This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a major step forward in the process towards renewing a piece of legislation which has transformed the work of victim advocates as well as the lives of sexual and domestic violence survivors. First passed in 1994 (and later reauthorized in 2006), this ground breaking piece of legislation,

“…recognizes the insidious and pervasive nature of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and supports comprehensive, effective and cost saving responses to these crimes. VAWA programs, administered by the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services, give law enforcement, prosecutors and judges the tools they need to hold offenders accountable and keep communities safe while supporting victims.” (Quote from the National Alliance to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women website)

The next step for this bill will be to move forward into a full Senate vote and then on to the House of Representatives. CALCASA has been working closely with the National Alliance to advance this legislation and would like to thank Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) for her support of sexual and domestic violence survivors and for co-sponsoring the bill. We will continue to provide updates as this piece of legislation moves through the Senate.

To learn more, please visit the National Alliance website by clicking here.

If you are interested in working more closely with CALCASA on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, please contact Alexis Marbach, CALCASA’s Public Policy Advocate at alexis.marbach@calcasa.org

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

April 2012 has been designated as Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) is excited to partner with public officials, college campuses, law enforcement, victim advocates and communities across California to raise awareness.

To view CALCASA’s SAAM 2012 webpage, click here.

As momentum starts to build around SAAM, CALCASA would like to use media opportunities to not only highlight the events and work at your agencies, but also to make sexual assault a priority issue for the media and those who are watching — funders, policymakers and general public.

CALCASA is providing materials that will support your media outreach, interviewing skills, relationships with press and community presence. CALCASA is asking you to get in touch with your local media, invite media to your events and advocate for the issues that are affecting your center and this movement. The hope is for all centers across the state to be communicating with media so that we can collectively bring the issue of sexual assault to the forefront.

SAAM is a month focused on raising awareness and informing the public about what individuals can do to change the culture and to join the movement to end sexual violence in this nation and around the world. Throughout April, advocates and volunteers will canvass neighborhoods, produce public service announcements, reach out to local media, and ask public officials to end violence at college campuses, on the streets and in homes. California’s rape crisis centers serve more than 30,000 survivors of sexual violence and trafficking. National studies suggest nearly 1 in 2 women and 1 in 5 men experience an act of sexual violence other than rape in their lifetime, many before the age of 18 and increasingly in elderly populations. From the streets of Los Angeles to the rolling hills of the Sierra Nevadas, every community has been affected by sexual violence.

During the month of April, CALCASA observes Denim Day California. This day protest an Italian Supreme Court decision that overturned a rape conviction. The Court decided the female plaintiff could not have possibly been raped because she was wearing tight jean pants, and the defendant could not have removed her pants without her assistance and thus consent. After the ruling, female Italian parliamentarians wore jeans in protest, and in solidarity, this protest was followed by California’s Senate and Assembly. Since the 1990s, Denim Day California has sent a message that there is never a reason or excuse to sexually assault someone. This year’s Denim Day CA event will take place on Wednesday April 25, 2012 on the West Steps of the State Capitol. (For information about the national Denim Day, please visit the Denim Day in USA website.)

According to government reports, sexual assaults are the lowest reported violent crime with only a small percentage of brave survivors stepping forward to report their assault and participate in the criminal justice process. Rape crisis centers, advocates and volunteers are asked to do more, during a time when the state and federal governments are assisting less. For these reasons, we ask Californians to stand unified with those individuals who step forward in the aftermath of violence.

To view CALCASA’s SAAM 2012 webpage, click here.

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.

Posted by Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, on The White House Blog.

January is Stalking Awareness Month, and it’s an important to highlight a crime that is often invisible. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men will be stalked in their lifetimes. Young women ages 18-19 experience the highest rates of stalking. The fears, threats and intimidation endured by victims is often felt by family members as well.

To mark this important month, this week we hosted the first ever White House stalking roundtable with survivors, law enforcement officers, victim advocates, and researchers. We learned from law enforcement experts that while many victims are stalked by ex-partners, others can be stalked by acquaintances and even strangers. Stalkers often track their victims’ daily lives and make themselves known in ways that are scary and unpredictable. Stalking can force victims to change everything about their lives in order to be safe.

I commend the bravery of two survivors who shared their stories. One woman was stalked by an ex-husband while another was stalked over a long period of time by someone she barely knew. Both were terrorized through cyber stalking and a range of strategies designed to keep them on constant edge and make them feel afraid every day. The stalking extended to family members and children, making it even more terrifying. Their stories put a human face on the statistics and helped us understand the true personal cost of stalking.

We are taking steps across the federal government to combat stalking as well as dating violence and sexual assault. The Apps Against Abuse challenge sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services resulted in two mobile apps that can help protect against dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. These Apps can be used to stay in touch with your friends and call for help if you need it. The next step is to improve research on stalking and learn more about what victims need to be safe. Most importantly, we need to raise awareness about this hidden crime.

See the National Stalking Awareness Month Proclamation here.

Last week, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal held a roundtable to address the issue of stalking in the United States and Stalking Awareness Month. You can read President Obama’s proclamation of Stalking Awareness Month here.  In her recent blog, Ms. Rosenthal, “discusses the fears, threats, and intimidation endured by victims of stalking, and steps the Obama Administration is taking to combat this often-invisable crime.”

Continue reading to see her entire blog post…

Raising Awareness About Stalking
Posted by Lynn Rosenthal on January 30, 2012 at 01:28 PM EST

January is Stalking Awareness Month, and it’s an important to highlight a crime that is often invisible. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men will be stalked in their lifetimes. Young women ages 18-19 experience the highest rates of stalking. The fears, threats and intimidation endured by victims is often felt by family members as well.

To mark this important month, this week we hosted the first ever White House stalking roundtable with survivors, law enforcement officers, victim advocates, and researchers. We learned from law enforcement experts that while many victims are stalked by ex-partners, others can be stalked by acquaintances and even strangers. Stalkers often track their victims’ daily lives and make themselves known in ways that are scary and unpredictable. Stalking can force victims to change everything about their lives in order to be safe.

I commend the bravery of two survivors who shared their stories. One woman was stalked by an ex-husband while another was stalked over a long period of time by someone she barely knew. Both were terrorized through cyber stalking and a range of strategies designed to keep them on constant edge and make them feel afraid every day. The stalking extended to family members and children, making it even more terrifying. Their stories put a human face on the statistics and helped us understand the true personal cost of stalking.

We are taking steps across the federal government to combat stalking as well as dating violence and sexual assault. The Apps Against Abuse challenge sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services resulted in two mobile apps that can help protect against dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. These Apps can be used to stay in touch with your friends and call for help if you need it. The next step is to improve research on stalking and learn more about what victims need to be safe. Most importantly, we need to raise awareness about this hidden crime.

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

Attorney General Kamala Harris

On Wed., California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced the end to the rape kit backlog that had previously delayed the analysis of evidence collected through forensic examinations. AG Harris has made the issue of the rape kit backlog one of her priorities. In her statement, Harris stated that the California Department of Justice will now be able to analyze routine DNA evidence in 30 days, which is up to four times faster than before the backlog had been eliminated.

CALCASA would like to thank the Attorney General for her continued dedication to working to get justice for survivors of sexual assault, as well as everyone who worked to bring these important issues to the attention of state officials.

To read AG Harris’ press release, visit the Office of the Attorney General.

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. 

Recently published in the Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, “Exposure to Partner, Family, and Community Violence: Gang-Affiliated Latina Women and Risk of Unintended Pregnancy” examines the relationship “between gang involvement and reproductive health, and the pathways through which childhood, family, and relationship violence exposure may lead to unintended pregnancy”.

The authors studied 20 young females with known gang histories of gang-involvement, recruited through a gang-intervention program in Los Angeles, CA. The article provides detailed interview transcriptions that provide insight into the 20 young women’s exposure to violence, pregnancy experiences, access to knowledge about reproductive health, male partner pregnancy intentions and sexual coercion, male partner physical and sexual violence, exposure to interparental violence and child abuse, as well as gangs and sexual violence.

The authors suggest:

“…these stories offer some implications for practice and policy. These findings may guide targeted pregnancy prevention efforts among this highly vulnerable and hard-to-reach population of urban gang-affiliated Latinas as well as encourage the integration of sexual violence prevention and reproductive health promotion within gang violence intervention programs. The clustering of partner, family, and community violence with young women’s pregnancy suggests that programs that explicitly address the connections between violence exposure and pregnancy prevention are needed. Universal pregnancy prevention is unlikely to address the unique challenges facing youth in urban settings with high rates of gang violence” (Miller et al. 2011)

Click here for a link to the abstract and journal article.

Journal of Urban Health,  epublished December 13, 2011

Exposure to Partner, Family, and Community Violence: Gang-Affiliated Latina Women and Risk of Unintended Pregnancy.

Elizabeth Miller, Rebecca Levenson, Lili Herrera, Laura Kurek, Marney Stofflet, Leni Marin

Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, elizabeth.miller@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.

While teen pregnancy rates appear to be declining in the USA overall, the rate of decline among young Latinas has been less than other ethnic groups. Among the myriad factors associated with elevated pregnancy rates, for Latina girls living in the inner city, exposure to gang and community violence may be a critical context for increased pregnancy risk. This study explores the relationship between gang involvement and reproductive health, and the pathways through which childhood, family, and relationship violence exposure may lead to unintended pregnancy. Interviews of 20 young adult Latinas with known gang involvement in Los Angeles County were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded for key themes related to violence exposure and reproductive health. Limited access to reproductive health care compounded by male partner sexual and pregnancy coercion, as well as physical and sexual violence, emerged in the interviews. Exposures to interparental domestic violence, childhood physical and sexual abuse, and gang violence were prominent and closely associated with unhealthy and abusive intimate relationships. Adverse childhood experiences and exposure to partner, family, and community violence impact the reproductive lives and choices of young Latina women in gangs. These findings may guide targeted pregnancy prevention efforts among urban gang-affiliated Latinas as well as encourage the integration of sexual violence prevention and reproductive health promotion within gang violence intervention programs.

(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

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.

By Flickr stream: kalavinka

On Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced revisions to the Uniform Crime Report’s (UCR) definition of rape, which will lead to a more comprehensive statistical reporting of rape nationwide. In December, F.B.I. Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress that he has approved the updated definition for the way in which the agency defines rape.

“That [former] definition was in some ways unworkable, certainly not applicable–fully applicable to the types of crimes that…it should cover,” Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In early December, an F.B.I. advisory board voted to update the way the agency defines rape. The new terminology says rape is “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

In October, an F.B.I. subcommittee made recommendations to create a new federal definition of rape, moving the agency a step closer to updating the way it counts sex crimes for the first time since 1927. Currently, the F.B.I. considers rape to be “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will,” which excludes anal and oral rape, male rape and rape committed without physical force but also without consent.

This underreporting misleads the public about the prevalence of rape. Additionally, federal, state and local agencies use the F.B.I.’s UCR statistics to apply for funding. Law enforcement agencies have to determine what counts as rape based on the FBI definition, which ends up affecting the resources allocated for services rape crisis centers are able to offer their community. This makes the F.B.I.’s definition of rape more essential than mere statistics.

“The data that are reported to the public come from this definition, and sadly, it portrays a very, very distorted picture,” said Susan B. Carbon, director of the Office on Violence Against Women, part of the Department of Justice, to the New York Times. “It’s the message that we’re sending to victims, and if you don’t fit that very narrow definition, you weren’t a victim and your rape didn’t count.”

According to the F.B.I.’s 2010 UCR, there were 84,767 sexual assaults in the United States last year. If the F.B.I. adopts a broader definition, law enforcement agencies will be explaining a sudden increase in reported rapes.

——————–

Click here to read a blog post from Director Carbon on the importance of the new definition of rape to our nation’s law enforcement, and for survivors of rape and their advocates. Click here to listen to the F.B.I.’s podcast.

(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.

Mona Eltahawy

During the 2011 National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC) in Baltimore, keynote speaker Mona Eltahawy, a proud liberal Muslim who is working in the global movement for justice and equality for Muslim women, shared that one of the challenges in speaking about sexual assault is that she must also fight against the demonization of Arab and Muslim men.

After she was beaten and sexually assault last Wednesday in Cairo, she is continuing to leave culture and religion out of the conversation. As she said at NSAC, the men did not commit rape as Arab or Muslim men. They did it as men of power who were accountable to no one. During the last nine days, protests have resulted in at least 42 people dead and more than 3,000 wounded across the country.

“What happened to me is minuscule compared to that. I have a voice in the media — they don’t,” Eltahawy said in an interview with Democracy Now! “So I want to use that voice to get across to the world that our revolution continues.”

Eltahawy was covering the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square when she was arrested and detained for 12 hours — without cause. Today Egypt held its first round of parliamentary elections to elect a new government in the wake of fierce clashes between protesters and police. Now back in the United States, Eltahawy told Democracy Now!:

I feel hopeful because the people who did this to me are not Egypt. The people who did this to me are the part of Egypt, or is the group that has occupied Egypt for so many decades now, that we are trying to get rid of. We are continuing our revolution. We will not allow them to hijack our revolution. And I’m optimistic because of the the Eygypt that signed my cast. …Women are fighting. We’re kicking and screaming and shouting. Women have been part of this revolution from the very beginning. And women are demanding thats whoever wins these elections, whoever gets the parliamentary majority, recognizes that women are integral to this process.

(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

The YWCA of Silicon Valley knows exactly how funding cuts will impact the lives of the youth that they work with. How? Staff member Allison Stiller asked them to write letters to their House and Senate representatives to defend Rape Prevention Education (RPE) funding.

As many of you know, CALCASA has launched a massive letter writing campaign to let our representatives in the House and Senate know that we want RPE and Rape Set Aside funding restored and preserved (For more information and to participate, visit our blog).  Allison and the YWCA of Silicon Valley staff told the youth who are currently participating in their RPE programs about the current funding crisis and asked them to write about how they would feel if they couldn’t have their prevention education group sessions anymore.

Iris, age 14, wrote, “I can’t even believe this is actually happening in this world. We NEED to be educated on this or people will think it’s okay and it will happen more and more”.

Alana, age 14, wrote, “I am highly grateful for this and hope others can learn this to. I have 6 younger siblings and I don’t want any of these bad things to happen to them…It’s not fair that I get to learn this and they don’t.”

Nastasya, 14, summed up her sentiments by stating, “I don’t have the right to vote or drive, so can I at least have the right to know?”

Of all of the letters we received from the YWCA of Silicon Valley, I think Samir’s hit the nail on the head:

 We at CALCASA are grateful for the efforts of the young people who are currently engaged in RPE funded programs. These letters remind us of the value of our collective efforts to end sexual violence in our communities and the power of voicing our opinions to our elected officials.

If you are interested to learn more about the YWCA’s letter writing campaign or their efforts to restore RPE funding, please contact Leandra Peloquin:

Leandra Peloquin, MSW, ASW, PPSC

Director, Rape Crisis Center

YWCA of Silicon Valley

375 South Third Street

San Jose, CA 95112

lpeloquin@ywca-sv.org

(P) 408.295.4011 x208

(F) 408.295.4094

To learn more about CALCASA’s efforts to support RPE and Rape Set Aside funding, visit the calcasa.org blog or contact:

Alexis Marbach, Public Policy Advocate

alexis.marbach@calcasa.org

Jessica Napier, Media and Communications Specialist

Jessica@calcasa.org

(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

On No. 1, Congress passed a bill intended to protect whistleblowers and improve the treatment of survivors of violence and sexual assault. The House passed the Kate Puzey Volunteer Protection Act of 2011 unanimously, following unanimous passage by the Senate on Sept. 26. Yesterday, President Obama signed the bill into law.

The Peace Corps would have to: improve the training of volunteers to reduce the risk of sexual assault; protect whistleblowers; and require the Peace Corps to hire victims’ advocates for each region the agency serves. The bill requires the establishment of sexual assault response teams comprised of safety and security officers, medical staff and an advocate to respond to reports of sexual assault against a volunteer. It also would create an Office of Victim Advocacy within the Peace Corps to help victims get appropriate services, as well as require that volunteers be provided with information on crimes and risks, clear written guidelines on whom to contact in the event of a sexual assault and protections to ensure confidentiality.

The push for these sweeping reforms began with an outcry this spring, when dozens of former Peace Corps Volunteers — led by non-profit organization First Response Action — came forward and revealed that they had been raped during their overseas service and subsequently ignored or mistreated by the Peace Corps when they reported their attacks.

The bill is named for 24-year-old Kate Puzey of Georgia, who was murdered in Benin in 2009 after telling superiors she believed a fellow Beninese Peace Corps employee was molesting female students. The suspect’s brother worked as a manager in the Peace Corps office. She was found with her throat slit shortly after the suspect received word from Peace Corps officials that he would be dismissed from his contractor position.

“Kate was a remarkable young woman who unselfishly went to Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer and was tragically murdered while helping others,” said Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, who sponsored the bill, in a release. “Through the Kate Puzey Volunteer Protection Act, Kate’s life will be memorialized by this new law to provide added protections, victims’ rights and whistleblower status for Peace Corps volunteers.”

The Peace Corps has sent more than 200,000 Americans to serve in 139 countries since its founding in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. Currently, more than 9,000 volunteers are serving in 76 nations. On average, 22 rapes and 267 assaults to Peace Corps volunteers are reported every year. Peace Corps data also suggest that twice as many assaults occur than are reported.

On Saturday, the New York Times ran an op-ed called “Confusing Sex and Rape,” which breaks down the inaccuracy of media reports about rape, specifically citing examples and reactions from the Penn State case. Arthur Brisbane, the Times Public Editor writes,

It is common for newspapers to use terms like “sexual assault” and “sexual abuse” and “have sex” when reporting on sex crimes. Perhaps, though, it’s time that The Times and other news organizations take another look at the language they use. Victims’ advocates echo what the readers told me in their e-mails: language in news media reports — and, for that matter, in the court system itself — consistently underplays the brutality of sex crimes and misapplies terms that imply consent.

At the beginning of this year, CALCASA’s Livia Rojas wrote a blog post about the importance of how we use language, especially when referring to issues related to sexual violence.  She wrote that language is a shared understanding of relating to one another.

Being mindful of the language that we avoid as well as the language we use at meetings, in press releases, websites, and our daily face to face interactions, ultimately reflect our points of privilege and oppression.  Systems of oppression are interconnected…

The definitions for the terms rape, sexual abuse and sexual assault are varied — depending on where you are and who you ask. However, there is a reason the word rape isn’t feel-good: because it’s a horrifying crime. No matter the legal definition, people connote rape with something nasty and terrible. Still, it’s use in media is not consistent, perhaps partially due to the confusion and lack of clarity around the word.

This brings us back to the discussion of how to create lanuage and definitions for rape that are nationally — even universally — recognized and understood. Recently, an F.B.I. subcommittee made recommendations to create a new federal definition of rape, moving the agency a step closer to updating the way it counts sex crimes for the first time since 1927. Currently, the F.B.I. considers rape to be “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will,” which excludes anal and oral rape, male rape and rape committed without physical force but also without consent.” Changes to the definition have been approved by a subcommittee of law enforcement officials and will next go to an advisory panel. If signed off, the definition will be sent to F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller for approval.

Still, even with a new F.B.I. definition, work must occur at the state-level, within local communities and among journalists to call rape rape. By calling rape something other than what it is, it sends a message to victims that if you don’t fit that very narrow definition — by your state, federal guidelines or your community — you weren’t a victim.

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.

This week I had the opportunity to speak at the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence’s Summit on Sexual Violence. Over 800 people attended this event to highlight creating change in prevention and response to sexual violence. It was an impressive gathering of representatives of rape crisis centers, social services, criminal justice and education gathered to learn how each can contribute to addressing and preventing sexual violence in Idaho. Keynote speakers included David Lisak speaking about the undetected rapist and Dorothy Edwards on “ending violence one Green Dot at a time.” I was tweeting highlights from this summit with the hashtag #IdahoSummit.

On the night before the summit, I spoke to the Idaho Coalition’s membership on the topic “Primary Prevention of Violence: Using Social and Traditional Media to promote Social Change.” Given the deadlines of the day, I used the example of the traditional media and social media responses to Penn State’s sexual abuse scandal. I reviewed how the media has framed this issue (borrowing from the analysis from the Berkeley Media Studies Group recent report on news coverage of child sexual abuse). I also examined how advocates have responded in press releases, e-newsletters and social media. I recommended that as advocates we had to go beyond describing the horrors of victimization. We need to propose solutions – in particular policy and prevention solutions.

Below are the handouts from my presentations:

• Primary Prevention of Violence: Using Social and Traditional Media to promote Social Change.
• Prevent Violence Before it Starts: National Trends to Prevent Sexual Violence

State Plan

(9 mins) In this interview, Carol Gundlach and Joan Sulzman of the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence share about how they were able to incorporate primary prevention activities into the The Council on Violence Against Women’s 2010 Alabama State Plan.

Listen: Primary Prevention in Alabama state plan

Robin P. Christopherson

(16 mins) In this interview, Ana Hernández of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and Robin P. Christopherson of Monadnock Center for Violence Prevention describe how they strengthened domestic violence prevention efforts in partnership with the Department of Education.

Listen: Prevention in New Hampshire

CALCASA meets with Congresswoman Judy Chu

Today and tomorrow, CALCASA’s Executive Director Sandra Henriquez and Director of Advocacy Services Denice Labertew, are in Washington D.C. asking members of congress to reinstate the rape set-aside money that is a part of the Preventative Health and Health Services Block Grant. We need you to take action immediately to protect your rape prevention education monies!

For all of us advocates in California, the rape set-aside is vital to prevention efforts against sexual assault. The importance of this funding to local programs as they seek to achieve healthy communities by addressing sexual assault cannot be overstated. In California, the rape set-aside is used to support local rape crisis centers to provide prevention services and statewide training and technical assistance to California’s rape crisis centers to increase their capacity for primary prevention.

The California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, California Department of Public Health, and 84 rape crisis centers throughout California recently received word from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the CDC is withholding all of the PHHSBG (including the rape offense set-aside) until the FY 2012 appropriation’s process has been completed. Essentially, this results in an immediate stop in funding nation-wide to all rape set-aside grantees. Sexual assault service providers in California are slated to lose over $800,000 as a result of the loss of the Preventative Health and Health Services Block Grant and its $7.5 million rape offense set-aside funding.

Additionally, due to the uncertainty of the federal budget at this time, the CDC is withholding 20% of the National RPE Program funding allocated to each state for the 2011/2012 year. Currently, the CDC is only distributing 80% of the FY 2012 RPE funds, which has forced all rape crisis centers in the state to reduce services available to prevent and intervene in sexual assault. Centers have had to cut already bare-bones staff, decreasing the level of impact and quantity of services available to communities.

Both Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant (PHHSBG) and Rape Prevention Education (RPE) monies support activities that focus on preventive measures that improve health outcomes and are a part of a cost-effective fiscal philosophy.

We are asking you to contact your Congressional Senator and House member to urge them to prioritize $7.5 million from PHHSBG funding nationwide to be used for sexual assault prevention. The request should be made in their 2012 Appropriations Request. It’s important for you to reach out to them as soon as possible.

There are two links below. The first link is the contact your Senator, the second is to contact your representative in the House. It is vital that you complete both letters for this effort to be successful!

SENATE: http://takeaction.calcasa.org/Groups/CALCASA/Advocacy/?IssueID=26699&SiteID=-1
HOUSE: http://www.votervoice.net/groups/calcasa/advocacy/?issueid=26578

Additionally, you can call your senator! Call now to make your voice heard. You can also forward this email to a board member, people in the community, colleagues and friends.

To find out how to contact your Member of Congress, go to www.senate.gov or call Capitol Hill switchboard at 202.224.3121 and they will connect you to your Member of Congress.

When you call your Senator, your call will be answered by a receptionist. Tell him or her that you want to leave a message for the Senator. The receptionist will take down your message. Tell them:

My name is YOUR NAME. Thank you for your continued dedication to ending sexual violence and supporting survivors. AGENCY NAME from CITY, California is asking that you help to reinstate the $7.5 million rape set-aside from the CDC Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant funding to be used for sexual assault prevention and intervention. The importance of this funding to local programs as they seek to achieve healthy communities by addressing sexual assault cannot be overstated.

Thank you for your support and advocacy on this important issue. If you need any support in writing your letter, please do not hesitate to contact CALCASA.

Guest blog post from Rocio Fuentes-Diaz from Women’s Crisis Support – Defensa de Mujeres!!

The Occupy Wall Street Movement has swept across the nation and as hundreds flock to the tent cities in peaceful protest, many are thinking twice about their safety. As advocates, we are all aware of the astounding number of sexual assaults that occur in our normal (and tragic) day-to-day, but we are also aware of the risk factors that may increase the likelihood of an assault. Perhaps a tent city, which began without considering proper security procedures, might be a risk?

On Tuesday November 1, 2011, 26-year old Occupy Wall Street kitchen worker Tonye Iketubosis was arrested for allegedly groping an 18-year old Friday evening. In the midst of the arrest, another 18-year old came forward to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office stating that Iketubosis had allegedly raped her Saturday morning. Charges are still pending.

This is not the first time sexual assaults have been tied to the Occupy Movement. Far from Zuccotti Park, in Occupy Dallas, a registered sex offender has been charged with assault of a 14-year old runaway. Organizers have stated they “weren’t at the point where [they] were asking for ages, or any verification of that sort, and if anything [they]’ve learned from that.”

At Occupy Cleveland, a 19-year old student activist reported being raped. According to police reports, the survivor was instructed to share a tent with another activist known only as “Leland” due to a shortage of tents.

There have been opinions in the media about the survivor’s ability to report such incidents. Some have stated that the Occupy Movement has taken it upon themselves and their self-appointed security team to run the abuser out of the movement and discourage survivors from reporting the incident to law enforcement. Others have passionately defended the movement stating that survivors are encouraged, but that law enforcement has not given the survivor priority due to their participation in the protest. Whatever the case may be, regardless of personal political stances, advocates can agree that something must be done. We are trained to always believe and support the survivor, regardless of socio-economic, cultural, or political differences. With that being said, we have to see this specific issue with an advocate perspective.

As a movement against sexual assault, what are we doing to insure that the occupy spaces near our cities are safe for everyone?

Assault charges and opinions in the media have prompted the movement’s General Assembly to release a statement regarding this issue.  It seems the Assembly has acknowledged the need for additional precautions when it comes to safety at the tent cities- specifically for women. According to recent articles, Occupy Wall Street has taken the initiative to have a women-only tent. It is a 16 square foot metal framed tent which can fit up to 18 women. It is watched by female members of the movement. According to the women, it is all about safety in numbers. I would hope that other occupy spaces are taking the same precautions. In an effort to make a stand against assault in solidarity, OWS has released the following article, encouraging General Assemblies of all Occupy Spaces in every city  “to empower women and LGBTQ occupiers with the time, space, and resources necessary to ensure that every occupied space is a safe space.”

Without a doubt, any kind of support a survivor may receive is better than none, but as rape crisis agencies we are already prepared with the tools that are necessary to better support a survivor. Most of us even have a program specifically geared towards preventing sexual assault. Perhaps some outreach is needed to ensure that everyone is aware of the resources available to them should they need them. Whichever route is chosen, the sexual assault movement should actively engage in a dialogue around this issue. Whether we are pro, con, or indifferent to the occupy movement, it is rapidly spreading to every city, and we need to view occupy spaces as any other community who needs our support.

“We are Penn State. That’ll never change. … Understand this is really a call to duty.”

Last week, Penn State’s campus erupted. The Board of Trustees announced that beloved football Head Coach and collegiate athletics legend Joe Paterno was fired, effective immediately. Penn State football is its own culture, boarding on being a religion to students, alumni and Division I football fans.

Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno and President Graham Spanier were fired as a result of their failure to act after learning of numerous sexual assaults perpetrated by former Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky is currently being investigated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General for 40 counts related to child sexual abuse. Other coaching staff and campus administrators are also being charged as a result of being passive bystanders, choosing to not take any action that would protect or support the victims. University Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz are being charged with perjury and failure to report child sexual abuse allegations to the proper authorities.

Paterno is quoted as saying, “At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can. This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

As the complexity of the situation at Penn State unfolds, Paterno’s comment of “I wish I had done more” resonates with what advocates and prevention educators know to be true; there is more work to be done. Some of that work can be accomplished through these mechanisms:

1) Empower campus administrators, faculty, and staff to speak up and step in when they witness sexual harassment, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence.

• It is not enough that college campuses have a formal policy regarding reporting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence. The crucial step is putting policy into practice. All administrators, faculty, and staff must be trained on how to report, what the formal mechanisms around reporting are, and the ramifications of failing to report.
• Administrators must place emphasis on and prioritize the well-being of the survivor, and encourage all employees of the campus to do the same.

2) Promote a campus culture that supports prevention efforts, not just intervention efforts.

• There are a number of campus programs that are geared towards promoting gender equity and safety for their entire campus population. These programs bring both administrators and students to the table, encouraging partnership and cooperation to create a community response to violence on campus. Some of the ones that have recently been discussed at CALCASA are:
• UNH Bringing in the Bystander 
• Green Dot
• Alert students to policies and procedures that exist on campus so that they know their role in preventing violence and intervening if or when they witness it. Let them know who they can speak with confidentially and who they can report to, where they can find these individuals, and what process they should follow to insure that their voices are heard.

3) Dismantle our connection between sports, masculinity, and power on campus.

• We can start this process by acknowledging that the real tragedy is not about football. It is not about who holds social and financial power on campus. It is not about asserting that sports culture and the dominant story of heterosexual masculinity that often times comes with sports culture reins supreme on a prominent state school campus. This is about a failure to uphold a legal and ethical obligation to protect a survivor of sexual assault.

4) Reach out

• There are national, state, and local partners who are trained to provide education and guidance around this topic. CALCASA staff members are able to provide referrals for campus programs, prevention education, intervention and advocacy services, and media response. Please contact:
• Denice Labertew: denice@calcasa.org (Advocacy and Campus)
• Leona Smith Di Faustino: leona.smith@calcasa.org (Prevention and Advocacy)
• Alexis Marbach: alexis.marbach@calcasa.org (Prevention and Policy)
• Jessica Renee Napier: jessica@calcasa.org (Media)

Blog post co-written by Leona Smith Di Faustino and Alexis Marbach.

In light of the criminal charges have been filed against former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky as the result of a grand jury investigation into multiple reports of the child sexual abuse, CALCASA is sharing media talking points that were developed by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape.

This case also includes perjury charges facing recently resigned Athletic Director Timothy Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz. A grand jury indicted Sandusky, who had coached under Joe Paterno, with 40 counts of child molestation. The indictment states that current assistant coach and then-graduate student Mike McQueary in 2002 witnessed Sandusky assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the Penn State shower. He reported the incident to Paterno, who reportedly told Curley. Allegedly, Curley and Schultz failed to tell the police and also lied to the grand jury that McQueary hadn’t told them about the incident.

The Penn State University Board of Trustees have formed a committee of faculty, students, board members and community members who will continue to deal with the issue.

Click here to download the talking points.

Click here for the Spanish version.

TD411

(12 mins) PreventConnect’s David Lee interviews Linda Blozie, the Director of Training and Public Affairs of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She speaks about primary prevention efforts after being part of the DELTA PREP initiative for the last three years. She highlights the work to develop a mobile app, TD411, and legislative action to support primary prevention.

Listen: Preventing domestic violence in Connecticut

Guest post from the Green Dot team at the YWCA of Silicon Valley!

Imagine you are walking down the hallway of the YWCA Silicon Valley and you notice a small green dot taped to the wall. You ask yourself, “What is this?” But as you do, you notice another dot ahead and then another, until you are taken to a wall covered in Green Dots. Happily these dots are not mold; instead they are the beginning of the Green Dot Strategy Launch in Silicon Valley. Looking closer you notice there is writing on each Green Dot. Upon further investigation, you realize each dot contains a vignette, a story recounting how someone exhibited a behavior, choice¸ word¸ or attitude that promoted safety for everyone and communicated an utter intolerance for violence in our community.  

            This is what you would have experienced if you walked down the hall of the YWCA Silicon Valley last week for the Week Without Violence. The initial Green Dot stories were written by the Green Dot team and their Rape Crisis Center co-workers, but as the week went on, more and more dots popped up, like the outbreaks of an epidemic just like in the film  “Contagion”. YWCA staff and clients were encouraged and motivated to post their own Green Dot stories both from the inspirational stories on the wall and a persuasive presentation given by one of the Green Dot team members.

The goal of this endeavor was not only to educate and involve YWCA staff and clients in the Green Dot movement but also to encourage advocacy for the Project so that the Green Dots could continue to flow both inside and outside of the YWCA, especially as the launch of the Green Dot Strategy at De Anza College in January approaches….

Stay tuned for more updates, but in the meantime-

Let your green dots flow!

For more information on Green Dot at the YWCA of Silicon Valley, please contact Stacey, Della, Leandra, or Joan from the YWCA!

Della: dduncan@ywca-sv.org

Stacey: scarlotta@ywca-sv.org

Leandra: lpeloquin@ywca-sv.org

Joan: jfriessnig@ywca-sv.org

David Lee was honored at the ICEHS Annual Dinner held during the American Public Health Association’s 139^th Annual Meeting. David received the award for Excellence in Public Service, which is given, “In recognition of outstanding dedication and leadership in injury practice and advocacy with contributions and achievements that have significant and long term impact on the field of injury control and emergency health services”. When presenting the award, Larry Cohen of the Prevention Institute stated that he was inspired by David’s, “energy, courage, thoughtfulness, and leadership” as well as David’s innovative approaches to violence prevention.

Congratulations David!

In the newly released report, Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School, sexual harassment is shown to be pervasive in the nation’s schools.

Sexual harassment is part of everyday life in middle and high schools. Nearly half (48 percent) of the students surveyed experienced some form of sexual harassment in the 2010–11 school year, and the majority of those students (87 percent) said it had a negative effect on them.

The report includes recommendation for prevention. Administrations are recommened to make preventing sexual harassment a priority. Educators need to respond and educate about this issue, and students can speak up and take action in their own schools.

The report was released by the American Association of University Women, an organization that previously released the groundbreaking reports, Hostile Hallways (1993) and the 2001 follow up report, Hostile Hallways: Bullying Teasing and Sexual Harassment in School.

Click here for more information about this report.

I just returned from the American Public Health Association’ s 139^th Annual Meeting held in Washington DC. I had the opportunity to meet many dedicated public health professionals (13,000 people attend this meeting.) This year’s theme was “Healthy communities promote healthy minds and bodies.”

There were so many sessions and posters I could not get to everything that I want to see. Here are a few of the highlights from the sessions I was able to attend:

• Learning about ways people use social and mobile media to improve community health
• Hearing stories of the art of creating successful injury prevention initiatives, including great stories from Trauma Foundation’s Andrew McGuire.
• Great panels sponsored by the Family Violence Prevention Forum where I heard Anne Demers from San Jose State University describe her work with Iraq and Afganistan veterans to prevent family violence and Institute of Medicine’s Deepali Patel share about IOM’s Forum on Global Violence Prevention,
• Hearing Joe Vess and Neil Irvin from Men Can Stop Rape describe their work with men in colleges and the military
• A session on social justice perspectives on capacity building to promote the health communities
• Some thought provoking presentations from CDC’s Division on Violence Prevention on leveraging systems to prevent family violence where they discussed different types of evidences (including contextual and experiential evidence) and how complex science is useful in violence prevention decision-making.

If you were able to attend this conference, what were your highlights?

(12 mins) As part of PreventConnect’s series of interviews highlighting the work of DELTA PREP, Laura Berry and Colleen Yeakle of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence describe efforts regarding Heather’s Law and the development of a toolkit to support local school districts and organizations to provide prevention activities to promote healthy relationships.

Listen: Indiana’s Healthy Relationship Toolkit

Empowerment-Based Advocacy by Kimberly Wong, LCSW

CALCASA held its first Capacity Building Institute in Sacramento, Calif. This institute is an opportunity for a small group of people from California rape crisis centers to come together and learn about working with specific populations. Today’s break-out sessions include:

• Empowerment-Based Advocacy: Best Practices for Empowering Survivors
• Advocacy with Survivors of Human Trafficking/Undocumented Survivors
• Advocacy with Veteran Survivors of Military Sexual Trauma
• Advocacy with College Survivors
• Advocacy with Elderly Survivors of Sexual Assault
• Developing Infrastructure for Serving High-Risk & Undeserved Populations: Developing Partnerships, Policies & Funding Opportunities for Sustainable Programs

Denice Labertew, CALCASA’s Director of Advocacy Services, set the tone by explaining to attendees that this two-day institute is an opportunity for everyone to participate and explore working with communities with which they may not be familiar.

The first session was led by Kimberly Wong, LCSW about Empowerment-Based Advocacy. This session established the framework from which the next two-days’ discussions would be framed. She broke-down the definition of:

Empower: To promote the self-actualization or influence of.

Empowerment: Power from within.

Attendees said that it was the role of advocates to: provide tools to help; be a voice; support survivors in finding their own voice; educate the community; and push for legislation and policy changes.

Moving from this foundation of empowerment, the break-out sessions will provide attendees with tools and experiences to empower survivors from various communities to take steps for themselves on the path to healing.

Many representatives of California Rape Crisis Centers attended the Town Hall on engaging men in Oakland

Last week the federal Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Housing and Urban Development hosted 10 regional Town Halls on Engaging Men and Boys in Eliminating Violence Against Women.  I had to opportunity to attend the session for Region IX held in Oakland, CA on October 27, 2011 where I moderated the session on engaging men. The results of these Town Halls will be shared with Vice President Joe Biden.

Over 100 people, including representatives of many California Rape Crisis Centers, attended this series of panels and opportunities for community feedback. My highlights included:

• Frank Blaney of Peace Over Violence, describing his work with MyStrength Clubs in Los Angeles. He also explained why he uses the term “young men” instead of “boys” in recognition that all the young men he works with aspire to be “men” and in acknowledgement of the racism where African-American males have been historically called boys regardless of the age.
• Jennifer Rauhouse of Peer Solutions from Phoenix, AZ, describe her top hints for everyone, including men, boys and young people, in the prevention of relationship violence. For example,

• We must view everyone as part of the solution, not the problem
• It is helpful to presume men, boys and young people care about preventing relationship violence, want to be included, do not wants someone they care about getting hurt and most likely have been harmed by relationship violence.

• Donna Garske of Center for Domestic Peace’s Transforming Communities describing how she sees “unlearning violence is a revolutionary and evolutionary process.”
• Ernest Brown describing the misuse of biblical fragments and the importance of men being active to prevent violence,, based on his experience with From Bruised and Battered to Blessed Ministries.
• Wilfred Brown of STAND for Families Free of Violence highlighting how over 200 men have been honored in the last 6 Men of Merit annual awards in Contra Costa County, CA.
• Mario Ozuna-Sanchez from the National Compadres Network describing the culturally relevant rites of passage and violence prevention work of El Joven Noble.
• Chic Dabby of the Asian Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence calling for us to replace “relationships of power with relationships of meaning.” She reminded us not only raising young men to respect other, but also to become active in working with their communities to prevent violence.

If you attended one of these town halls, what where your highlights?

College and university campuses working to create safer communities benefit from networking with campuses and accessing resources.  CALCASA is one of the handful of technical assistance providers charged with helping campuses funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women to Reduce Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking on Campus meet their grant goals and objectives.  To connect with the technical assistance providers, read the following list of the OVW Campus Grant minimum requirements and the TA providers that specialize in helping campuses build and maintain safer learning environments.

Coordinated Community Response – California Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Judicial affairs/disciplinary board training & policy – Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Prevention & Education for Incoming Students – Kentucky Domestic Violence Association

Law Enforcement/Security – East Central Oklahoma University

Hello Members!
I am excited to share new materials with all of you. Please feel free to take a moment to review the information of the materials (listed below).

I encourage all of you to take advantage in  helping me to update our library. You can do this by sharing with me the types of materials (DVD’s, curriculum, etc.) you use that has been helpful to you or your agency. What ideas would you like to share or find available in the library?

The goal is to update the library so that it can better serve as a place where you can share the tools or materials you’ve used or created to network with other members, find the information and the resources you are seeking. I welcome your ideas and look forward to working with all of you as we update the library.

Here are some examples I am looking for:

• Curriculum that was helpful for the training needs of your agency.
• Sharing materials you or your organization have created (electronic copies) that you’d like to see circulated in the library to others.
• Materials that you know will be helpful to develop new or existing skills within your staff or agency.
• Materials to learn the latest trends and techniques in doing the work within the movement.
• DVD updates, curriculum, etc.
• Bilingual materials

With deep appreciation of the all the work you do, I thank you in advance for your time. I look forward to hearing your comments.

Please contact me if you are interested in borrowing any of the materials the library. My email is villena@calcasa.org or call (916) 446.2520 ext. 320.

Thanks!
Villena

The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men
From the cover: The Filmmaker Thomas Keith takes aim at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Keith breaks down a range of contemporary media forms, zeroing in on movies and music videos that glamorize womanizing; pornography that trades in the brutalization of women; comedians who make fun of sexual assault; and a groundswell of men’s magazines and cable TV shows that revel in old-school myths of American manhood. The message Keith covers in virtually every corner of our entertainment culture is clear: It’s not only normal — but cool — for boys and men to control and humiliate women. In the end, The Bro Code challenges young people to question this dangerously sexist ideal of masculinity.

For more information:  http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=246#press-reviews

 Generation M: Misogyny in Media & Culture

From the cover: Despite the achievements of the women’s movement over the past four decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture. In this important documentary, Thomas Keith, professor of philosophy at California State University-Long Beach, looks specifically at misogyny and sexism in mainstream American media, exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward women get constructed and perpetuated at the very heart of our popular culture.

The film tracks the destructive dynamics of misogyny across a broad and disturbing range of media phenomena including: the hyper-sexualization of commercial products aimed at girls, the explosion of violence in video games aimed at boys, the near-hysterical sexist rants of hip-hop artists and talk radio shock jocks, and the harsh, patronizing caricatures of femininity and feminism that reverberate throughout the mainstream of American popular culture.

Along the way, Generation M forces us to confront the dangerous real-life consequences of misogyny in all its forms — making a compelling case that when we devalue more than half the population based on gender, we harm boys and men as well as women and girls.

For more information:  http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=234

Asking For It: The Ethics & Erotics of Sexual Consent

From the cover: The line between sexual consent and sexual coercion is not always as clear as it seems — and according to Harry Brod, this is exactly why we should approach our sexual interactions with great care. Brod, a professor of philosophy and leader in the pro-feminist men’s movement, offers a unique take on the problem of sexual assault, one that complicates the issue even as it clarifies the bottom-line principle that consent must always be explicitly granted, never simply assumed. In a nonthreatening, non-hectoring discussion that ranges from the meanings of “yes” and “no” to the indeterminacy of silence to the way alcohol affects our ethical responsibilities, Brod challenges young people to envision a model of sexual interaction that is most erotic precisely when it is most thoughtful and empathetic. Ideal for classes in gender studies, communication and sociology, and especially useful for extra-curricular programs and workshops.

For more information:  http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=243

Understanding Hookup Culture: What’s Really Happening on College Campuses

From the cover: When it comes to intimacy and sex, young people today are apparently doing away with the old rules of romance and cutting straight to the chase. If recent reports are to be believed, the rise of hookup culture on college campuses is in the process of killing off dating and courtship, radically altering some of our most basic assumptions about heterosexual sex and gender. But for all the speculation, there’s been little beyond anecdotal evidence to back any of these claims up. This lecture by Stanford University’s Paula England, a leading researcher in the sociology of gender, aims to clarify what’s actually going on. England mobilizes a wealth of data to begin to chart whether the phenomenon of hooking up represents some kind of fundamental change, or whether we’re simply seeing age-old gender patterns dressed up in new social forms.

For more information:  http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=244

 Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women

From the cover: In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes — images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne’s groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence.

For more information:  http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=241

New Book & Curriculum

InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives [Hardcover]

Overview: Joe Ehrmann, the coach profiled in the national bestseller Season of Life, explains how coaches at every level, from Little League to high school to NCAA Division I and even the professional leagues, can use sports to transform lives. Coaches have a tremendous platform, says Joe Ehrmann, a former Syracuse University All-American and NFL star. Perhaps second only to parents, coaches can impact young people as no one else can. But most coaches fail to do the teaching, mentoring, even life-saving intervention that their platform provides. Too many are transactional coaches; they focus solely on winning and meeting their personal needs. They see sports as a simple exchange: the athlete performs to a coach’s demands and in return gets something, usually praise or a position in the starting lineup. Some coaches, however, use their platform. They teach the Xs and Os, but also teach the Ys of life. They help young people grow into responsible adults; they leave a lasting legacy. These are the transformational coaches. These coaches change lives, and they also change society by helping to develop healthy men and women.

Sports have become a secular religion, according to Ehrmann. Tens of millions of children play sports, and millions of coaches have the potential to influence the lives of these children — and through them to touch their parents’ lives as well. Children can be diminished and discouraged by their sports experiences, or they can be strengthened, uplifted, even in some cases redeemed. Sports can be a life-changing experience if coaches understand why they are coaching and redefine their measurement of success.

For more information: http://www.amazon.com/InSideOut-Coaching-Sports-Transform-Lives/dp/1439182981/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319505234&sr=1-1

Safe DATES: An Adolescent Dating Abuse Prevention Curriculum

 Description: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year, 1 in 4 adolescents experience verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse from a dating partner.

It is imperative to stop dating violence before it ever starts. Safe Dates, second edition, can help with that. This evidence-based program helps teens recognize the difference between caring, supportive relationships and controlling, manipulative, or abusive relationships. It is during the critical pre-teen and teen years that young people begin to learn the skills needed to create and foster positive relationships. With Safe Dates, young people are given the tools needed to build these skills.

Highly engaging and interactive, Safe Dates reflects the issues faced by today’s teens. The curriculum includes:

• Updated statistics and facts
• Information on dating abuse through technology
• All handouts and parent resources on CD-ROM
• New Families for Safe Dates program to get families talking about healthy dating relationships and dating abuse

Safe Dates has been designated as a Model Program by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and was selected for the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP), receiving high ratings on all criteria.

For more information: http://www.hazelden.org/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?item=38103&sitex=10020:22372:US

How do we create prevention messages that work? In the Fall/Winter 2011 issue of Moving Upstream, the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance’s prevention newsletter, Brad Perry shares six principles of “sticky” ideas, a concept articulated by Chip and Dan Health in their book Made to Stick, in part 2 of his article We Talk – Do They Listen?: Effectively Expressing Primary Prevention Messages. The six principles of stickiness are

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Stories

Click here to see the entire newsletter (Volume 7, Issue 2).

This is the last issue of Moving Upstream that Brad Perry will edit. Over the past seven years this newsletter has been a valuable contribution to sexual violence and domestic violence practitioners. I appreciate how much good work that Brad has done that helps everyone in this field. I have had the opportunity to co-write an article on sexual violence prevention with him and Lydia Guy Ortiz, discuss prevention theory and practice into the night,and enjoy many wonderful meals talking about music with Brad over the years. I wish Brad the best as he is learning more about how to create effective prevention messages.

Lindy Aldrich, Deputy Director of the Victim Rights Law Center, led today’s web conference on working to improve survivor-centered institutional response to sexual violence.  She addressed common challenges that arise when enforcing policy as well as the intersection of our work with the Office on Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter issued in April 2011.  Campuses dialogued on how overall implementation and enforcement requires strategy and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Materials from today’s web conference (the audio recording will be made available later):

Once the policy is written (pdf)

Audio recording of Once the Policy is Written (mp3)

Text chat transcript (pdf)

Today the Institute of Medicine released a workshop summary on the Social and Economic Cost of Violence. On April 28-29, 2011, the IOM’s Forum on Global Violence Prevention held a workshop to evaluate the social and economic costs of violence.

Understanding the costs of violence are important to build the case for prevention. (See the PreventConnect web conference on Cost-Effectiveness of Sexual and Domestic Violence Prevention.)

Here is the summary of the costs of sexual violence:

The estimates vary widely, depending on the cost categories included and methods used. For example, Cohen (1988), using pain and suffering awards from more than 100,000 jury decisions in the United States, calculated that the annual aggregate direct and indirect costs of rape were $14.9 billion—equivalent to 0.2 percent of GDP.

In contrast, the U.S. Department of Justice (1994) calculated the economic losses of rape as $33 million, based on reported direct medical costs and lost earnings, though this estimate did not include psychological costs. For costs at the level of individual rape victims, Miller et al.(1993) used the NCVS to calculate a total cost of $85,000 per rape.

The summary concludes with a section on investing in prevention. Articles include one on the “Value of Prevention” by Rachel Davis of the Prevention Institute and one on the Communities that Care model.

Click here to download the report for free. In September, IOM also released a workshop summary on Preventing Violence Against Women and Children.

Lately there has been a great deal of news coverage surrounding California’s Public Safety Realignment Act and how it will affect crime and victim’s rights in local communities. Realignment is a relatively new policy, so the full impact is still unclear. Below are some resources that provide background on Realignment, demographic information and ways to connect to your local Community Corrections Partnership.

The purpose of the Realignment is to shift public safety responsibilities away from the state government and increase local jurisdictions ability to manage a large number of low-level offenders. Realignment went into effect Oct. 1, 2011, and the impact on local communities is unclear as of the end of October. Erin Sasse at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been in constant contact to alert CALCASA of any potential ramifications for member centers and local communities. Public Safety Realignment provides members with an opportunity to partner with local law enforcement as there is a great deal of local autonomy in terms of how Realignment will be enforced in each county. Each county has been tasked with creating a Community Corrections Partnership (CCP) to develop and recommend to their Count Board of Supervisors an implementation plan for Realignment. CALCASA encourages you actively engage with the CCP in the area to advocate for advocates and for the best interest of their communities while the county-level realignment regulations and policies are in their nascent stages.

For more information on Public Safety Realignment, please visit the following sites (all sites provided courtesy of Erin Sasse, Chief of External Affairs at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and her communications team).

CDCR Public Safety Realignment Information

Public Safety Realignment (main page)

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/realignment/index.html

Video Presentations by CDCR Providing General Overviews

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/realignment/video-realignment.html

Summary of Presentations and Information Made Available to Counties, including County Projections, Post-Release Community Supervision Information, etc.

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/realignment/local_resources.html

CDCR County Handbook, “Public Safety Realignment: Helpful Resources for California’s Counties in Implementing 2011’s Public Safety Realignment Legislation”

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/realignment/docs/County-Handbook-9-29-11.pdf

Three-Judge Panel Court Information and Updates

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/3_judge_panel_decision.html

External Sources of Information on Public Safety Realignment

California Realignment Page (not sure who exactly maintains this site, but it is a very good source for information)

http://calrealignment.org/

Videos from the Innovations in Public Safety and Justice in California Conference held in Sacramento on September 21, 2011

http://vimeo.com/album/1710666

California District Attorneys’ Association’s (CDAA) Realignment Home Page

http://www.cdaa.org/Realignment2011/index.htm

CDAA’s Sentencing Samples Under Public Safety Realignment

http://www.cdaa.org/Realignment2011/Realignment_Sentencing_Samples.pdf

California State Sheriffs’ Association (CSAA) Realignment Home Page

http://www.calsheriffs.org/

California State Association of Counties (CSAC) Realignment Home Page

http://www.csac.counties.org/default.asp?id=3202

Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) Realignment Home Page

http://www.cpoc.org/php/realign/ab109home.php

County Criminal Justice Realignment Plans (page maintained by CPOC)

http://www.cpoc.org/php/realign/countyplans.php

This month, CALCASA is celebrating two state-level policy wins with SB 534 and AB 898, both of which will have a positive impact on the work of our members. In addition to these state-level issues, we are working to support several federal policy issues such as the Public Health Block Grant, Sexual Assault Service Program funding and the reauthorization of VAWA. Continue reading to get the complete CALCASA Public Policy Update.

Bills that CALCASA has sponsored:

SB 534 (Corbett D) Victims of sexual assault

SB 534 — Corbett was chaptered on Sept. 29, 2011, bringing California into compliance with the Violence Against Women (VAWA) Services*Training*Officers*Prosecution (STOP) State Formula Grant Program. Effective Jan. 1, 2012, SB 534 clarifies that all victims are entitled to a forensic exam regardless of whether or not they choose to cooperate with the criminal justice system. SB 534 stipulates that the forensic exam, colloquially referred to as a “Jane Doe Exam,” must be offered at no cost to the survivor. The cost will be incurred by local law enforcement and local law enforcement can seek reimbursement from Cal EMA for the cost of the examinations where a victim does not participate in the criminal justice system. The bill does not provide language about who will store the evidence and for how long the evidence will be stored. The VAWA Implementation Committee and Forensic Exam Workgroup, of which CALCASA participates, are working to create clarifying guidelines and language that will address the logistics of how SB 534 will be implemented. Rape crisis centers, SART teams and local law enforcement will need training and guidelines for how SB 534 will work in their communities. Once the Committee and Workgroup publish their FAQ sheets and guidelines, CALCASA will provide all of the information that it has available to members through emails and trainings.

AB 898 (Alejo D) Crime victims: restitution: fine

AB 898 — Alejo was chaptered on Sept. 29, 2011. This bill makes the minimum restitution fine not less than $300, if the person is convicted of a felony; and not less than $150, if the person is convicted of a misdemeanor; and make other conforming changes. This bill marks the first time that restitution fines have been increased in nearly two decades and will generate money for the California Victim Compensation Program (CalVCP).

AB 322  (Portantino D) Forensic evidence: rape kits

AB 322 — Portantio was vetoed by the Governor. AB 322 would have required the Department of Justice to establish a ten-county pilot project to open and test all rape kits collected in those counties during the period of the pilot project. In his veto message, the Governor wrote that the ten counties did not want to participate and that he didn’t understand why the state should mandate participation and spend the money on a program that the counties didn’t want, in light of all of the programs that the counties do want that are being cut. The Governor believes that local officials are in the best position to determine whether to participate in such a program.

Additional federal level policy issues that may impact members:

Public Health Block Grant: The Preventative Health and Health Services Block Grant (PHHSBG) allows states, tribes and territories to address public health needs and challenges with innovative and community driven methods. Out of FY 2010’s $100 million budget for PHHSBG, approximately $7.5 million was used to support sexual assault services and prevention efforts. The $7.5 million is referred to as the “rape set aside.” The rape set aside funding directly responds to the goal of the Centers for Disease Control to reduce chronic disease and its impact. In addition to the immediate trauma caused by sexual abuse, the violence contributes to a number of chronic health problems, including depression, chronic pain, alcohol and substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, and often limits the ability of women to manage other chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. California receives $800,000 of the $7.5 million dollars. This portion of the $800,000 is essential to prevention programming such as technical assistance, capacity building, program development, and program implementation.

Currently, the House budget preserves funding for the PHHSBG and subsequently the $7 million set aside funding. The Senate has eliminated the PHHSBG funding and set aside mirroring the President’s FY 2012 budget, which proposes to eliminate PHHSBG and consolidate chronic disease block grant programs. The Senate Committee has included additional funding for this purpose in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, although the specific amount of funding remains unclear. The elimination of the rape set aside funding would be extremely detrimental to the prevention against sexual assault and would put a multitude of prevention programs in California in jeopardy of discontinuing services. CALCASA is closely following this issue and is advocating for the government to keep the rape set aside funds. CALCASA will connect with members when new information develops or if there are any action steps that can be taken on a local level.

Sexual Assault Service Program Funding: Sexual Assault Services Program (SASP) is a program that was created through the 2005 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). SASP creates a federal funding stream dedicated explicitly to the provision of direct services for sexual violence victims. The Senate is currently debating on increasing SASP funding to $25 million (a $10 million increase over 2011 and a $5 million increase from the budget proposed by the House). Money allocated to SASP is funneled through Cal EMA and then distributed to rape crisis centers throughout California. An increase in national SASP funding translates into an increase in the funding available through Cal EMA for the direct services you provide at your agency. CALCASA partnered with the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence by asking member agencies to sign a joint letter, along with agencies from across the country. CALCASA is deeply appreciative of the more than 45 member agencies that quickly responded to the email regarding SASP and signed on to this letter.

VAWA reauthorization:  CALCASA is working closely with the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence to support VAWA reauthorization. The NAESV is focused on looking to garner bi-partisan support for the bill. Terri Poore of the National Alliance summarized this focus by stating, “Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the prime sponsor, has released a pre-introduction draft bill. We are now looking for Republican co-sponsors. As you know, VAWA has always enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Vice-President Joseph Biden (formerly a Senator from Delaware) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) were the original co-sponsors. This iteration of VAWA streamlines programs, reduces funding authorizations, and increases accountability so it meets the new fiscal requirements of Congress and includes provisions that everyone should be able to support.” CALCASA will connect with members when new information develops or if there are any action steps that can be taken on a local level.

Campuses struggle with overcoming challenges when implementing survivor-centered sexual misconduct policies

Lack of administrative buy-in?  An ad-hoc disciplinary board with rotating officers that routinely fails to attend specialized training on sexual violence? These are but a few of the institutional challenges campuses encounter when developing and implementing policies that are survivor-centered in a campus-wide effort to create and maintain a safe environment.  How can campuses create goals and strategies that support survivors and comply with federal law?

Lindy Aldrich, Deputy Director of the Victim Rights Law Center, will guide the discussion on Tuesday, October 25 with colleagues working to improve survivor-centered institutional response to sexual violence.  She will address common challenges when enforcing policy as well as the intersection with the Office on Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter issued in April 2011.

NOTE: the web conference is mandatory for college and university campuses currently funded by the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking.  Materials from the web conference will be made available to th general public on Wednesday, October 26th.   

from Daniel Alexandre | Photography

Still, the question remains, how does the new idea get adopted? I refer to the behavior theory Diffusion of Innovation (developed by Evert M. Rogers) that looks how an idea spreads over time to different populations. In the blog The Technium, this was described as four steps in the “natural history of a new idea.”

1) Outright wacko. “This is worthless nonsense”
2) Odd but unproven. “This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view.”
3) True but trivial. “This may be correct, but it is quite unimportant.”
4) Obvious. “What’s new? This is what we’ve said all along.”

Otherwise translated as “Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Obvious.” While the blog applies this concept to heart transplants, here is a version looking at bystander responses:

1) Outright wacko. “There is no way I will do anything.”
2) Odd but unproven. “Someone could do something, but it won’t matter.”
3) True but isolated . “OK, that makes sense, but I might be the only one who cares.”
4) Obvious. “Of course we do something; that is what everyone does.”

The work of prevention is to make the desired behavior become the obvious behavior.

CALCASA is looking for consultants to conduct assessments to determine how CALCASA’s activities improve the capacity for prevention. Click below for one of two opportunities to respond to CALCASA’s requests for proposal:

• RFP: California Rape Prevention and Education Primary Prevention Assessment
• RFP: PreventConnect National Online Community of Practice Evaluation

Since the 1960′s and 1970′s, the U.S. experienced a shift in societal perception that had denied, dismissed and ignored gender-based violence to the acknowledgment of sexual violence as a major social problem.  ”Changing Perceptions of Sexual Violence Over Time” maintains that understanding perceptions is helpful because it offers a “roadmap of future directions” to further engage communities in the discourse surrounding sexual violence.

On November 9, 2011, join other PreventConnect prevention practitioners throughout the country in the November PreventConnect Reading Club to examine “Changing Perceptions of Sexual Violence Over Time” by Sarah McMahon in consultation with Karen Baker, published by VAWnet, a project of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence.   

The Prevent Connect Reading Club is a small, one hour session where public health practitioners and researchers can discuss the intersections of research and practice in ending sexual violence.

NOTE: This is not a web conference nor a training.  Your active participation is essential to the Reading Club.

READING CLUB SESSION

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

This sixty minute (60 min) session will start at 11.00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time).  Registration is limited to 50 people per session.

NOTE: The November session is full!  To add your name to the wait list, click here.

he October 2011 issue of Forced Migration Review has an article titled Preventing partner violence in refugee and immigrant communities that discusses some of the promising practices that are part of Robert Wood Johnson Foundations’ Preventing Partner Violence in Immigrant Communities: Strengthening What Works Initiative.

The promising practices are:

• Engage young people whose attitudes are still forming
• Address multiple and overlapping layers of discrimination
• Engage spiritual and community leaders
• Target unhealthy traditional or religious practices
• Overcome shame and stigma
• Draw on informal networks of support
• Challenge community norms that tolerate IPV
• Include men and women in programming
• Build community capacity or “social capital”

How does your organization work with immigrant communities to prevent sexual violence and domestic violence?

Click here for a link to this article by Greta Uehling, Alberto Bouroncle, Carter Roeber, Nathaniel Tashima and Cathleen Crain.

On September 21, 2011, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill that eliminated $19.7 million in funding for the CDC’s Youth Violence Prevention Activities. If actualized, this elimination will be extremely detrimental to the years of work the CDC and its community partners throughout the country have done to create safe and healthy communities where youth can live and thrive. The CDC utilizes a public health framework to address the root causes of violence as well as to engage communities in primary prevention activities. As our colleagues at the Prevention Institute have stated, “A prevention approach is grounded in the knowledge that violence is preventable, not inevitable”. Contrary to criminal justice based approaches which are often punitive, this public health approach is proactive and is aligned with the various primary prevention efforts being utilized in California such as Green Dot initiatives, MyStrength campaigns, and a number of other programs.

While the loss of this funding will not impact RPE funding streams or programs directly, many of our community partners will experience direct cuts if this money disappears. CDC Youth Violence Prevention Activities include Academic Centers for Excellence on Youth Prevention, UNITY (Urban Networks Increasing Thriving Youth) Initiative and Striving to Reduce Violence Everywhere (STRIVE). Each one of these programs has a local chapter within California. Our community partners are our allies in violence prevention, working alongside us to help us achieve our specific goal of ending sexual violence. Our work depends on recognizing that when we act alone we can only achieve limited success. We must recognize the intersections between our movement’s goal of ending sexual violence and the efforts of our partners to prevent violence among youth.

It is critical that we stand alongside our partners in preserving the work of youth violence prevention advocates. At the 2011 Ending Violence Against Women and Teen Dating Violence Forum, Cristy Chung and Aimee Thompson talked about building beloved communities. Chung and Thompson stated that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. worked to build these beloved communities through realistic, attainable, and achievable methods, and that this work had to happen with a critical mass of people. Without Youth Violence Prevention Activities funding, we stand to lose the means to make building safe and thriving communities through realistic, attainable, and achievable methods. We stand to lose a critical mass of advocates, supporters, and direct service providers that create community cohesion.  It is vital that we take action to restore and maintain the CDC Youth Violence Prevention Activities for both fiscal year 2012 and 2013. CALCASA has offered its support to these efforts. Please join us in supporting this important work by having your organization sign on to a joint letter.

Please sign-on to a letter to Congress that asks members to protect federal youth violence prevention funding at CDC. You will be joining national partners such as National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) and the Safe States Alliance and local efforts such as the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles when you sign on. Over 2,000 letters have already been sent; send yours today and tell your senators that a budget without youth violence prevention funding is unacceptable.

The Prevention Institute‘s newly released fact sheet Links Between Violence and Health Equity states clearly why violence is not only a criminal justice issue, but also a social justice and public health issue.

Violence is a health equity issue, and preventing violence is an important component of achieving equity in health and in communities. Health inequities are related both to a legacy of overt discriminatory actions on the part of government and the larger society, as well as to present-day institutional practices and policies that perpetuate a system of diminished opportunity for certain populations.

While the focus in this fact sheet mainly addresses youth violence, I believe these concepts also apply to sexual violence and domestic violence. This fact sheet recognizes that we have to examine community-level issues to prevent violence.

Domestic violence and sexual violence are health equity issues.  We know that some people are are greater risk for violence than others. For example women are at greater risk than men to be abused. A study released this week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. research showed that men with disabilities have a four times greater risk for being sexual abused than men without disabilities. This fact sheet challenges us to look at the institutional and community level reasons for why some people are at greater risk than others.

By acknowledging the links between health and violence, we can focus on preventing violence as an important way to improve the overall health of our communities.

Click here to check out this fact sheet developed by Prevention Institute for it’s UNITY Initiative.

Yesterday, the LAUSD Board voted unanimously on a resolution aimed at preventing teen dating violence and creating prevention strategies in schools. This vote comes after 17-year-old Cindi Santana was stabbed to death in a courtyard at her LA-area high school. Her ex-boyfriend, Abraham Lopez, allegedly stabbed her. Another student and a dean were also stabbed trying to intervene.

This policy, which was adopted from Peace Over Violence, is an initiative that the sexual and domestic violence center has been putting efforts toward for more than 10 years. Peace Over Violence has been working on the current form of the policy for the past six months, and it was slated to go to vote last Tuesday; however the unfortunate tragedy of Santana’s murder required the board to postpone the vote.

The estimated $2 million proposal involves hiring a district coordinator on dating violence and providing training for one staff person at each school. The program will also focus on educating parents and students to recognize warning signs and promote healthy relationships. The following advocates and legislators told the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence that they welcome the resolution as a potentially significant step toward keeping students safe on campus:

Assemblymember Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) said the South East High murder shows that schools must be a part of any strategy to address youth relationship violence. “The tragic death of Cindi Santana highlights the magnitude of the problem of teen dating violence,” he said.  “We must work together to find workable solutions that our schools can incorporate in a culturally appropriate manner.”

Assembly Speaker pro Tem Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) agreed that the time is ripe for new community strategies. “This tragic incident that happened on a school campus illustrates how teen dating violence affects an entire community,” Ma said. “Now more than ever, our state needs new innovative programs and role models to promote healthy relationships.”

Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), offered his support of the resolution, saying “I am deeply saddened by this tragic event that took place in my district, and I applaud the Los Angeles Unified School District for considering this resolution, which I hope will help to prevent future tragedies from occurring.”

Among adolescents aged 12 to 21, almost 3 in 10 have experienced violence in opposite-sex relationships; teens identifying as LGBTQ are as likely to experience violence in same-sex dating relationships. Women ages 16-24 experience the highest rates of relationship violence.

PreventConnect.org

In this podcast, I talked with Juley Fulcher, from Break the Cycle, talks about the upcoming Twitter Town Hall about primary prevention of teen dating violence. Sponsored by VAWnet and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, the Twitter Town Hall will have people tweet about how to make healthy relationships cool for youth and share strategies and lessons on the use of language and generational accessibility. Join others throughout the country and world on Wed., Oct. 19 at 3pm Eastern/12 Pacific by sending tweets on this topic using the hashtag #reachyouth. PreventConnect will be tweeting using @PreventConnect and Juley will be tweeting using @JuleyFulcher.

Juley Fulcher on Teen Dating Violence Prevention Twitter Town Hall

Direct service providers can now benefit from a national technical assistance number for help when working with LGBTQ survivors of violence.

Direct service and community-based organizations in the anti-violence field have struggled to provide culturally relevant and accessible services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) survivors.  Yesterday, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) announced the National Training and Technical Assistance Center is now available to provide technical assistance on issues such as: language and terminology, creating an LGBTQ-inclusive organization, developing LGBTQ-inclusive policies and procedures, and more.  Technical assistance is free and available by phone, instant messaging, and email.  The warmline is available in English and accessible to people that are Deaf or Hard of hearing.  See below for more details:

Toll-free technical assistance warmline: 1-855-AVP-LGBT

Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST    (1-855-287-5428)

Deaf/Hard of hearing accessible instant messaging AIM: AVPlgbt

Prefer e-mail?  Join NCAVP’s national technical assistance list serve. To join contact: info@ncavp.org

Katryn Duarte, Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline Coordinator and Volunteer Coordinator, spoke with CALCASA about the prevention services available to Latinas in Iowa as well as the challenges of prevention work in ending sexual violence.  To watch the interview in Spanish, please click on the link below.

There is no translation in English for the interview. 

Katryn Duarte, Cordinadora de la Linea Emergencias y Coordinadora de Voluntaria/os, hablo con CALCASA acerca de los servicios de prevencion disponibles para Latinas en Iowa, asi como los retos del labor de prevencion en la erradicacion de la violencia sexual.  Para escuchar la entrevista, haga clic en el siguente link.

Gov. Jerry Brown

In an effort to guarantee that victims of sexual assault are provided access to medical exams or treatment following an assault, Senate Bill 534 was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown. CALCASA sponsored the bill, which was carried by Senate Majority Leader Ellen M. Corbett (D-San Leandro).

“This bill ensures that survivors of sexual violence will have access to forensic medical examinations without the requirement of participation in the criminal justice system,” said CALCASA’s Executive Director Sandra Henriquez. “Survivors will not be revictimized by denied authorization for medical examinations.”

Formerly, a survivor’s ability to receive a free medical exam was, at times, contingent upon participation with the criminal justice system. Law enforcement was tasked with authorizing medical services. If survivors did not cooperate with law enforcement — and were unable to pay for services — they may not receive a forensic exam. In 2010, federal funds to California were placed on hold as the state was found to be out of compliance with federal law, which stipulates that sexual assault victims receive free medical examinations.

California’s rape crisis centers serve more than 30,000 survivors of sexual assault and trafficking. SB 534 makes California eligible for more than $12 million in annual federal funding for the exams. The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2012.

At the National Sexual Assault Conference in Baltimore, I had the opportunity to meet dozens of practitioners and researchers from around the U.S., Puerto Rico and American Samao.  Marizaida Sanchez, researcher and professor at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Ciencias Médicas, shared with CALCASA about her prevention research and services in Puerto Rico.  To watch the interview in Spanish, watch the short clip.

There is no translation of the interview into English. 

En la Conferencia Nacional Contra la Agresion Sexual en Baltimore, tube la oportunidad de conocer a varias colegas y investigadoras de los Estados Unidos, Puerto Rico y Samao Americano. Marizaida Sanchez, Universidad de Puerto Rico, recinto de Ciencias MEdicos, Centro de Investigación y Evaluación Sociomedica, compartió con CALCASA sobre la investigación de la prevención en Puerto Rico. Para saber mas, vea el siguente video clip.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new report Understanding Evidence: Part 1: Best Available Research Evidence.  Subtitled A Guide to the Continuum of Evidence of Effectiveness, this publication provides guidance on how to understand  the different types of evidence about prevention strategies.

While the focus of this report is on research, I like the way this report acknowledges that research is only one type of evidence used for violence prevention work. The report states

Literature suggest that two other forms of evidence are also very important when making decisions based on evidence:

• Experiential Evidence: This type of evidence is based on th professional insight, understanding, skill, and expertise that is accumulated over time and is often referred to as intuitive or tacit knowledge.
• Contextual Evidence: This type of evidence is based on factors that address whether a strategy is useful, feasible to implement, and accepted by a particular community.

Check out all of the great charts on effectiveness and strength of evidence.

Click here to get this report.

Do you find this report helpful for how you will approach violence prevention evidence?

Trainings are a critical component of the work that we do in the anti-sexual violence field.  Often times, the message (read: content), although relevant, highly applicable and innovative, is lost because of the approach or techniques used to reach the target audience.  Derek Lane, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Kentucky, facilitated today’s Campus Program web conference on communication skills to enhance training impact.

Materials from today’s web conference (audio recording will be available on October 5th):

Communication with Trainees to Enhance Training Impact

Communication Training Mandatory Education_DOJ OVW Campus Program (pdf)

Message Centric Approach to Knowledge Acquisition (pdf)

The following is a guest post from Steve LePore, Executive Director of 1in6:

We wanted to let you know about an important opportunity 1in6 had the honor of participating in. On Wednesday, September 28, NBC will air an impactful episode of “Law & Order: SVU.” The episode will explore the often hidden and taboo subject of male sexual abuse. It is estimated that 1 in 6 men (nearly 19 million men in the US) have experienced unwanted or abusive sexual experiences before the age of 16.

Basketball superstars Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony guest star with Mehcad Brooks (True Blood) and Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) on this powerful episode, which tells the story of a basketball coach revered by many in the community as a trusted mentor and teacher to generations of young men who comes under suspicion as a sexual perpetrator.

While the episode deals with a painful issue, NBC, the writers of L&O: SVU, and Mariska Hargitay must be commended on their commitment to creating an episode that is, in the end, affirming and hopeful to those who have been affected by these experiences. The Joyful Heart Foundation, 1in6′s founding board member David Lisak and Executive Director, Steve LePore, consulted on the script and are proud of the completed episode.

To learn more about this episode visit http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/engaging-men-preview.htm. To get information and resources about unwanted or abusive sexual experiences visit 1in6 at www.1in6.org or follow us on Twitter @1in6org.

Additionally, follow @FINALLEVEL on Twitter before, during and after the episode to participate in a live tweeting event with SVU star Ice-T, who will be answering your questions and providing behind-the-scenes details of the episode.

It is our mission to reduce the stigma and raise awareness around this issue, please consider forwarding this message, retweeting our tweets or promoting this information on Facebook.

Warm regards,
Steve LePore
Executive Director

Today, the Office of the Vice President released the following message:

We thought you might be interested to know that Vice President Biden will be the special guest on “The View” this coming Tuesday, September 27 (11AM Eastern).  The Vice President will focus on the threat of dating violence and sexual assault among teens and young adults.

Last week, in a video message, Vice President Biden called on high school and college students to share their ideas for how to prevent dating violence and sexual assault at their schools and on their college campuses.  Young men and women are invited to join this important conversation by submitting their ideas via the new whitehouse.gov/1is2many page or by using the hashtag #1is2many on Twitter.

Visit the website to learn more about federal efforts on this important issue: http://www.whitehouse.gov/1is2many/about/federal-efforts

All the best,
The Office of the Vice President

To follow the conversation on Twitter, tweet #1is2many and #biden4life .

During Day 2 of the 2011 National Sexual Assault Conference, keynote speaker is Mona Eltahawy, proud liberal Muslim who is working in the global movement for justice and equality for Muslim women, said that, as activists, it is necessary to recognize people’s humanity in order to serve them.

She shared stories with participants about women in the Middle East and North Africa and the way in which they have resisted oppressive regimes in order to help fuel revolutions. She discussed cultural issues surrounding rape such as virginity tests, shame and police states.

“What changed across the Middle East & North Africa? Revolutions are decades in the making thanks to activists on the ground,” Eltahawy said. “Who are these activists?

Keynote speaker at the 2011 National Sexual Assault Conference

Human rights activists that have documented abuse for decades. Recently, young activists joined others by using social media to challenge authority of the regime by saying, ‘I count.’ The idea that we can’t change anything is antithetical to what we are seeing in the Middle East & Africa.”

She travels across the country and speaks about issues related to sexual assault, and she said that part of her challenge when she speaks is to fight against demonization of Arab and Muslim men. She acknowledged the strength of Lara Logan, a journalist who was attacked and raped in Egypt. And she emphasized that the men did not commit rape as Arab or Muslim men. They did it as men of power who were accountable to no one.

“Sexual assault is wrong no matter who commits it,” she said. “Let’s not bring religion and culture into it.”

Eltahawy shared social media clips and campaigns, such as the Adventures of Salwa and HarassMap, that have been created to stop sexual assault and street harassment in Middle East & North Africa communities. She said that one of the challenges is that women and men don’t feel safe approaching and reporting to police in various countries in the region.

The stories that she shared were beautiful and inspiring of women risking their lives for equality, freedom and dignity in the Middle East & North Africa regions.

Organizations respond differently to online hate speech both on and offline

Baltimore hosts this year’s National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC), an annual gathering of practitioners, researchers and allies in the movement to end sexual assault.  This marks the third NSAC I attend, the first where I co-present with two wonderfully curious and thoughtful colleagues, Jessica Renee Napier and Chad Sniffen.  On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 14, Jessica, Chad and I will co-facilitate a discussion addressing “Online Hate Speech: A Community-Driven Response to Online Violence.”

Much of the work in which we engage as well as that of our colleagues serves to not only validate, ameliorate and give voice to the pain and trauma experienced by survivors through innovative and evidence-based interventions, but also to curb and ultimately end violence through community-based prevention efforts that seek to deconstruct and challenge social norms surrounding gender identity, sexuality and human rights.  While working with rape crisis centers across California and college/university campuses in the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico, my colleagues and I noticed a glaring omission in our practice of response and prevention: organizations lack policies that help to deter hate speech in online communities.  Despite having online comment moderatio policies, many organizations and/or social media spaces fail to keep their users, members or constituencies accountable for their language.  The aim of our workshop is to foster an environment where participants will not only discuss online hate speech, but to also develop strategies of how agencies can improve their organizational response to online hate speech.

While researching online spaces and organizations in the anti-sexual violence field, I came across two creative sites.  The Microaggressions Project: Notes on Power, Privilege and Everyday Life “documents the ways in which power and privilege of social identities is exerted and enforced–often unknowingly–in everyday comments,” as co-founder David Zhou noted in a recent interview with Ms. blog.  What is a microaggression? Chester M. Pierce defined the term as “intentional or unintentional verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and insults.”

As an avid tumblr blogger (and follower), I felt a sense of relief and validation after stumbling upon the Microaggressions blog earlier this year.  The blog serves as an online space where people across identities can share their pain and signal to others how power and privilege impacts people in myriad, subtle ways.  As a social worker interested in language as a powerful means of communicating and exerting identity and power, I find the Microaggressions Project to be a fascinating collection of individuals articulating their shared experiences with systemic violence.  Similarly, the Microprogressions Project is a tumblr blog that encourages people to share experiences of affirmations surrounding social identities.

Both sites serve crucial roles in documenting experiences from a first-person narrative that attest to the systemic oppression of marginalized communities.  One question that arises after visiting these sites for some time: how do we translate our shared experiences into our offline expressions/identities seeking inclusive change?  How do we measure change – because we know it is happening in small increments?  Are you familiar with similar online efforts in other languages or conveyed using different approaches?  If so, we would like to know more!

A packed room during Day 1 of the 2011 National Sexual Assault Conference.

Today marks the first day of the 2011 National Sexual Assault Conference, hosted by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape (PCAR) in Baltimore, Maryland. The theme for this year’s conference is Changing Our Communities, Changing Our World. There are representatives at the conference from all 50 states, and more than 800 attendees present to connect, learn and re-ignite each others’ commitment to this movement.

Day 1 starts with an opening session from Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah and Linda Degutis, Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The remainder of the day is filled with workshops and a keynote address from speaker MESHELLE, the indie-mom of comedy.

PCAR has included a variety of topics and issues related to ending sexual assault. Workshops include topics such as, but not limited to:

• an LGBTQ Roundtable;
• bystander intervention as a prevention initiative;
• media and technology issues;
• secondary trauma and self care;
• counseling relationships;
• medical and legal issues; and
• human trafficking.

CALCASA is honored to be co-sponsoring this conference, and looks forward to learning and engaging with new faces and old friends!

www.scottishwomensaid.org.uk

Ellie Hutchinson, Prevention Worker at Scottish Women’s Aid in Edinburgh, Scotland, discusses the work of Scottish Women’s Aid to prevent violence against women and young people through bystander-focused work on university campuses, and though the development of media campaigns such as VoiceAgainstViolence.org.uk.

Click here to listen

PreventConnect.org

Lydia Guy Ortiz spoke in Denmark about primary prevention.

Three years ago I had the opportunity to attend the first Danish national conference on primary prevention of violence against women prevention in Copenhagen, Denmark. I shared my impressions of prevention trends in the United States so people in Denmark could consider how to start primary prevention efforts.

In Mach 2011, Lydia Guy Ortiz went to speak in Denmark about primary prevention. In this interview, she shares her impressions. Also, check out her blogs about her visit to Denmark at LGO Consulting‘s web site.

Lydia Guy Ortiz on Primary Prevention in Denmark

PreventConnect.org

Some of the most exciting prevention efforts are those taking place internationally. From South Africa to India to Brazil, I have seem tremendous ways to prevent gender based violence (which seems to be the term used outside the United States.) I believe that prevention efforts in the United States can learn from those efforts. For example, EngenderHealth is adapting Program H from Promundo‘s work in Brazil to work in school here in the States.

Check out this video of Andrew Levack of EngenderHealth discuss his presentation at the 2010 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting  “Addressing gender norms in schools in New York City and Los Angeles: Lesson from the adaptation of an evidence-based program in Brazil.”

PreventConnect.org

I am very impressed with prevention efforts that work with coaches, such as Coaching Boys Into Men.  One great example of a coach making a difference is former college allstar and NFL player Joe Ehrmann.

Check out this interview as he discusses his book InsideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives. This book includes preventing sexual violence and dating violence as part of the issues that coaches must address to promote social justice and address this country’s crisis of masculinity.

Joe Ehrmann on InSideOut Coaching

During CALCASA’s 2011 Leadership Conference, in Sacramento, Calif., Millennials represented the endnote address. Hugo Rios and Ashleigh Klein, who were both born while the Rape Crisis Movement was already gaining momentum, talked about the future of this work and why they are a part of this movement.

UC Merced launches "Know Your Power" bystander campaign as the class of 2015 arrives

The CALCASA Campus Program works with college and university campuses across the U.S., Guam and Puerto Rico that are funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women to reduce sexual assault, domestic/dating violence and stalking.  Today, we are featuring a guest blog post about one of the 123 institutions we provide technical assistance to highlight the innovative campus and community-partnerships in response to and prevention of sexual violence on campuses.  

UC Merced received a grant for nearly $45,000 from the Verizon Foundation to support a domestic violence prevention program aimed at college students. The grant supports the administration of the Know Your Power Bystander Social Marketing Campaign developed by researchers at the University of New Hampshire.  The translation of the Know Your Power Bystander Social Marketing Campaign for the UC Merced Campus was a collaborative project of the Violence Prevention Program Director, Kari Mansager, UC Merced’s Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, Charles Nies, and the University of New Hampshire researchers. The Know Your Power campaign helps prevent domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking by instructing community members to take an active part in stepping in and speaking up against these crimes. Community members are encouraged to interrupt situations that could lead to assault or during an incident, speak out against social norms that support sexual violence, and have skills to be an effective and supportive ally to survivors of violence.

Student involvement has been an important part of the development of the Know Your Power Bystander Social Marketing Campaign. During the spring 2011 semester, over 250 UC Merced students were recruited to participate in focus groups to develop the four scenarios featured in the Know Your Power campaign. The scenarios portray typical college scenes that explicitly model safe and appropriate bystander behaviors in the prevention and intervention of domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking.  The bystander social marketing campaign includes displaying posters across campus, free products with the Know Your Power logo to all first-year students, bookmarks distributed in student bookstore orders, dining hall table tents, a customized interactive website, digital displays and more! The campaign will be displayed from late August until early October on the UC Merced Campus. UC Merced is working with the University of New Hampshire to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign and plan to share the evaluation findings in spring 2012.  To view the campaign images, visit www.know-your-power-UCMerced.org.

-Kari Mansager, Director of Violence Prevention Program at UC Merced

PreventConnect.org

Kasia Reterska from Fenton will share how to frame data to make the case for prevention.

Join Fenton, a social justice communications firm, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others from the PreventConnect national community of prevention practitioners for a conversation about framing data to make the case for primary prevention. On September 20, 2011, PreventConnect will hold a web conference titled Framing Data to Demonstrate the Need for Primary Prevention. (the session will be repeated on September 21, 2011.

This fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release initial results of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS). The new data about intimate partner violence, sexual violence and a stalking will create opportunities to raise awareness about the prevalence of these public health problems and to make the case for prevention. In this web conference, we will discuss NISVS and its messaging implications for the field, explore tools for creating a strong message framework around IPV/SV/stalking data, and workshop questions solicited from the field in advance of the web conference. This information will provide practitioners with the knowledge necessary to develop strong messages about the data and the need for primary prevention in order to reach a variety of constituents.

This web conference is part of a series of PreventConnect web conferences that prepare prevention practitioners to use data to make the case for prevention.

Click here to join this web conference.

During CALCASA’s 2011 Leadership Conference, Leah Aldridge, an activist who has been in the rape crisis movement for almost 25 years, gave the keynote presentation about the past, present and future of this work. This year’s conference theme, The Evolution and Revolution of Our Movement, celebrates the 40 years of how the California Rape Crisis movement was formed, how it has grown and evolved, not only as a grassroots movement, but as a profession. This field was founded in a revolutionary time; it has evolved and we are once again at a pivotal moment, one in which we must consider a new type of revolution. As we continue to lay the foundation for the future of our movement, we have much to reflect upon and consider. We must strive to successfully engage and embrace a new generation of advocates and leaders; to integrate new ideas and approches; to be receptive to adapting our existing efforts to intervene and prevent sexual violence. We must meld the youth, the founders and our new generation of emerging leaders, because only together can we transcent the many challenges that we face today.

©Men Can Stop Rape. Used with permission.

Men Can Stop Rape has just released its newest comprehensive bystander intervention program for men called Where Do You Stand? This program is designed to implement on college campuses.  This program builds on the strength of their Strength Campaign by including positive messages, promoting  healthy masculinity, and having action recommendations that highlight what can be done.

Click here to see the Were Do You Stand? Campaign Guide.