Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Bernstein, Lauren (LB)" <>]

Hi Megan,

 

That’s also what I do at Emory,  unless the student has asked to me contacted. Even then, I let the student know that it is entirely their decision whether to get support from our program or not and let the survivor know that it’s ok to just want to talk about options without telling their story.

 

It might help to create a system within your division to allow survivors to indicate if they’d like follow-up and to ensure that these students are being referred. We’ve also had the unintentional opposite issue of too many people reaching out to the survivor/the survivor not fully being aware that they can refuse services. This sometimes make a survivor less likely to contact us because the amount of proposed help or contacts is so overwhelming.  Having more of a system in place specifically for SV/IPV/stalking cases has helped us with this.

 

My best,

LB

 

From: Megan Elizabeth Selheim [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 3:08 PM
To:
Subject: contacting victims

 

General question for those of you who provide crisis response:

 

Right now, we never reach out to someone who is identified to us as a possible victim/survivor – we let them make the decision to contact our program or not. That’s how I was trained, and that’s how all of the other campus & community programs I’ve worked at operate.

 

However,  I’m starting to wonder if that’s always the best approach in a campus climate. Every other student support program on our campus actively works to contact and communicate with students who may need their services, with the exception of ours. I’m not sure if students are interpreting this to mean that if they don’t hear from us, it’s because we’re not a resource. We’re also still working on building awareness of our program, so there are plenty of students who have no idea that we’re here, or know about us but have no idea what we do.

 

Keeping in mind that safety is paramount, do any of you have situations where you will reach out to a student first, rather than allowing a student to make the decision to contact you? Our program is housed in the Dean of Students office, so I’m regularly informed about relevant situations where DOS, Residence Life, and/or university police have been contacted, in addition to normal secondary contacts from fac/staff and other students.

 

I’d appreciate any thoughts. Thanks!

 

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Megan Selheim

STOP Violence Program Coordinator

Dean of Students Office

Dept. 3135, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie WY 82071-2000

118 Knight Hall

307-766-3296

www.uwyo.edu/stop

 

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