When students and alumni come forward with their stories of surviving sexual misconduct and abuse, it is both scary and one of the most courageous things they can do. Listening to and learning from these stories can be incredibly powerful ways for your school to grow. Furthermore, it is important that the students, alumni, and employees of the community know that you care about and want to hear what happened to them. Listening and learning from past experiences takes place through investigating the reports with integrity and providing any necessary support for those involved. This process is complex, but the supportive services you provide will help tremendously in the process of a survivor sharing and healing from past or current stories of sexual misconduct and abuse. Supportive services can focus on many different areas that are important in healing from trauma: emotional, therapeutic, financial, legal, living, and learning accommodations.
At Learning Courage we see an opportunity associated with providing a variety of supportive services for students, alumni, and employees in your community. Establishing these services is one way for your school to show its commitment to community-wide well-being, care for victims and survivors, and developing policies and practices that are guided by integrity. Your school can exhibit these traits to show you are working towards and actually reducing sexual misconduct and abuse in your community.
Your school should create transparent plans regarding supportive services that are readily available and easily accessible to your community. An example of this is the list below that compiles the list of services that should be available on your school’s website and handbooks.
Supportive services for current students should be included in the health and wellness section on your school’s website. These services should also be clearly identified in the student handbook and around campus (i.e., in the wellness center, common areas, dorms, classrooms, hallways, etc.)
Clearly communicating your sexual misconduct and abuse reporting policies and choices for victims and survivors on campus is important because it creates transparency and easy-to-access support for those seeking help. One way that your school can do this is by creating and promoting a decision tree that explains where anybody can get support on campus from multiple sources like administrators involved with the misconduct committee, school counselors, school nurses, the deans of students, and more. To make it easy to get the necessary help, cell phone or other monitored phone numbers should be included alongside the names and titles. Those responsible for fielding calls must be appropriately trained in responding to reports of sexual misconduct and abuse.
An example of a decision tree is shown below:
Each school has different abilities to provide counseling services. Ideally, your school has licensed psychiatrists and/or counselors available to current students through your health and wellness centers on campus. These professionals should be on campus and available at all times when your school is in session. While not all schools may have a dedicated resource at all times, your school can, at a minimum, have licensed counselors associated or contracted with your school that can be brought in to support your students and paid for by the student’s parents/guardians. It is critical that these providers are trained on how to work with victims and survivors of sexual misconduct and abuse.
Equipping your school with medical professionals on campus to care for students is a priority. These professionals should be trained in caring for victims and survivors of sexual misconduct and abuse. Specifically, they should be trained in trauma response and be prepared with contacts and information about where students can receive medical care in the area.
Reporting sexual misconduct and abuse is just one part of the process for survivors. Sexual misconduct and abuse will impact all aspects of a survivor's life which is why it is important your school thinks about accommodation services. Your school should have its own thorough plans tailored to your ability to accommodate reporting and responding parties. The goal of your school creating accommodations should always be to maintain the health and well-being of your students and also to limit the exposure between reporting and responding parties.
As stated in our best practice philosophies, Learning Courage emphasizes the importance of policy adherence. Not only does your school need to be ready with these plans regarding different accommodations for reporting and responding parties, but you must also adhere to these plans when reports are disclosed. Furthermore, your institution ought to be forthright in its accommodation abilities. At Learning Courage, we believe that your school must both create broad awareness for reporting options and be prepared to quickly enact these accommodations for the reporting and responding parties.
Accommodations for both reporting and responding parties of sexual misconduct and abuse include such items as:
Your school should clearly define key terms and policies such as counseling, sanctuary policies, confidentiality, mandated reporting, etc. Definitions for some of these keywords regarding supportive services can be found on the “Definition of Terms” page at Learning Courage.
It is Learning Courage’s belief that your school should best attempt to provide alumni with similar opportunities to access supportive services. These services should be readily accessible for alumni through your school’s website. For more information see Learning Courage’s page on “Historic Misconduct and Abuse.”
In the same way, your school should provide support options for current students, it should also provide clear avenues for assistance for alumni who were victimized while attending your school. Your school will want to clearly establish the points of contact for alumni. This can be done by establishing a decision tree for alumni use. An example of a decision tree is shown above in the supportive services for students section.
Learning Courage believes in providing alumni survivors similar services as current students where possible. One area that your school could have a plan for is facilitating alumni access to counseling services. Your school will want to look at different ways to provide alumni access to counseling whether it be through a financial assistance fund or by providing easy-to-access information on how to access mental health counseling. Whatever your school decides, it should make resources for counseling easily available for alumni.
Some schools provide arbitration and legal services to survivors of historic misconduct and abuse, but it is not a required component to supporting survivors. Learning Courage believes that this service would be counterproductive both to the survivor and to your school. A survivor is not likely to trust an attorney assigned to them by your school, and it is against your school’s interest to provide legal services to a survivor who may choose to take action against your institution. See more information on Learning Courage’s “Historic Misconduct and Abuse” section.
Employees may find themselves involved with reports of harassment, misconduct, or abuse through their duty to care for students and work with other adults. When a faculty member reports sexual harassment, misconduct, or abuse, your school should be ready to provide the reporting party and those supporting that party with the services they need for support. In addition to what support they receive, it is important for your school to outline what protections they will be given for being or associated with a reporting party (i.e. anti-retaliation policies, confidentiality, etc).
There are many different options for employees to get support as they navigate reports of misconduct and abuse at your school. One example is through your school’s employee assistance programs. These programs outline details such as whether your school refers legal counsel to employees, covers legal expenses for employees, and covers or refers employees to counseling services. Learning Courage suggests this information is included in training for all employees so that they are knowledgeable of the services that your school makes available to them. This helps create transparent, supportive avenues for your employees.
Each school is unique in its own ability to provide supportive services to their employees. The most important thing is that your school has a plan that is well articulated for those services. See more information in Learning Courage’s “Employee Handbook” section.
As a school, you care about your communities which means your students, employees, parents, alumni, and Board members. As such, it is important that your school outlines the ways you can and do support your community members when they have been impacted by sexual abuse or misconduct.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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