Engaging Bystanders in Sexual Violence Prevention
This online course walks the participant through the concepts of a bystander intervention, describing how to encourage friends and family to deter and possibly prevent sexual violence. Then, through interactive exercises, the online course offers a series of suggested activities and scenarios that someone could use in an offline training.
Goal: To ensure that prevention efforts involve groups of people and communities in prevention (rather than what YOU can do, as what WE can do). Participants will:
- Understand the role of engaged bystanders in preventing sexual violence
- Use various tools that will help you to teach others about bystander intervention
- Identify additional intervention opportunities to prevent sexual violence
The basic concept conveys a clear message that "you are not alone," an essential message for beginning to change social norms.
Impact: Most of the research on bystander intervention has been within college communities, but it has been effectively used in a much wider range of organizations and communities. This is a simple concept that can easily be integrated into any other prevention work.
- Engaging Bystanders is also available as a pdf or a hard copy (at no charge) from the NSVRC.
- A basic understanding of sexual violence is helpful before using this material.
