Rachel Olive of the Nebraska Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Coalition

PreventConnect.org

In this podcast, PreventConnect‘s David Lee interviews Rachel Olive, the Prevention Coordinator at the Nebraska Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Coalition. They discussed the upcoming Nebraska Prevention Summit that will be held on Nov. 18, 2010 in Lincoln, Nebraska. This Summit will bring together a diverse group of people committed to the prevention of sexual violence and domestic violence. The Summit will advance prevention efforts for the Rape Prevention & Education and DELTA PREP programs in Nebraska.

Click here to listen to the podcast and learn about this “giant think tank” on sexual violence and domestic violence prevention in Nebraska.

This event is similar to the Minnesota Summit to Prevent Sexual Violence held in 2009.

I look forward to learning about how this Summit will help advance prevention in Nebraska.

Rachel Olive on Nebraska’s Prevention Summit

Business leaders, faith leaders, government agencies, sports organizations joined sexual violence prevention practitioners to figure out how to prevent sexual violence in their communities. On December 3-4, 2010, over 200 people gathered in St. Paul at the Minnesota Summit to Prevent Sexual Violence.  (See my previous blog on the Summit.) The summary report has just been released highlighting the plans and actions that will be taken in Minnesota as a result of this summit.

PreventConnect attended the summit with its video and audio recorder.  We have recordings of the speakers from the Summit, videos demonstrating the integration of the arts in this work, and an interview with Summit organizers Donna Dunn, Cordelia Anderson and Patty Wetterling describing the Summit’s highlights.

Please click here for a summary of the Summit recordings and a link to the Summit’s Final Report.

Over 200 people gathered for the Minnesota Summit to Prevent Sexual Violence on December 3-4, 2009 in St. Paul, MN.  The attendees included the typical people who attend events about sexual violence: representatives of local rape crisis centers, public health officials, people from the criminal justice system, and the occasional political figure.

However, this gathering was very different. Many people came to explore how preventing sexual violence is their business. There were faith leaders, athletic group leaders, hoteliers, restaurant owners, business leaders, artists and many elected officials.

The intent of the summit was clear: “The bottom line is prevention.” As Patty Wetterling said, “It is time to address the environment that feeds sexual violence in order to inoculate our culture against it.”

Together, they discussed more than problem of sexual violence, but also explored the solution.  Actually, they did more than explore the solution; they made commitments to take action to prevent sexual violence.

This gathering focused on how to develop activities to prevent sexual violence.  Going beyond education, participants considered what policies their organizations could take to advance prevention.  With laptop computers at each table and each person having an individual device to weigh in on polls (with the results shown instantly), people shared ideas on what their next steps will be.

Building on the strategic plan for sexual violence prevention created earlier in the year by the Minnesota’s Department of Health, the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault organized this Summit in partnership with many state departments (Health, Education, Corrections, Public Safety and Human Services) and several funders (Bush Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation and the Mayo Clinic.)

PreventConnect recorded many of speakers and will release podcasts of these recordings in early 2010 when the organizers will release a report summarizing what actions will be taken.

What will you and your organization do to prevent sexual violence?