Education Sessions
The Sexual Harassment Office offers the following education sessions to all members of the university community. If you are interested in booking one of these sessions for you and/or your unit(s), please contact us by phone at (709) 864-8199 or email at shoffice@mun.ca. If you are on Grenfell Campus, please call (709) 637-7195 or email shoffice@grenfell.mun.ca.
Sexual Harassment Office and Key Concepts
This session provides a comprehensive overview of the role of the Sexual Harassment Office, Memorial's policy and procedures, resources available, consent and bystander concepts. It is designed to increase awareness and support the prevention of sexual violence.
The material in this session is similar to the Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault online module that is part of the Workplace Violence Prevention course for new faculty and staff and the recently launched SVM 0204: Sexual Violence Awareness and Prevention course which is mandatory for all new students at Memorial University effective fall 2022.
Time required: 1 hour
Delivery: Virtual or in-person
Active Bystander Intervention
This session is designed to create a community of shared responsibility to prevent sexual violence and guidance on how to safely intervene. This session is designed to introduce participants to the notion of bystander responsibility and help them recognize inappropriate behaviour that requires intervention. Objectives include:
- Define sexual violence and bystander intervention
- Establish the need for all to be involved in creating a safer campus
- Identify barriers and safety concerns with intervening
- Describe the 5 Ds model of bystander intervention
- Review and apply scenarios (in the 2 hour session)
This session is available in two lengths: 60 minutes and 120 minutes. The longer session includes material on how to intervene, scenarios and skill building activities.
This program covers topics that are very sensitive and can be disturbing for some.
Time required: 1 hour (introduction) or 2 hours (includes skills building and scenarios)
Delivery: Virtual or in-person
Consent
The session defines consent and explores its role in preventing sexual violence and changing culture. Objectives include defining sexual violence and consent, exploring the concept of boundaries and the nuances of consent, introducing power and consent and recognizing that everyone has a role to play in creating a safe and healthy campus community.
Time required: 1 to 1.5 hours
Delivery: Virtual or in-person
Going Abroad
This session is designed to inform university members of the considerations related to sexual violence prevention and intervention when in work or study placements abroad or off-campus.
Time required: 1 to 1.5 hours
Delivery: Virtual or in-person
Healthy Relationships
This session provides an overview of what constitutes a healthy relationship and awareness of unhealthy relationship indicators. Objectives include identifying different types of relationships, understanding the characteristics of a healthy relationship, learning how to foster healthy relationships and knowing your relationship rights and responsibilities.
Time required: 1 hour
Delivery: Virtual or in-person
Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence
This session provides an understanding of a trauma-informed response and clarity of your role when someone tells you about an experience of sexual violence. Responding to sexual violence disclosures can be challenging and anyone can be in the position of being a the first person someone discloses to.
The sensitive material in this session requires participants to reflect on their own attitudes and values in relation to sexual violence.
Time required: 1.5 to 2 hours
Delivery: In-person
Requests for education specific to a unit’s needs can be designed and provided. An example of this might be a skill development workshop in follow-up to the first responder session.