Universities Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence – local findings conference

Since the release of the NUS paper Hidden Marks in 2010, violence against women students and sexual violence in universities have been of national concern. In 2015 Universities UK created a Taskforce to examine violence against women, harassment and hate crime affecting university students. The sector-leading #USVreact research project, comprising 7 European countries, aimed to develop innovative specialist training for university staff who may respond to disclosures of sexual violence; delivering training across more than 20 partner and associate partner institutions. As a partner institution we have trained more than 90 staff members at the University of York, and through roll-out to our associate partners Lancaster University and York St John University it is predicted that a further 80 will be trained by end of Feb 2018.

In this free one-day conference there will be keynote presentations from Fiona Waye (Senior Policy Lead in Inclusion, Equality and Diversity at Universities UK) and Professor Carolyn Jackson (Lancaster University). Speakers from the University of York will introduce specificities of the local context, Prof Vanita Sundaram will present research findings from the evaluation of the training and discuss challenges in disseminating the programme. Associate partner institutions were responsible for rolling out the training programme in their own, different, institutional contexts. Speakers from each university will review their experience of implementing and embedding this programme. The afternoon will feature a break-out session addressing plans to embed training for staff within institutions and consider the future of this project.

The conference would be useful for researchers in the field of VAW and GBV, student-facing university staff and those working with survivors of sexual violence.

#USVreact is funded by the European Commission’s DG Justice, Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (DAPHNE strand).

Lunch and refreshments are included.

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Location: Room ARC/014, Alcuin Research Resource Centre

Admission: is by free ticket only. Please book at the link above