Bystander training

The University provides a fair amount of training to its staff. Quite a lot of it is compulsory. And they recently had been developing bystander training. It focuses on how to react if you see any sexual assault or harassment take place. Unfortunately, university campuses are hotbeds for such behaviour, and it is important that as many people as possible know how to deal with it. 

An email came around that advertised sessions; most were online, but I figured it would be best to do that in person. There was one session for that, and I registered for it.

I got into the room and there was one bloke sitting there. He was another participant; he was from Nuclear Futures, and we just had a bit of a chat. It was already a few minutes after the intended starting time when a third person appeared. She was the instructor. She had had parking problems due to the resurfacing of one of the main roads on campus.

View from the building where it took place

We got through the training fairly quickly. There was an introduction on sexual assault; overlapped with our ‘responding to a disclosure of sexual assault’ online training. And there was something about general bystander effect; the strange group psychology you get when something clearly needs responding to, but everyone is too self-conscious to do it. We were shown some videos with actors pretending to be very ill on the street, and two out of the three actors were there for a long time before anyone bothered to see to them.

After that there were some suggestions of who could intervene, how you could intervene, and how the circumstances matter. And we were given some scenarios and asked how we would respond to it.

At the end we had a little discussion. I said that this training was clearly aimed at students. Was there a chance that a specific version for staff would be developed? And the instructor said she absolutely would love that, but she was working with limited support on a limited budget. She was not paid for by the university but by the Higher Education Funding Council Wales (HEFCW). And we were living proof of the fact that there isn't an awful lot of interest from the staff. Only two people coming to the only in-person session! She said most online sessions only had three or four participants. I found that painful. So many people think this is not worth their time!

She said interest among students was bigger. I could imagine so. Sexual misbehaviour is often closely linked to alcohol use, and we the staff don't see the students in an alcoholic configuration. They do see each other in situations like that. (I know it also happens in lecture rooms and student accommodation and the field and all kinds of places like that, but I suspect there is just more of it in social situations where alcohol is involved.) So maybe this training might as well stay as it is for the time being. It is reaching it target audience. But I do not think it is a good look on either University management, or the academic staff, that they have so little interest in this…