Project SAFE is dedicated to ending sexual violence on Oxy鈥檚 campus through a series of frameworks informed by the public health model of prevention. Through these frameworks, we are able to provide comprehensive prevention education as well as advocacy and healing programs that center safety and autonomy. Combined these components allow us to address primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of prevention providing a comprehensive approach in service of our mission.
Project SAFE staff, which includes our Director, Prevention Education & Program Manager, Survivor Advocate, and Peer Advocates (PAs), provide various training and programs throughout the academic year. Peer Advocates present training to 蜜桃社区Athletics teams, Greek Organizations, and other student groups. Project SAFE also organizes campus-wide programs that educate the community about sexual and interpersonal violence and provide opportunities for healing from trauma. Empowerment Week, held annually in October, is dedicated to preventing and healing from dating and interpersonal violence. Take Back the Week, held annually in April, explores intersectionality and sexual violence to raise awareness that sexual violence affects everyone, regardless of gender, race, or orientation.
The Social-Ecological Model
The Social-Ecological Model considers the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors. It allows us to understand the range of factors that put people at risk for violence as well as factors that protect people from experiencing or perpetrating violence. The overlapping rings in the model illustrate how factors at one level influence factors at another level.
Individual
The first level identifies personal and historical factors that increase the likelihood of becoming a victim and/or perpetrator of violence. Some of these factors may be assigned sex, gender, age, education, income, substance use, or history of abuse.
Prevention strategies at this level look like promoting attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that prevent violence. Specific approaches may include early consent education, social-emotional learning, and safe dating and healthy relationship skill programs.
Relationship
The second level examines close relationships that may increase the risk of experiencing violence as a victim or perpetrator. A person鈥檚 closest social circle-peers, partners, and family members influence their behavior and contribute to their experience.
Prevention strategies at this level may include mentoring and peer programs designed to strengthen communication, promote positive peer norms, accountability, problem-solving skills and healthy relationships.
Community
The third level explores the settings, such as schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods, in which social relationships occur and seeks to identify the characteristics of these settings that are associated with becoming victims or perpetrators of violence.
Prevention strategies at this level focus on improving the physical and social environment in these settings (e.g., by creating safe places where people live, learn, work, and play) and by addressing other conditions that give rise to violence in communities.
Society
The fourth level looks at the broad societal factors that help create a climate in which violence is encouraged or inhibited. These factors include social and cultural norms that support violence as an acceptable way to resolve conflicts. Other large societal factors include the health, economic, educational, and social policies that help to maintain economic or social inequalities between groups in society.
Prevention strategies at this level include efforts to promote societal norms that protect against violence as well as efforts to strengthen household financial security, education and employment opportunities, and other policies that affect the structural determinants of health.
Forms of Prevention
Primary Prevention: Education
Primary forms of prevention aims to prevent sexual violence from occurring in the first place.
At Project SAFE, we provide primary prevention educational programs, workshops, and training such as:
- First Year Orientation
- How To Support Survivors & Trauma-Informed Care
- Practice Consent and Boundaries
- How to Be an Upstander
- Creating Survivor Centered Spaces
- Consent-Based Workshops
- Healthy Relationships
- Student Athlete and Greek Life Training
- Faculty and Staff Training
- Highlighting Interpersonal Violence (IPV) Month in October with Empowerment Week
- Highlighting Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) in April with Take Back the Week
Secondary Prevention: Advocacy
Secondary forms of prevention provides immediate response after violence has occurred.
The Project SAFE office provides advocacy services for those who have experienced violence, such as but not limited to:
- Crisis intervention and emotional support
- Resources and referrals for counseling, medical, legal, and other resources as needed
- Developing a safety plan
- Addressing housing, academic, and employment concerns
- Mapping and reaching out to support network
- Navigating the criminal justice system, Title IX, and/or the Student Conduct process
- Accompaniment to Title IX, Student Conduct meetings, hearings, medical centers, and/or police
- Healing and Empowerment
Tertiary Prevention: Trauma-Informed Healing
Tertiary forms of prevention provide long-term support for survivors and address the lasting effects of trauma.
This includes:
- Trauma-informed healing and support
- Mindfulness and meditation
- Sustaining a support system
- Joining a network of survivor support and accessing resources over time
- Listening to and being in solidarity with survivors
- Changing practices of justice and accountability that consider a survivor's needs over time
Prevention Education Resources
- Sexual Violence Prevention: Beginning the Dialogue (CDC, 2004)
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Our Prevention Education & Program Manager is dedicated to developing meaningful, topical, and culturally humble education programs for all stakeholders at Oxy. This includes state and federally mandated training, such as that given to first-year students and Greek Life, as well as NCAA-mandated training for athletes.
Project SAFE offers an array of workshops and training sessions to provide a comprehensive prevention approach to sexual and interpersonal violence for the Occidental community. Below is a list of workshops/topics we offer, but it is not limited to:
Introduction to Project SAFE Office and Resources (30 min)
Provides an opportunity to understand Project SAFE鈥檚 resources, advocacy, and educational programming, and how to utilize these services during your time at Occidental. Learn more about advocacy and prevention related to issues of sexual assault, dating violence, sexual harassment, and stalking, as well as how to foster a community of Upstanders who will interrupt instances of violence they witness.
Introduction to Restorative Justice & Restorative Practices (60 min)
Introduces the concept of restorative justice, and provides an overview of tangible methods and practices to apply in community and interpersonal relationships that focus on repairing harm and promoting healing. Proposes a critical awareness of accountability through non-punitive approaches that center healing and reconciliation. Learners will have an opportunity to engage in restorative practices and adopt these approaches into their everyday lives and community interactions.
Introduction to Trauma-Informed Care and Holistic Survivor Support (60 min)
Introduces the SAMHSA principles of trauma-informed care, and a brief overview of the impacts of trauma on individuals. Promotes an understanding of the importance of tailoring support services and education to the unique needs of individuals who have experienced traumatic or harmful events. Learners are presented with useful language and resources to incorporate culturally-competent trauma-informed practices into their lives, while preventing re-traumatization and vicarious trauma among survivors and support persons alike.
How to Practice Consent and Boundaries (60 min)
Learners are introduced to the concept of affirmative consent, as well as the acronym CLEAR (Communication, Limited, Enthusiastic, Active, and Revocable). Tips and strategies for confidence-building around consent conversations within all types of sexual relationships (casual, long-term, LGBTQ, etc.) aimed at increasing comfort, minimizing harm, and maximizing sexual pleasure and autonomy. Learners will also be provided opportunities to identify needs and how to negotiate various types of boundaries.
Learning Objectives include鈥
- Define bodily autonomy, boundaries, and sexual citizenship to better understand and respect the autonomy and boundaries of others and our own.
- Demonstrate strategies key for affirmative consent within various types of relationships.
- Evaluate how and why power impacts consent and relationships, including how we set and maintain boundaries.
Recognizing the Red Flags: A Workshop on Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships (60 min)
Learners will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to build and maintain positive, affirming, and supportive relationships. Introduces individuals to the healthy, unhealthy, and abusive relationship behaviors that can help them recognize abuse and harm in their own lives. An analysis of the power and control wheel, as well as the cycle of abuse, provides learners with the ability to break these cycles, as well as necessary skills such as conflict resolution, compromise, and respectful closure aid in facilitating personal growth and the possibility of healthier future relationships.
Learning objectives include鈥
- Understand the qualities and components of healthy relationships
- Identify tactics, behaviors, and dynamics used to reinforce power and control in an abusive relationship
- Adopt and apply strategies that promote and respect communication, trust, and autonomy in our relationships.
Being an 蜜桃社区Upstander (60 min)
Tools and resources are provided to identify differences between prosocial upstanding behaviors and the bystander effect to effectively take positive action when witnessing harmful behavior, transitioning from passive bystanders to active participants in creating safer and more inclusive environments. Learners will be equipped with the ability to recognize preventable and/or ongoing harms, including attitudes that reinforce harmful behaviors. Using the four D鈥檚 of intervention, students will develop the skills to de-escalate situations, offer support to those targeted, and disrupt harmful dynamics.
Learning objectives include鈥
- Recognize the importance of effectively taking positive action to create safer, more inclusive geographies.
- Identify harmful or prejudiced attitudes and behaviors that maintain and reinforce a culture of violence.
- Apply de-escalation, harm reduction, and violence prevention and intervention strategies to target and disrupt harmful social/cultural dynamics.
Compassion Fatigue & Self-Care in Care Work (60 min)
Introduces the concept of 鈥渃ompassion fatigue鈥 and 鈥渧icarious trauma鈥 when participating in various types of care work. Learners will be provided the tools, language, and resources to examine their own well-being in relation to their work, as well as existing and new strategies for managing compassion fatigue in caregiving. Using methods for promoting self and community care, participants will have an opportunity to practice effective self-care strategies that promote relaxation and mindfulness.
Learning objectives include鈥
- Understand and recognize the challenges of care work, including how to identify burnout and secondary trauma.
- Develop strategies to reduce and prevent burnout and vicarious trauma to promote resilience, emotional wellbeing, and compassion satisfaction
- Assess methods for enhancing community care to better provide organizational support to team members and allies engaging in care work with you.
Survivor-Centered Language: What it is and How to Use it (60 min)
Introduces the key principles of a survivor-centered approach, and how language shapes how we understand and treat gender- and power-based harm and sexual violence within our communities. Learners will become familiar with myths and stereotypes commonly associated with the victim-survivor dichotomy, and the impact this can have on survivors, as well as allies and broader communities and spaces.
Learning objectives include鈥
- Understand the traumatic effects of gender- and power-based harm to better promote a supportive, violence-free environment.
- Recognize harmful myths and misconceptions regarding what it means to be a 鈥渧ictim鈥 or 鈥渟urvivor.鈥
- Develop key skills necessary for adopting a survivor-centered approach that respects the autonomy and self-determination of individuals impacted by gender- and power-based harm
Best Practices to Affirm LGBTQIA+ Students (90 min)
Using a trauma-informed approach, learners will have an opportunity to learn strategies that promote violence prevention, campus inclusivity, and healthier relationships with LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty. Individuals will be provided resources and language necessary to understand the basics of gender and sexuality, and the evolution of systemic homophobia/transphobia primarily within a U.S. context, including that of legislation, healthcare, and education.
Learning objectives include鈥
- Explore LGBTQIA+ community language and identities, including the definitions of gender, sex, and sexuality
- Examine the impact of the current national climate, gaps in LGBTQ+ research, and campus prevention and intervention efforts on LGBTQ+ student communities.
- Identify methods for implementing safe, culturally competent, and affirming environments for LGBTQ students, staff, and faculty inside and outside of the classroom.
The Politics of Pleasure: Access, Power, and Sexual Citizenship (90 min)
Provides an opportunity to explore how pleasure is shaped by and influences social, political, geographic, and economic structures. Learners will examine how individualistic notions of pleasure and sexuality can lead to violence, oppression, and control that limit other鈥檚 autonomy and sexual identities. Provides opportunities for individuals to brainstorm strategies for creating safer campus environments, and addressing issues of power and inequality to reduce the incidence of violence and promote sexual self-determination.
Learning objectives include鈥
- Name and acknowledge the various power structures that may impact our access to pleasure, joy, and fulfilling intimacy.
- Discuss how experiencing pleasure and joy are integral components for quality of life and healing
- Develop strategies for safety, healing, and reclaiming pleasure for all, including for those who have experienced trauma.
Conflict Resolution: Responding to Harm
Project SAFE is happy to create custom workshops and presentations for your student group or department. If you would like to request a workshop or training, please schedule a consultation below. We typically prefer 1-2 weeks' notice, or more, for workshop requests, however, we will do our best to accommodate your needs and schedule. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to email projectsafe@oxy.edu.