Gendered and Sexual Violence Annual Report 2023-2024

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From: Dawn McDermott
Date: Oct. 10, 2024
Report period: May 1, 2023 to April 30, 2024 (academic year)

Rationale for Report

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) Act requires that a report be provided to university Board of Governors and to the MTCU regarding prevention and response strategies enacted to address gendered and sexual violence.

Legislative Requirements

The MTCU Act requires the following information:

  • The number of times supports, services, and accommodations relating to sexual violence are requested and obtained by students enrolled at the college or university, and information about said supports, services, and accommodations.
  • Any initiatives and programs established to promote awareness of the support and services available to students.
  • The number of incidents and complaints of sexual violence reported by students, along with information about such incidents and complaints.
  • The implementation and effectiveness of the policy.

Supports and Services

In the 2023/24 academic year, the Sexual Violence Response staff supported 202 members of the Laurier community and received 125 new disclosures from students impacted by gendered and sexual violence.

As a part of the supports and services available for those impacted by gendered and sexual violence:

  • 188 students accessed crisis, brief, and/or trauma focused counselling,
  • 31 students accessed safety planning,
  • 44 referrals to counselling and medical services were provided,
  • 24 instances of financial support or advocacy were provided,
  • 140 advocacy requests were acted on,
  • 211 academic and campus accommodations were arranged,
  • 19 respondents accessed a caseworker,
  • 14 respondents accessed accountability counselling.

The Sexual Violence Prevention and Response staff also provide information and advocacy for on- and off-campus reporting and complaint pathways, systems navigation and resources within the university and the broader community, trauma-informed care resources, and advocacy and support within legal systems.

Laurier holds a service agreement with the Sexual Assault Support Center Waterloo Region (SASCWR). Dedicated counsellors from SASCWR were available on site and virtually this past year to provide additional trauma focused counselling and other supports. 81 survivors from the Laurier community were provided with 409 hours of counselling services. Some of the main issues addressed in these sessions focussed on processing sexual trauma, boundary-setting, healthy relationships, empowerment and validation, coping skills, and triggers. Laurier students also participated in SASCWR co-facilitated support groups including the Pathfinders Pre-Counselling Group, Into the Light Child Sexual Abuse Group, Art of Healing, and workshops on understanding the impacts of trauma.
For more complex cases when specialized therapeutic treatments were needed and deemed outside the scope or capacity of the Sexual Violence Response Staff or SASCWR supports, the institution worked to provide limited-term funding for students to connect with trusted community practitioners specializing in complex trauma treatment.

The OHRCM offered a variety of psycho-educational healing and learnings spaces. The Connected Healing Series is a skills-based workshop series for Laurier students to explore a variety of different modalities and approaches to healing practices. Some of these workshops were Cultivating Self-Compassion after Trauma, Love in Action: Reconnecting with the Inherent Wisdom of Our Bodies, Speaking Your Healing: Creative Writing After Trauma, and Our Four Bodies: Sexual Intimacy After Trauma. These workshops were attended by 41 survivors. The OHRCM also facilitated two psychoeducational/psychotherapeutic closed groups for survivors. These groups included Mending: Healing from Sexual Violence (four weeks) and Black, Indigenous, and Racialized (BIR) Social Justice and Healing Group (four weeks). These groups were attended by 11 survivors.

Complaints

During the 2023/24 academic year, there were 17 new cases brought forward engaging the Procedures Relating to the Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy. Nine cases were responded to under the Informal Intervention Process (IIP). IIP may be requested by the complainant, prior to filing a Formal Complaint, that may result in a range of possible accommodations or agreements involving the Complainant and Respondent. Five of these cases resulted in the respondent participating in accountability counselling.

Seven cases were filed as a Formal Complaint. Of the Formal Complaint cases, five engaged the Adaptable Resolution pathway at the request of the Complainant and the remaining three cases ran parallel to the Criminal Legal System process. Zero cases were requested to be moved to Investigation by the Complainant or Respondent. Four of these cases were requested to be responded to via a restorative justice process facilitated internally. The institution relied on our community partner, Community Justice Initiative, to respond to a complex gender-based violence case, with an external respondent, via a restorative justice intervention.

Three restorative processes that began in the 2022/23 year were carried over into the 2023/24 year. Two of these cases engaged ongoing restorative justice processes and one was a Formal Complaint that was resolved at the completion of the Respondent’s participation in accountability counselling.

This past year there was 100 percent increase in individuals activating the policy to have their needs met. This shift is not due to an increase of violence in our community but procedures that are more accessible and in alignment with the needs of survivors in our community.

The Restorative Justice Community of Practice (RJ COP), initiated in Winter of 2020, has continued toward its collective goal of embedding restorative principles to both build community and respond to experiences of harm. Restorative justice approaches to harm offer a unique, anti-oppressive, trauma-informed framework that centres the needs of those harmed, holds those who have caused harm accountable, and recognizes the broader community as both impacted by and critical in responding to the effects of harm and violence. The vision of the community of practice includes the goals of collaboration, communication and transparency, education and training, information sharing, and a unified philosophical approach in responding to harms and conflict within our community. The RJCOP is coordinated by the OHRCM.

In 2023/24, coordinated by the OHRCM, 116 staff and faculty participated in the Foundations Certificate: Restorative Principles virtual professional development offering. This certificate contributes to Laurier’s commitment to fostering non-punitive skills to respond to the harm in our community, prioritizing accountability, and working towards creating healthier communities for all to live, work and study. This workshop series is an opportunity to begin exploring a base level of knowledge about the restorative approach to harm reduction. To obtain the certificate, participants must attend a minimum of four of the six sessions. Of the four sessions, Restorative Principles 101 and Anti-oppressive Frameworks are mandatory. Other topics included: Engaging Circle Practice, Reframing Conflict Culture from a Restorative Justice Lens, Supporting Accountability in Individuals who have Caused Harm, and Restorative Practices and Tools for Responding to Harm. The sessions were developed and facilitated by a variety of practitioners from both the community and within Laurier.

Education and Awareness

6,890 students, staff and faculty participated in gender and sexual-based violence related education and programming facilitated at or by Laurier this year.

These education opportunities, coordinated by the OHRCM, are shared amongst multiple key departments across the institution including the Sexual Assault Support Centre Waterloo Region, the Centre for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the Student Wellness Centre, and Advocates for a Student Culture of Consent.

Departments collaborated to offer targeted themed programming which included: Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Pride Month, Consent Awareness Week- September, 16 days of Activism to End Gendered Based Violence, Consent in Action Week-January, and Radical Sexual Ed. Week.

The ongoing shift to continue to provide online programming allowed the opportunity to collaborate on virtual events with other institutions. Notably among this institutionally shared programming was Restorative Reading with Kai Cheng Thom and We Can Get Better At This: A Conversation on Community Accountability and Building Our Collective Response to Sexual Harm.

The Sexual Violence Response Team broadened the virtual training pilot developed for incoming first year students. In partnership with Residence Life and Student Affairs, all incoming students were requested to take ‘Levelling Up Relationships: A Shame-free, interactive learning program to build skills in our relationship’. The training is divided into seven modules that explore reflections and tools that will help students grow their abilities to have better relationships. This program asked students to explore their understandings of: Boundaries, Sexual Communication, Sexting and Flirting, Rejection and Breakups, Apologies, Hard Conversations, and Safer Partying and Play. The goal was to collectively deepen first year students’ skills, so they are making better and healthier choices in all relationships. As part of the pilot, Residence Life and the Dean of Students emailed all the first years requiring they take the training. 2314 first year students participated in the virtual training.

The Sexual Violence Response Staff continued to coordinate and facilitate the Sexual Violence Response Certificate. This certificate focuses on building students’ knowledge and skills to respond to disclosures of sexual violence and build solidarity with survivors. This robust certificate program offered 9 unique workshops that allowed more nuanced coverage of each topic. By attending a minimum of five of the nine workshops, students received a certificate on their Student Experiential Record. This series includes the trainings: Responding to Disclosures, Bystander Intervention, Building Collective Care as a Response to Secondary Trauma, Exploring the Relationship Between Desirability Politics and GBSV, Making Sense of Trauma and Its Impacts, Supporting 2SLGBTQIA+ Survivors, Exploring the Relationship Between Colonialism and GBSV, When Your Friend Has Caused Harm, Neurodivergence and Gender-Based Violence, Unpacking SV Through an Anti-Racist Framework, and Exploring the Relationship Between Desirability Politics and GBSV. The project had a total of approximately 208 participants across the workshops.

For the third year in a row, Laurier invited in the Male Allies program to work with a leading fraternity to explore issues related to toxic masculinity and gender-based violence. This year’s program was run as a four-part series with the fraternity covering the topics: Intro to Male Allyship, Understanding Consent, Bystander Intervention, and Creating a Culture of Change and Community Accountability. Approximately 20 members of the fraternity participated in the program.

Approximately 93 workshops, class talks, trainings and events connected to the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Program occurred this past year. Some of these initiatives included:

  • Trauma Responsive Approach to Responding to Disclosures
  • Bystander Intervention to Stop Hate-Based Harassment
  • Sexual Violence, Masculinity & Media
  • Pleasure Principles
  • Cultivating Self-Compassion after Trauma
  • Engaging a Circle Practice to build community and respond to harm
  • Consent Playlist: Consent focused Tools for the Faculty of Music
  • Our Four Bodies: Exploring Sexual Intimacy After Trauma
  • Supporting Accountability in Individuals Who Have Caused Harm
  • Radical Mental Health First Aide
  • Bumpin’ and Breakfast: Brunch and Sex Trivia
  • Words Matter: How to Talk and Write about Gender-Based Violence in Media

In 2023/24 the Sexual Violence Response staff continued to prioritize its communication and online strategy including maintaining and growing a bi-weekly self-care newsletter for survivors and their allies, ensuring a daily presence on all social media sites, developing new and responsive content as a passive programming strategy, adding new learning content to the website, running Instagram Live learning sessions, and creating new resources that provide opportunities for learning.

 

Priorities and Recommendations for 2023/25 Year

  • Mandate ‘Levelling Up Relationships: A shame-free, interactive learning program to explore what we know about relationships’ for all incoming students.
  • Pilot newly developed ‘Our Community, Our Responsibility: Responding to Sexual Violence Across Campus’ training with student leaders, staff and faculty.
  • Secure on-going administrative support to adequately resource the programming and education work.
  • Offer the newly developed Safer Workplaces Micro-credit pilot for co-op students to prepare them for the workforce.
  • Expand Laurier’s Foundations Certificate on Restorative Principles.
  • Continue to meet with other universities to discuss how to respond to challenges and co-create ideas for addressing sexual violence on campus.
  • Review and create a new counselling model that supports the on-going work and collaboration with the Waterloo Region Sexual Assault Center.