in partnership with the Advertising Council, CBIM’s core goal is to inspire men to teach boys the importance of respecting women and that violence never equals strength.”

To read the article, visit the Sacbee.com.

(8 mins) PreventConnect’s David Lee interviews Ana Vega and Leslie Malkin of the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women. They describe their trainings to build domestic violence prevention efforts in New Jersey’s Latino Communities.

Listen: Prevention For Latino Communities in New Jersey

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign is an international effort to take action. Starting on November 25, the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women, and concluding on December 10, International Human Rights Day, the campaign seeks to inspire action to end all forms of violence against women and girls.

What are going to do to take action today? You can download a Take Action Kit and follow on Twitter with the hashtag #16days

Technology is changing faster than ever. With the internet, mobile phones and powerful computers that we carry in our pocket and purses, we have new tools available to advance our violence prevention work. On December 8-9, 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) will convene a workshop titled mPreventViolence: Communication and Technology for Violence Prevention to explore gaps of knowledge management (knowledge generation, integration, dissemination, and application) and how closing these gaps might accelerate violence prevention, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

The public workshop will examine the use of traditional and new media to communicate evidence-based information for violence prevention and new applications of social media and new communications technologies to prevent violence.

Click here for more information. You can register to join in person (in Washington DC) or via webcast. The IOM asks us to disseminate this information widely. They are especially interested in getting audiences overseas. I plan to join the webcast of this workshop. See you there (or follow tweets with the hashtag #mpreventviolence).

Ilene Stohl & Summer Camp participants

(10 mins) PreventConnect’s David Lee interviews Ilene Stohl from the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She describes their Teen Learning Council (TLC) where young people define how to work with youth to prevent domestic violence. This project was a result of the DELTA PREP initiative.

Listen: Washington State’s Teen Learning Council

(15 mins) Katherine Beavis & Emily Haas of the Indiana Campus Sexual Assault Primary Prevention Project describe the way in which the development of communication makes a difference in the prevention of sexual violence. They highlight the prevention posters developed for Purdue University. This program was featured in the 2011 report Innovations in Prevention from the  National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Listen: Interview with Katherine Beavis & Emily Haas about using communication to prevent violence

Jessy LaHood

(13 mins) Laura Fidler and Lower East Side Coalition community leader Jessy LaHood describe Project ENVISION, a community mobilization initiative to prevent sexual violence. Project ENVISION is a project of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault. This program was featured in the 2011 report Innovations in Prevention from the  National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Listen: Interview with Laura Fidler & Jessy LaHood about community mobilization

Two former Syracuse University ball boys have recently come forward, reporting that they were molested by Syracuse Associate Head Basketball coach Bernie Fine. They stated that Fine started to molest them in the late 1970s and continued to assault them through the 1990s.

I agree with the women at feministing.com when they write: “It appears that one positive thing to come from the Penn State case may be that is has empowered other survivors to speak out”.

 ESPN’s Outside the Lines has more details as well as a interview with one of the survivors:

The New York Times is also reporting on the story, including quotes from Fine’s colleague, Coach Jim Boeheim, who  finds it “suspicious” that these men are coming forward with allegations in the wake of the Penn State scandal.

Fine has been placed on administrative leave by Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor while Syracuse City Police investigate these allegations, among others. Cantor has demonstrated her commitment to the investigation as well as the health and safety of Syracuse University students through her public statements and letter sent directly to all students. Cantor told students:

“As you know, this week, I affirmed Syracuse University’s steadfast belief that all of us have the responsibility, individually and collectively, to ensure that Syracuse University remains a safe place for every campus community member and everyone with whom we interact on a daily basis on campus or in the community as part of our learning, scholarship, or work. We do not tolerate abuse.”

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center has created talking points around Child Sexual Abuse in English and Spanish.

We at CALCASA encourage you to use these talking points, as well as the media tools created by Jessica Naiper, CALCASA’s Media and Communication Specialist, to talk to your community and colleagues about ways that we can prevent child abuse and support survivors.