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well I'd like to welcome everybody this is Steve Ben Jess I'm Leary's executive director and partner with Joan - Bostick and running near impres I'd like to welcome you all and the topic for today is engaging bystanders in sexual violence prevention that Joan will be presenting and I'll have a lot more to say about Joan in a moment but for now I'd like to introduce you all to Neary press particularly to those of you who may not be so familiar with what we do and our mission is to share the cutting edge research and best practices emerging in our field that towards that goal for many years we only sold books and that's how many of you may know of us but with changes both in the publishing world and in technology we're exploring what it means to maintain our mission while moving forward with a broader definition of our work as an entity for what we call knowledge dissemination and over the last five years we've expanded our offerings to include online courses of free monthly research to practice newsletter for adolescents some face-to-face trainings and now most recently these webinars by some of our internationally recognized authors now just like any other workshop we have learning objectives which we need to state at the beginning and want to state as well so today participants or joining us will be able to understand the role of engaged bystanders in preventing sexual violence learn how to use various tools that will help you to teach others about bystander intervention and identify multiple intervention opportunities to prevent sexual violence and many of you know from the fist of the local news media playing how critical getting bystanders actively involved with our work is to successful outcomes so before I turn this over to Joan let me say a few words about her now I'm really thrilled to do do this because I've had the pleasure of working with Joan from many as my close colleague during press and she really is a gifted administrator and a really very substantial and significant thought leader and our field around violence prevention in addition to being the director of nearing press Joan is nationally recognized for expertise in sexual violence prevention and social marketing for the past 20 years she's developed educational materials and innovated programs for national state and local organizations she's the author of engaging bystanders and sexual violence and prevention which was written for the National sexual violence Resource Center in SPRC her other work includes something called a reason approach the reshaping of sex offender policy to prevent child sexual abuse and gatekeepers for kids all of these books are well worth your time getting hold of and reading Joan is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to work with she's currently a fellow at the Department of Justice focusing on sexual violence prevention so we planted her in the federal government and she's doing a great job there she only it's really a pleasure to had me presenting today and I'm happy to turn this one over to you great thank you so much Steve I really appreciate that and I look on the technology here a little bit and see if I can get this to go to my screen as well right so thank you see really appreciate that a lot and so really it's always been it's a pleasure working with you and I always love to see whatever adventure we're gonna have picnic so um this is for me this is a little bit different because I am now sort of feel like I move from behind the screen to in front of the screen so thank you and I'm particularly excited about doing this webinar today with Neary press because in the past when I've done these workshops they've been mostly for victim advocacy organizations and I think that um we might be having a little bit different conversation today there's a lot of you who unless I see in the list are people who work with either adult sex offenders or with a sexually aggressive youth or children with sexual behavior problems and I think especially for those who work with their families as well we will be having a slightly different conversation because a lot of by senior programs are about learning how to have the conversations and you know how to do that and it really is sort of a slight shift and let me give you an example I'm a few years ago I had a chance to hear a keynote speaker talking about bystander intervention on college campuses and that's where a lot of the bystander programs are being developed and he describes him a typical situation a party where a young man and young woman we're having a good time they're drinking a lot they're both getting drunk things that grow the young woman might be getting even more drunk and the immense tries to talk her into going back to this room and in the scenario that the keynote was talking about another another young man saw it was going on and walk up to them and checked in with the young woman and she really was a drunk and basically was able to arrange for her to go back with her to her own room with her own friends and the keno so talk about how this is great bystander intervention and probably without the bystander intervention program the second young man might not have known what to do and how to do it so I absolutely agree we agree with him but he put the lens of those of us who work with offenders who work with the kids with sexual behavior problems something that the natural question is then what happens the next day who's actually talking to the young man who was drunk when he's sober and to find out I'm really what was what was going on for him and to talk to him about I'm healthy consent and things like that so that to me is the actual additional piece of the conversation that I'm hoping that we can add today and to say that this whole concept of bystander intervention is not new Edmund Burke lived in the 18th century to the 1700s and talked about that the one condition necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing that really is a description of bystander apathy the research however is much newer than the 17th century and now the whole term by saying their apathy really came from a particular case particularly horrific case I'm in 1964 in New York City where kitty Genovese was walking home late at night after she was closing then a bar where she was working and she was raped and also murdered outside for New York City apartment and the stories with the 38 people witnessed the attack in some way hurt her the attack lasted for over half an hour and no one intervened and I want to come back to the story because I actually know a little bit more about it but because of this terrific case it really did hit the media I was nine years old at the time and I remember my parents talking about this I remember hearing about it in the news but the research really sort of came out of this one key event and the definition of bystander that is that is that one was present but not taking part in a situation or than the chance spectator so before me for the record I just want to say that I actually do not like the term bystander for this very reason the definition says you're not taking part on your chance spectator and I actually believe when you're thinking about sexual violence you can't be a chance you can't be a spectator and not be affected by whatever it is that you're watching so you can't be unaffected by it and also your watching has an impact your choice to not do anything also has an impact on the victim and on the offender a friend of mine talked often you know talked to me about the fact that she was mugged not sexually abused but she was mugged in the New York City subway 20 years ago and when she talks about it she said the piece that lingers for her is not the mugging but it was the fact that there are people who were in the subway even though across the tracks or they were safe and they didn't do anything they didn't yell they didn't call the police and that lack of doing anything is what's lingering for her and if you think about from the offender point of view um when the first offenders that I had a chance to talk to who was in prison and he specifically said I'm not saying this to blame anybody but he said that um he was doing a lot of behaviors like taking em boys to family picnics and lots of other things that would be warning signs and he said the fact that nobody that nobody in his family nobody in a circle of friends and nobody has worked ever asked him anything about it he said it's not blaming those people but he said it felt like it was tacit permission for what he was doing so they're not saying anything has a huge impact on both the victim and the offender so the story I would say behind bystanders needs to change if you think about it it's really through the voices of survivors and through victims and the courage to speak out we now have a face we have many faces we see the diversity and the complexity of the issue from the view of the survivors and sexual violence to the media we begin to also get an image of the offender he tends to be a male and he tends to be a monster hardly human they talk about that you know the dirty old man lingering on the edge of the playground these are kind of the images that we have are sort of a sadistic pedophile so the nice human but we do have an image of an offender but in most of these cases we don't have any image of a bystander we don't they literally don't exist in our storylines yet so you think about it it's really through the courage of the voices of victims that we begin to have faces in a voice and image I'm an ability to respond over the years we've begun to again have a little bit about the victim and the offender interaction begin to know mostly through victim information through survivors information but who the offenders are the people we know people we care about often the people who serve dinner in our lives what we don't have is it's almost like a blank space about the people surrounding the victim or a survivor and people surrounding the offender so partly what we need to do is begin to have stories we need to begin to introduce Lee bystanders into our stories and so that when we think about this the victim then is no longer alone and the offender is actually responsible for their actions to more than just themselves it's all the people that are surrounding them so this is the shift that we need to begin to sort of think about and what it does is it allows us to think about ways that we can intervene and so in that story I talked about earlier in the college campuses not just intervening at the moment but also what needs to happen the next day who needs to have that conversation with the young man also who needs to have the conversation before because we see these behaviors for sometimes see behaviors that don't quite match the situation and again those who work with offenders those who work with kids with sexual behavior problems you probably have a little bit like a radar that says something not quite right here an example talking to a woman who her husband would like the family photographer and used to take pictures at all the family events and she noticed that sometimes that there'd be more you know as the the she's had a chance to look at them it's gonna be more pictures of the young girls in this family than anybody else and she never really asked about it it wasn't till he was convicted of accused of sexually abusive behavior that some of these other pieces start to fall into place for her so those are the kinds of red flags or warning signs that you might think about looking for and then learning how to just ask questions how to talk about it when you talk about it it means that you become askable you become a person the family can actually say something so why why is a bystander approach so important well it really does allow us the opportunity to intervene before sexual violence has occurred before someone makes that choice to perpetrate sexual violence and allows us to intervene and prevent sexual violence before the initial perpetration and before initial victimization and I think that again you have the insights you have insights into how to talk about it and what I want to do is to talk about that not just that insight about when to talk about and the intervening when you see something that's actually abusive or even harassment but Cordelia answered Anderson has this wonderful continuum of behaviors where it talks about what's healthy and age-appropriate mutually sex respectful and safe if you move down that continuum you move to then mutually flirtatious and playful and let's say that you're talking about mutually flirtatious behaviour but then not between two peers but between a child and an adult that may be mutual it may be playful but it seems an age inappropriate and then and then may move into non neutral into harassment and it's a sexually abusive and violent if we wait until we see the harassment and sexually abusive and violent behaviors before we actually say something that's the most difficult conversation have it's the most in makes it much more difficult to intervene so think about moving up that if we can actually have those conversations whether it's age inappropriate or maybe even to acknowledge and talk about what's healthy and age-appropriate if we have the conversations that healthy it because easier to have a conference when it's inappropriate and I'm easier when it's abusive and I'm I love a sort of the talk about this in terms of greenlab behaviors low light behaviors and red light behaviors and if we can talk about all of those behaviors then you become more able to intervene in all in all aspects so you can intervene all along the continuum and you can you become askable it's also not just one person who could intervene remember that the sort of stick drawing that I had there and a bystander's there many people could intervene at many different places and you can intervene many times many many points over time so you can intervene a variety of different behaviors a variety of people can intervene and you can do it in terms of before during and after any particularly so the key question then is what motivates a bystander to take action and then I think is something which what we find is that that in the key going back to the kitty Genovese story um but I think we're finding now someone actually went back and did a lot of research about it and actually there's a great NPR story but if you googled kitty Genovese story but basically what he found was that um that in the research was that some people actually did do some things some people call the police but the police then didn't respond would when a person called the police and the police according to police records that they asked the person what was where it was coming from and they said the screaming had stopped and so the police didn't respond at that point someone else yield outside to ask like what was going on but because I kidded Genovese didn't respond at that point that didn't do anything so it really wasn't an apathy and what it was was that some of the people didn't know what to do or what they tried wasn't effective so a key question is what motivates of I shouldn't take action I don't like that particular event latane and early developed these are five decisions a bystander must take in order to take action and they must actually say yes to all five of those that's a lot for someone to do what I like to do is go through each one of these and talk about what the research is telling us about from Mumbai state and what it takes for a bystander to intervene so so the first I need to notice the the event and what we find is that awareness of sexual abuses increased dramatically over the past 20 years and if you think about that offender that I was talking about earlier that all the signs were there and no one known in his family or a circle of friends asked him about it I think that actually people are actually more aware of those things and might actually intervene or might ask at this point in time so then the next step is then if you notice something you need to consider what is that situation the situation that demands some action what are you actually seeing what information do you need and I would just challenge us to say that pretty much any situation that you notice you know it convenient a summit of saying something or doing something that may not be for you directly but it may be something that so that you say like I don't necessarily need to be the person that somebody else can be and how can I get involved to make sure make sure that that happens so 32 decide if you have a responsibility to act and this is probably where the majority of the research on lies so what we found is that the number and the characteristics of the bystanders has an impact on whether or not you act so if you're in a larger group of people you're less likely to act than if you're and then if you're alone and see a situation if you're in a large group of people and so people have more responsibility in that situation you're less likely to act as well so the number and the characteristics of other bystanders as it has an impact also the relationship between the bystander and the victim or the abuser so if you know the victim or if you know the person who's at risk to abuse you're more likely to take action that these are perfect strangers or if you maybe identify in some way have some empathy for the victim then he also more likely to take to take some action so for example someone's talking about how they were out of groped on a on the subway and when they saw someone else being groped and they remember what that was like but they were 14 they then said something about it because they had a lot of empathy with the victim and then last could think about what the risks and the benefits of action this is where it's really important think is it safe for the bystander to say something or to do something and also what the benefits that would have so if I say something then will my child for example be safer because I've said something in the playground about this child then I'm more likely that take some take some action so all of these have a huge impact on whether or not somebody takes an action and if you decide that you do have a responsibility you need to figure out which form of assistance you should use so awareness is high but what we found was just a random digit dial telephone survey we did it is that where this is higher around sexual abuse but people often don't know what to do and we compared it to drinking and driving we found that worse was high around sexual abuse also where higher end drinking and driving but we asked with someone at risk to either drink and drive is to abuse most people actually knew what to do around drinking and driving but hardly anybody knew what to do if they saw someone might be at risk so choosing the form of assistance is something that we need it's very difficult it reflects the complexity of our situation in one of the bystander intervention programs called bringing in the bystanders they'll offer 51 different options we need to find ways of taking this complex issue and simplify it and the same way around drinking and driving you know that either take away the keys or offer a ride we need to think about this as well we also need to understand how to implement the choice that people may know that they need to do something but they're not sure they have the knowledge the skills or the training or even the resources the contacts that are needed to actually implement that choice so they need to make a report do they know how to make that report or it may just be so emotional I know for myself when I had a situation many years ago my daughter was young even though I've trained about this talked about this read about this when it came to my own daughter I was actually just too emotional I actually literally could not think through what I should do I'm luckily I had people I could call I could think it through and then and then could figure out how to act but having access to those resources is really critical to making sure that people actually take take action so going back to my point earlier that you as people who work with it work with those who might be sexually abusive doesn't work with survivors as well you have the skills if you see something you actually have almost like radars I'm in earlier I'm to see something and if you see something how important is to say something Steve I thought you might be particularly they know Albert icing is one of your heroes he said that the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything so if you think about that we have the skills that's something if we begin to actually take our skills of what we see and start talking about that start sharing that so so many people that I've talked to over the years of so they wish that they had seen what was going on and these are things like I wish that you know that we see a young a cousin a wedding who makes comments all the time about young girls someone so talked about what do you say how do you actually have that conversation so you can talk about this is the behavior you're saying this is how it makes you feel and that this was a family wedding this is the impact and and you end specifically you would like them to stop that behavior and say hopefully they're a family member they listen if they don't that's when you might want to enlist other people in the family as well you know and I in my own synagogue on when probably there was someone who was beginning as it took on a leadership position but also sharing little bit too much of his personal stories with some of these people so someone just had to have the conversation of why that behavior might be problematic and in saying that this is something that's important for them to stop and they make sure that they did stop those behaviors so important I could be into how those skills see what's going on and then saying it those are some of the ways that we address it from the individual perspective well I think is actually very exciting about the last five years or so there's actually a lot that's been actually taking bystander intervention and all sort of just the individual and relationship part of the of the ecological social ecological model I'm moving it into community in society realm as well for those people who may not be familiar with the social ecological model it's basically it's a bigger model around public health users to say that in order to make change in our society on a systemic level we need to make change at the individual level at the relationship level at the community level in the society level so we need to make changes on all four of these levels what we're saying that in fact that we spend a lot of tension focusing on individual relationship but we need to shift that focus let me explain as a analogy I think about no smoking campaigns for years their lot the majority of no smoking campaigns are about educating individuals asking individuals just telling individual but the the problems of smoking showing them pictures of black lungs the health impact of it and saying please stop that was sort of missionary the campaign and that did work with some people it does work but wasn't until we actually started exploding the no smoking campaigns across the social ecological model actually began to shift how we are in our society around smoking so think about that we begin to talk about the impact of secondhand smoke asking you friends basically to ask their friends and their family members to please stop smoking and the impact on them on a community level and we started creating no smoking in public places where when I was working at the Department of Justice last time I was there for my fellowship I noticed they had a sign that says you can't smoke within 25 feet of the entrance there so this is what Community News level and a society level and we started putting tax and increase the price of cigarettes together all these different aspects together was what actually be able to shift where we are from from where we are when I was growing up to where we are today where there's really mostly no smoking any kind of public places a huge decrease in smoking so when it's just an education campaign it's critical component but it's not enough to make that kind of shift around the health of America and that's sort of what we're doing here around ice around sexual violence at this point this is a wonderful quote that I love using almost every presentation from the Institute of Medicine health promotion study but it's unreasonable to expect that people will change the behavior easily when so many forces are the social the cultural and physical environment conspire against that's change it really speaks to the importance of the environment so how do we begin to change and think about the change how do we make this concept real I love this particular concept here um and I'm not sure if you'll be able to write it I'm not sure I could actually read this so maybe see if you could jump in with if you can see what people write here but I was just as a scenario this came from frameworks and these are the stories that these cows are dying and so if you look at this picture think why you could type in your answers why do you think the cows are dying so this is you know I live in western Massachusetts and so this actually speaks to me so if you're dialing in from New York City or Chicago or some of the places this particular example may be what come up with a different one this came from frameworks Steve I'm not sure people typing in or do you see anything there you're able to jump in so keep going so just typically the way people sort of respond this which probably isn't that maybe in the how you're responding hopefully as well so they can be dying for a lot of different reasons this could be there's something wrong with the grass or the feed that they're being given there might be something wrong with with there's hereditary some disease I might be mad cow disease that's going through some of my favorite someone so there's a fence in the background there and so that may be that this particular farmers having a fight with a farmer next door and they're sort of post poaching or maybe they've actually poisoning the water this is looking at it from an individual relationship kind of level what if we shift this to a larger community thing and then sit and then think about why do you think then that the cows are dying so if you look at this if you open up the lens to that broader look the use in the cows are dying you look at this picture is because of the pollution that that's the first thing that comes to mind and so that wider lens and how we framed this becomes essential so really what we can look for and how we frame this will allow us to then move from the individual relationship other by sustained intervention to what we can do around that the systemic issues that also may allow for the bystanders to be more likely to take action so bystander approach overs responsibilities to both men and and discourages a certain defensive nests among anyone so you have to talk about what needs to happen but everybody needs to do it creates a border a broader community context which I'll talk about more in a minute it discourages victim-blaming which is so essential I think to getting everybody involved and then certainly impart skills but I think it's more important it imparts hope that we actually can do something that this is not something that will just keep happening but actually we have an opportunity to make a difference actually in sexual violence in our lifetimes and I think that the investment is absolutely changing I think um in each of these actually horrific stories are in the media um there's always a maybe unintended consequence and I think an opportunity and to me the work that Sandusky case is a watershed moment because not only where the victims believed and when they went to court and that they remember successfully prosecute Sandusky but also the institution was then held responsible for not responding when they had information it's the first time that actually I think that there was as widespread public support for holding the meet that the institution responsible certainly that's happened in the past you think about the Catholic Church there was a lot of a very different kind of public support and also mixed support for that so it really became a wake up call I think for insurance companies for institutions working with children and youth and it's not surprising that the link is also happening on to college campuses as well Marcus who's a colleague of mine in the UK who did a lot of cover had a lot of conversations with offenders who actually had abused within youth-serving organizations and I always like to tell his story the the stories he shared with me because they seem to really illustrate how important it is for the institutions to also support the bystander intervention so he talked about how when the interview offenders he felt a certain pattern it's up for some offenders that they would sexually abused within one organization they go to another organization and not abused and then go to a third organization and abused again so we started asking what was different about that second organization why didn't you harm anyone there and they said basically was it safe for them to harm that every time they stood to break the rules a little bit when they started to to want to you know whatever to have I mean you meet with a child behind the closed door or take a child home and they're not supposed to be in the home on their own there's a supervisor what in has trained and interviewed say you know that's what our policy is and you know please don't do that again and they found that that they were being watched too much there were too many rules and too many policies in place that were protecting the children which meant that it wasn't safe for them to abuse so asking what is it possible to do about our environment to make it unsafe for people to to cause harm and there's a number of I think really promising practices and promising programs that Greg if you could actually post those on the list of people can have access to them and this will be actually on the Neary press website as well but there's a whole series of programs that really speak to what's what's possible within youth-serving organizations the cdc has a wonderful the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a wonderful document that's free online called just child sexual abuse within youth serving organizations how to prevent that the enough abuse campaign put together it can actually help to write it so just full disclosure a brochure and some fact sheets as well as an assessment tool that you can use within your use for any organization I know that Keith Kauffman dr. Keith Kaufman from Portland State University is working with Boys and Girls Clubs of America and will be releasing some information about the process they're safe to compete through the National Center for Missing Exploited Children was a wonderful conference and also resources for sports organizations working with youth and then commit to kids is a great program that was developed in Canada again all those resources are available on the on our links are available through the Neary press website and also I think that you know that did I said that you know the these are all connected and there's actually the growing body of information of evidence-based information around programs that are for college campuses and I'm having a spokesperson like President Obama has made a huge difference of the attention that college campuses are getting in the media and in terms of their supports are getting four programs today the current Pope I'm taking a very different approach and then I think what has done in the past in terms of really bringing some of the the harm of sexual abuse to come into the light the green dot program and bringing bystanders are two evidence-based programs that are if the introduced in college campuses but are now being brought into high schools as well and then safe dates as shifting the boundaries are to programs that are being to live in the middle school which is such a important developmental stage for for us to begin to have these conversations and both again our safe dates and fifteen boundaries are evidence-based processes safeties as a curriculum and shifting boundaries I actually really love it I just wanna take a moment to talk about that because what they did was that they they tried three different approaches one of the heads just a curriculum in education they also tried just policy change and they tried both of them and what they did for the policy change they didn't think called hot zone mapping where they gave the kids a map of the middle school and gave them a red marker and a green marker and asked them to map out where they felt safe and where they didn't and then the places they didn't feel safe this would be again you could expect like the stairwells or in the the bathrooms they posted extra supervision and those gathered by teachers or seniors and then what they found was that when they had just the curriculum there was almost no change in the harassment however when they had and then they had both that has significant change in the harassment that goes to curriculum and the hot zone mapping but when they did just a hot zone mapping they had a significant change in this XSL level of sexual harassment so combining these different comprehensive approaches really has some promising approaches for prevention and then lastly unit and universal sociation was one of the first faith-based organizations to come up with a policy about what to do if an offender wants to join or how to respond to and sexually abuse it occurs within their congregation so just to end I want to just say that it's time to really begin to shift the balance so how do we can help to create an environment where the cost of apathy doing nothing is very high and the benefits of engagement is so much higher so thank you very much this is my contact information if you want to reach me you could always reach me through nari press as well and I'm gonna turn this back over to you Steve are you there Steve I am here Joan I think everybody who's who's listening to you can really appreciate why you're a thought leader in the field and you know it's interesting to me how far we've come because when you started this journey many many years ago I thought you were kind of on the peripheries of a nut cake who was doing well but it wasn't particularly relevant because we were doing the frontline we're working with offenders you know so I think the world has come to you and I think really are on the cusp now possibly really making it very very significant dent in sexual violence in this country and it will take a lot more work and we're not there yet but the fact that there are over 300 people on this webinar says something about people's beginning to understand that my standards are so critical to our mission to stop sexual violence so thank you for for all that you do there's you see the slide for those of you who are getting more interested in what Joan has to say we encourage you to pick up engaging bystander book and this will tell you how you can go about it and and order it they are also formed near repress there's our free newsletter research to practice I'll get back to that a little bit later I jump to slide ahead now for those of you who are still listening which is most of you for me oh I get to join I didn't put my makeup on there I am hi everybody hi Joe as you see the question you participated it through the webinar but if you have questions for Joan we have a group 20 minutes that she can be interacting with you also I can see your questions and if you would post them I'll be happy to to send them on to her but let me get you started Joan with one thing here which is when we're talking about sexual violence as opposed to other kinds of violence what's the difference when you look at preventing your perpetration of sexual abuse its first of all it's a great question I think that what we're beginning to see more and more is that there is absolutely overlap between different forms of violence and and particularly there's a lot of research happening right now between bullying and and sexual violence and so they say the same of the same risk that risk factors for bullying the same the risk factors for sexual violence so I would say actually that right now wrecks are the place where there's a much more similarities of looking at what are the what are the risk factors and what other protective factors that would encourage somebody to either to be are not encouraged simple it actually puts place somebody at risk to abuse and and we're still um what we're looking at right now is and I think that there's a lot of information and certainly if people are interested in that this Brady Knight has written a lot about some of that confluence of those the two of those it can just Google Ray Knight and bullying and you probably cope with a lot of his articles but I think that we're begin to see that is that the where's a lot of what they call risk factors that are correlated so we know that that when somebody has sexually abused or someone or someone who's violent they see these different risk factors but what we don't know as much ed what's causative so that the same people might have the same constellation of risk factors and one might abuse and one might not abused and so we're trying to learn about more about what are the risk factors that actually lead to either violent or sexually violent behaviour I'm not sure if I answer the question but I enjoy answering it this is it it's the nice thing about being on a webinar Jo and you can never know the I have another one here for you is how effective are the programs that you're recommending is there research of outcomes but what's your whether it's research or just your personal opinion about these various programs that you mentioned and also are there any videos that can be used for bystander prevention yeah so um so in terms of the programs yes I think it's actually very exciting to me is that for the first time we're actually looking at what are the effectiveness what works and what doesn't work and we have a lot more to learn but if you again I'm happy that if you contact me afterwards I'm happy to send you some articles or they can post some things to the group but that the CDC has recently just like 2014 released study about what they review of all kinds of programs that are designed to reduce the perpetration of sexual violence and what they found is that there are really three evidence-based programs I mentioned two of them here are the safe dates and the shifting boundaries aimed at middle school so those are research-based evidence-based programs they also made a number of promising programs and those are included other bystander like the the bringing the bystanders the Green Dot dating matters there's a number of them that they've mentioned are promising and what they're looking at which I which I love is that they're not just looking at what programs are helpful in shifting attitudes because we don't know if shifting attitudes will actually shift behaviors but the I feel looking at is what are they showing in terms of actually shifting behaviors and intend for behavior as well so other ones that I've listed in terms of the the ones that the the the for evidence-based or promising would be the safe dates the shifting boundary is the green dot and then bringing the by Stander's programs was the ones I would look at it as evidence based the other ones also been promising as well they don't have quite the same level of research and evaluation to them so here's another thanks Joan here's another question like can you talk a little bit more about the specific characteristics or skills that make for effective bystander intervention well that's um that's a great question you know I think that that again if you dig into some of these a lot of it has to do is like the first of all at what age your what age you're talking about but I would say that you know that in some level I would start with the concept that all of us should be engaged bystanders and so all of a sort of need the skills then what skills we need would be first I'm going back through the latane and our let's say like we first need to be able to notice notice the event be able to knows what we're looking for so part of the skill building would be about I'm understand what red flags and not just red flags obviously for victimization but also red flags warning signs that someone might be at risk to abuse so so first I understand the red flags and notice in the event there's a skill building and being able to have these conversations there's a lot of information out there about how you might want to begin the conversation and having those difficult conversations is something that really needs a lot of practice so that again is a skill how do you talk about what's healthy how do you talk about what's of concern and then also the last because I'm saying that making sure that everybody knows the resources the local resources so in the situation where I had something going on but I knew who to call I knew a new place I could call here someone I could call I actually know like if I do need to make a report I know the phone number I need to call and if I'm not sure I actually know if I know that it never I can call and say I have this concern for the situation can you tell me it can you give me some advice on this so knowing what the resources are all of those would be key kinds of skills that you would need to have and most of those are the skills which are then taught through a lot of these bystander intervention programs great this is a very interesting question and not sure how how best to approach it but what's oldest bystander intervention playing the choice of victims to take and to continue to pursue criminal or civil an order of protection action against offenders so what impact do you think bystanders play and victims finding their voice of moving forward to to prosecute or civilly prosecute take civil action against offenders so I mean it's again a great question I don't I don't have any research on it but but I certainly know from talking to friends and colleagues that and just just I think just my own experience over you know 27 years if you're the first person to have to say this happened to me that's a much harder thing to begin to begin the conversation than to say if someone if you think it was happening with Bill Cosby that people coming forward that people have the courage to come forward 20 years ago but that our environment has changed enough that people are feeling comfortable now coming forward and then also when somebody comes forward then these easier to say like if this person is coming forth and maybe I can too so having from having from victims and survivors having a voice it makes a huge difference and I think that also and I think about again the conversations I've had with offenders I remember one man so sharing that that that when his daughter finally disclosed that he was sexually abusing her that one things he said is that he he was very ashamed of what he had done but he was equally ashamed that he that his daughter had more courage to say something out loud than he did and then I keep thinking about what if someone in the family had taken the time to ask something going on to begin that conversation I'm to be the first one to say that conversation there's no research on it but I can't imagine given that all of these sort of anecdotal stories that bystanders saying something wouldn't have a huge impact on the environment and the people that are surrounding them and certainly taking the step further if you're within an organization that makes it very clear that this is that they care deeply about the safety the children or safety of men and women are that they're in their care the aim they actually follow through on that the kinematically that also doesn't have a huge impact in terms of shifting that the environment that we all are living in and making it a safer place but I have to see the research and that's a great question great thanks Joan actually somebody sharing a resource for everybody so I've won a degree have you heard of the culture of respect is that something you familiar with actually yes it's a great sort of head no I'm just there suggesting that folks who were interested to take a look at the cultural respect website which is just culture of respect don't know whether it's dot-org or calm it's not saying here so www cultural respect oh great and that it's created a matrix of sexual assault prevention education programs with a particular emphasis on bystander intervention and all the programs on the site are evidence-based and there's a number of peer-reviewed studies so I think it may be a great resource and thank you to Allison for sharing that with us another question for you says that we're clinicians and tend to look at individual behaviors but what are some of the environmental issues we should be considering well first I think I think solutions are beginning especially when you talk about children and youth I think most clinicians realize you can't just treat the individual child you have to think about the environment that child is living in so certainly their families or guardians those are so that's already sort of taking it out of a individual and putting it into the family into the Sandler system but then also if you're talking about a child or a youth they also need to go back into the school so need to go back hopefully that you know they need to have pro-social activities so they're involved in maybe sports or other kinds of activities so getting involved and hopefully they're getting involved before you have a client who's going to actually approach that that that Little League or approach the the church but I'm beginning to have a conversation with them begin to have the safety and so people actually are aware about how to respond and the people the interesting that's I think that what happens is that you know people here you know I mean there's almost like this I feel like there's a opportunity people either minimize completely say oh you know they were just kissing why you should reacting to it where they'll sort of like and say like oh my god you know this this this child was running around trying to push himself on everybody he's only five years old but he's trying to do it I don't want them anywhere near my child so the only way that we can sort of get people to sort of instead of being at one extreme or the other the good people have needs to be a way kind of environment holds it holds people's fears and gives them some concrete ways or saying like okay here's a child who does push themselves on everyone and yes they're only five years old but if I was my my daughter was five I would want her to be exposed to that so what do we do how do we make sure that that child is being in a safe environment that they're being observed and that they're and they're learning what's right what to do and what not to do so I think as individual clinicians as you begin to move out of the individual treatment or the group and you move into the environment their family environment into their community environment into the pro-social activities those are all opportunities that really have to do about shifting the environment and then seeing just given the work we do in Massachusetts with with may sock I also would say that the it's is a coalition of clinicians looking also at what kind of policy that needs to happen what policy needs to be changed I think that it'd be wonderful if more people got involved at that level as well we do need to begin to think about kids differently than adults and this to me is a perfect opportunity for those people clinicians who work individually expand their view I would say just as you have and maybe I don't know if you have something to add to that steam because you've actually made that leap in my mind from from working as an individual clinician to really looking at more of the societal and the policy level as well well I don't really want to take up much space you don't nothing I just think that that you know I'm really a product of the 60s so I've had to channel my outrage and anger somewhere so it doesn't need me up and that's always been into some kind of political activism so for me you know when I look out and see the kind of resistance that I've been in the field for 30 years so I came in when you know the attitudes very very different than what they are now we have much more amenable to hearing the message that we have to say so I just had to do it so you know but it is gratifying when you stay at it for a while to begin to see the kinds of social changes that are taking place you know in part from a sex intervention with legislators and the press and the narratives that are beginning to hold but you know also just as I say history is coming towards you so that's an exciting moment I've got a statement here that that I'd like to share with you maybe you can comment it says that you only been doing some preventive outreach with at-risk urban youth to educate on consent and healthy sexual behaviors and in our experience when the encounter belief system among adolescent males and females that appears to be part of a larger quote/unquote rape culture and degrading the women and girls it's problematic because these attitudes support victim blaming and reduces the chances of bystander intervention and is this an area that's been a focus of policy and programming on a larger level is there any research addressing this area just can you say more about the impact bystander intervention has on victim blame yeah I am again is a great question and I think this is very calm I made that questions are really complex I feel like I wish we could be the same room and talk about this for the next three hours so it feels a little bit you know for justice or give you a quick you know five minutes it responds to two minute response feels inadequate to such a huge question so maybe certain maybe just turn a couple just a couple thoughts at least in terms of responding I think the first is that that so one of the things I'm loving about my fellowship of the Department of Justice is that I'm having a chance to be a total nerd and made lots and lots of research and one thing that's really striking is that the research that I see happening here in the United States very rarely talks about sexual violence from a gender perspective but in fact when we look at but I look at researchers as having done internationally that it's almost always defined as a gender-based violence and so I think that that's I think that there's something that we need to learn from those folks who are outside the US in terms of what you know how they can look at as a gender-based issue and then what that means in terms of changing the way that we think and do do our work here in the US so this is one just thing that really just like to look at I think the time to maybe look a little bit outside what's happening and then Rachel Jukes je w ke s is probably person has written the most about that and I was particularly excited to see some of her research I would Google Google her in terms of just like and I think that um you how I mean that there's I think that the whole issue of gender is also has a very different meeting and I feel like I'm almost too old to talk about gender in some ways because I'd come at you know from it's steves clean in the 60s and collects I mean so the 70s of the feminist movement I think is a very important grounding but I also know that that young kids are thinking that I'm talking about gender is also very different but in some of the same pieces of that that that that the gender expectations that we have are deeply rooted and we need to begin to address them again apologize for them they're they may but there's a really wonderful research which was done by a woman in a researcher in Indiana and they are strong and I Kember the other researchers on the project but the they looked at sexual violence within a Midwestern university and what they found was that a very high sexual violence and what they talked about is that that was my first place I saw it being talked about as a gender issues and they said that there was a non-gendered expectation coming into school that everyone's gonna like have a good time everybody's gonna party probably drink if they have sex but then when they got to school there's a big very big gender divide that is most of the fraternities which was mill you know male dominated controlled flow of the parties of the alcohol and and that the women also sort of felt at that point with that gender divide that they felt they need to be more they need to be acquiescent so what they found was interesting that compared to a Southern University and where the fraternities didn't have houses and that the the parties were held in a different way or in a more neutral space and the sex level sexual violence was much lower there so I think we need to think about also the structural ways that we encourage that kind of the kind of gender divide almost and look at as a gender issue so I feel like I'm just sharing a lot of you know again this is a complex conversation but I think if we don't look at some of those those gender issues I think we're actually going to miss out and and some really important parts of the solution Thanks we really should stop but I want to ask this last question so maybe you can sort of address it very quickly and so am I going to ask you the first is there any research available on culturally specific modifications for bystander engagement programs there's not there's not a lot they and this might be something that maybe for other people who are listening have accessed tomorrow I have seen only a few studies and but I think it's it's um where I have seen some researchers show actually the need for it if nothing else it's like what works but there's there's little pockets that around there's actually a great some great work that happening the South Asian community around restorative justice it's happening in Southern California so these pockets like that when I think that I think the research is really showing is that how there are different places where there are higher levels of sexual violence and others and we need to be thinking about how do we address those the unique factors that make those places with this higher sexual violence how to make them safer and the place of those lower sexual violence kind of would learn for those environments as well as some of those are culturally specific as well I wish like this short amount of time I can't say but that there there there is there's a lot of interest in this area they had growing interest and I definitely would keep that question on your radar great Joan thank you and and there are a lot more questions and thanks to all of our webinar participants for posting them I wish that we could spend more time there great questions we really appreciate the interactivity so I want to just close out this webinar with a couple of announcements saying also that we do produce a monthly David Prescott Jonah and I produce a monthly newsletter called research to practice for which I thought I picked some of the most poignant research in the field and share it with you in a very short brief format so if you'd like to sign up for that you can do that on linear impress org website you automatically signed up for it if you join this red webinar and you can always opt out if you find this to be boring enough but we certainly the three of us have been doing this for several years now and it's a really productive way for us to work together and push each other he's also if you like this webinar and many of you stayed with us for the entire time so I assume that you did you can see previous webinars on our website at wrc.org I want to just tell you a quick announcement about our next webinar the impact of pornography on children youth and culture with Cordelia Anderson ladies John mentioned in her presentation and I really encourage you to attend briefly the basic information provided in the webinar will be helpful to anyone concerned about today's pornography becoming the main sex educator of our children youth and all of us who work with these kids know how dramatically you know the he's with which you can get free pornography now is impacting on on attitudes and perspectives on sex and sexual violence with many of the kids that we work with and the workshop will discuss the differences in definitions and the research that shows how pornography new facts and it'll also highlight the importance of framing this as a public health issue and actions that can be taken to counter any harm from pornography and the porn industry that's on January the 20th so that's that's the next webinar I want to just thank our our sponsors very quickly the center for clinical and forensic services the IPM group James Reynolds the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health maple tree group homes New Hope Treatment Centers ranchero Society Stephens treatment programs Wayne County Juvenile Probation Department in Pennsylvania Marek counseling and Houston transitions to wellness and counseling and believe me we would love to have two more slides that you could share with you so if you're out there and you want to help us out as a sponsor we would love to have you and reach us on our website or call five four oh seven one two extension 14 that's area code forward three we would love to send you our as a sponsor or as a a agency sponsor or an individual sponsor a copy of current perspectives and current applications will also do the work to register you for every webinar so you don't have to do it and for individuals it's $98 and for organizations it's 250 and we'll list you here and you know we have to be like MVR where you want to turn the radio off when we're doing fundraising we have to do it to keep ourselves going just some reminders the PowerPoint slides are going to be posted on the website the recording will be posted next week and you receive an announcement letting this person and only for a certificate of attendance once again city credits are available go to the webinar page to find the link and don't forget to close out your account at the end Joan thank you so so very much for a wonderful presentation your gift to the field in so many ways and I'm glad that we could share you with all over the webinar participants thank you so much and that close I just I forgot to mention this is this book is available from the nsvrc for free so if folks do want this they can just go there's a link on our website or you can go to the National sexual violence Resource Center and you can get this for free so it's a great booklet it's free and has some great exercises to go forward with so I just want to mention that as well thank you everybody will see my January 20th