Learning Outcomes

Upon successfully completing this training, participants will be able to:

• Define sexualized violence
• Discuss sexualized violence and power dynamics in graduate student culture
• Describe different kinds of boundaries
• Identify strategies for responding to boundary violations and sexualized violence
• Practise setting boundaries and responding to sexualized violence using scenarios
• Identify relevant campus and community resources

Agenda and Length of the Workshop

The agenda below assumes that you will offer the workshop over 90 minutes; however, you may want more time and could extend the session to two or more hours to allow time for more discussion and to give participants more time to work through the scenarios at the end.

While the workshop is adaptable, we recommend that you include the scenario practice and discussion as this allows participants to consider how to apply the skills and various approaches discussed to address power dynamics and boundary violations.

This agenda provides suggested times for each section, but facilitators should feel free to adjust the time.

Delivery Options

This training can be delivered in both in-person and online formats.

In-person training provides more opportunities for connection and relationship building between a facilitator and participants can be easier to check in with participants.

However, online delivery, using a video conference platform like Zoom, can be done quite effectively and offers opportunities for people who might otherwise be unable to attend an in-person session. Only minimal changes are required to deliver this workshop online. Activities involve placing participants in breakout rooms. The details of adjustments for online delivery are in the facilitator notes for the activities.

Hybrid delivery (delivering simultaneously to both in-person and online participants) is not recommended for this training. Hybrid delivery is very challenging and requires a webcam and a large screen or display unit, as well as facilitator experience, with this type of delivery.

An ideal institutional practice would see all graduate students complete this workshop early in the academic year, perhaps with related workshops on preventing and responding to sexualized violence. Annual or regular updates of sexualized violence workshops is also a wise practice.

There are multiple opportunities to connect content in this workshop to other training programs on sexualized violence. For example, conversations about rape culture and myths about sexualized violence in training on responding to disclosures can be linked to bystander intervention skills and how participants would respond to these situations. For a list of BCcampus resources, see the Intersectional Sexualized Violence Project.

Audience Considerations

This training is for graduate students and was designed to be facilitated by peers or post-secondary support staff who work with graduate students. If resources are available, it’s ideal to have facilitators from a range of positionalities deliver training related to sexualized violence prevention and response. Having facilitators of diverse backgrounds is important in creating safe, inclusive, and welcoming learning environments for diverse learners.

Research shows that graduate students are almost four times as likely as undergraduate students to be sexually harassed by faculty or staff (Peter & Stewart, 2019). The Open Secrets Project by Students for Consent Culture Canada provides a comprehensive summary of the scope and impact of sexualized violence by instructors against students. This research found that students and post-secondary staff shared similar perspectives about the normalization of a predatory culture in post-secondary institutions, the silencing of survivors through various institutionally driven means, and negative health and academic impacts on survivors.

This training presents an opportunity for graduate students to become more aware of the nature of sexualized violence at post-secondary institutions and to help change what has been, historically, a predatory and entitled culture that enables sexualized violence to occur (Students for Consent Culture Canada, 2021).

Separate Training for Faculty and Staff

It is not recommended that this training be facilitated by students’ direct instructors. It is also not recommended that staff or faculty be present for student training.

Participants may have questions about why faculty and staff are not required to take sexualized violence training like this one. Facilitators may consider some of the following responses to such inquiries:

• Unfortunately, there are barriers to engaging staff and faculty in a training of this nature, such as lack of time and interest, feeling that the topic does not apply to them or their students, and resistance to changes that challenge existing power dynamics.
• This training presents an opportunity for graduate students to change the existing culture and the student experience for future cohorts and support each other.
• As an openly licensed resource, this training can be adapted for additional audiences, and staff, faculty, and administrators should be encouraged to take training about sexualized violence.