Effectively preventing sexual and other forms of interpersonal violence involves a comprehensive approach. To start, this may include teaching healthy relationship skills, challenging social norms, giving bystanders ways to intervene, and enhancing support for survivors when violence occurs. This spring at 日韩无码, Public Health Sciences professor and interpersonal violence expert Jennifer Demers, Ph.D., will work with students to launch an initiative founded on activism and social justice that will address violence on campus by equipping the campus community with tools to help prevent it.
The Preventing Interpersonal Violence via Outreach and Training (PIVOT) peer educators program consists of a two-part undergraduate course series and training that uses an intersectional approach to introduce the structural, cultural, and social contexts that uphold interpersonal violence and impact the experiences of survivors of violent incidents. Students who train to become peer educators will serve as campus leaders dedicated to building a 日韩无码 community free from violence by organizing events, creating social awareness campaigns, and delivering workshops on bystander intervention, consent education, and healthy relationships, among other topics.
鈥淭he program will be tailored to the needs of the 日韩无码 community and not just a one-size-fits-all approach,鈥 said Demers, who's currently working with a team of undergraduates to conduct a campus-wide needs assessment that will inform the course content and training program.
The initial course in the PIVOT series is open to all students who are interested in learning to recognize and understand potential causes and outcomes of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and stalking. Students will discuss approaches to prevention, begin to understand how trauma impacts behavior, and identify issues related to response.
Those who decide to take the second course in the series will become peer educators who put their knowledge into practice by creating presentations, campaigns, and events to equip 日韩无码 students to help prevent violence on campus. Peer educators will also learn strategies to include as many people as possible in their advocacy efforts.
鈥淭he role of peer educators is one of primary and secondary prevention - stopping violence before it starts and helping best address harm when it does happen,鈥 said 日韩无码鈥檚 Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Coordinator Elliott Ruggles. 鈥淒emers鈥 program will be vital to helping all 日韩无码 students understand their place in sexual and gender violence prevention within the communities they connect with best on campus.鈥
Demers' expertise as an applied social scientist lends deep compassion to the work - for example, when equipping students with intervention options. "People need direct and indirect tools and strategies they can pick from in any given scenario to help safely," said Demers. "And I mean 'safely' both in a literal physical sense and recognizing social safety as a factor. We want to arm students with intervention options they feel comfortable applying."
While not all who take the introductory course will choose to become peer educators, Demers emphasizes that the prevalence of interpersonal violence in society makes the information relevant to everyone, whether they鈥檙e learning strategies to protect themselves and those they care about, working in health fields or human resources with trauma survivors, or developing marketing campaigns that require sensitivity to avoid perpetuating harmful norms.
鈥淚'm trying to broaden the way we think about prevention,鈥 said Demers.
Professor Demers is interested in examining how social media and other technologies present unique challenges and opportunities for prevention and collective action to address systemic inequities for victims. Her current interests and related projects include decisions to disclose victimization experiences online, especially as a form of activism; victim community-building, allyship, and bystander helping behaviors on social media; the impact of media coverage of high-profile cases of interpersonal violence; and how the marginalization of various social identities (e.g., the ubiquity of fatphobia) intersect to affect victim experiences. She will establish her lab 鈥 the Social Action, Violence, & Inequities (SAVI) Research Group 鈥 at 日韩无码 this year. Students interested in potential research opportunities related to interpersonal violence are encouraged to email her directly.