Expanding College Scenarios for Bringing in the Bystander®
Themes from Recent Brainstorming Sessions & Next Steps
By LB Klein
Recently, Soteria Solutions hosted two brainstorming sessions focused on developing new scenarios for the Bringing in the Bystander® (BITB) College Prevention Program. Prevention programming involves combining knowledge and skills into action. Soteria Solutions has worked with over 500 colleges and universities across the country and around the globe. A distinctive element of the Bringing in the Bystander program is the ability to customize scenarios to one’s unique college community to be recognizable and relatable. These BITB scenarios provide opportunities for students to practice multiple ways that they could respond as pro-social bystanders to sexual and relationship violence and stalking.
The BITB College curriculum includes eight scenarios for implementers on college campuses to adapt to their unique college community. During the pandemic, we developed 10 additional customizable scenarios to incorporate the realities of Covid-19, such as remote-learning and mask wearing.
Building off the 10 newer scenarios, our goal for the brainstorming sessions was to hear from current license users to capture insight and ideas to develop additional scenarios to further enhance the effectiveness of the Bringing in the Bystander College program. The participants were insightful and eager to share their perspectives as the school year was underway with students back on campus. Below summarizes the themes from the brainstorming sessions and our planned next steps.
Changing Context due to COVID-19
Participants in our brainstorming sessions described ways in which the pandemic has shifted how students show up for BITB training sessions. They mentioned that students may have been at home for more time each day in high school (virtual learning) and for a longer period of time (attending college remotely) and that students may have missed out on key social opportunities. Therefore, it is important for scenarios to reflect subtle situations and nuances and to include party scenarios as well as interactions in the classroom, residence hall, and other social spaces. Due to this isolation, students are wanting to see people and talk to them more and to have opportunities to interact, leading most facilitators to return to in-person implementation of BITB.
Many prevention educators are also rebuilding their programs as peer facilitation programs lost steam during virtual learning. As students may be less familiar with spaces and places on campus, prevention educators stressed the importance of communicating about resources in multiple ways (in the training, on physical or virtual ID cards, in syllabi) and to make sure that college and university resource websites are updated.
Centrality of Technology
BITB implementers also shared how important technology is to students’ lives. From TikTok to the resurgence of YikYak to using couch surfing apps to travel, technology provides both new types of risk and opportunities for bystander intervention. Participants stressed how they are often competing with flashy quick videos. Therefore, breaking scenarios up into small sections and having students make multiple small choices may be helpful to keeping the students’ attention. Participants also wanted to leverage technology to show how bystander intervention can work by using social media for their bystander programs. Increased technology use is also making prevention educators more attuned to bystander intervention for cyberstalking and nonconsensual sending of sexual photos as well as helping students navigate social media comments without escalating harm.
Anti-Oppression in a Shifting Policy Landscape
Prevention educators also pointed to the need to have scenarios address how oppression enables violence and interferes with survivors getting needed support including addressing racism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and xenophobia. However, some participants also shared that due to explicit or implicit state or university policies, they may not be able to directly address oppression as the root cause of violence. Implementers of BITB expressed a delicate balance between needing to address these issues as crucial to bystander intervention while also wanting to mitigate backlash and the possibility of being dis-invited from delivering training in some spaces. Prevention educators also expressed the importance of widening bystanders’ options, especially ensuring multiple bystander strategies that did not engage law enforcement.
Customization is Crucial
Participants’ comments provided a valuable reminder of the importance of customizing BITB, and especially the scenarios, to meet the needs of each campus and subgroup of students. For example, some campus prevention programs are using concepts from Sexual Citizens in their prevention programming while others are focusing on growing rates of strangulation in their areas. Several participants shared how crucial it is to consider BITB customization alongside all other sexual and relationship violence prevention efforts, as BITB is designed to be part of a more comprehensive prevention program.
Next Step: Scenario Bank Development
We are grateful for those who participated in the brainstorming sessions and appreciate all the feedback and ideas from them and other BITB college implementers. Stay tuned to learn more about next steps to convert the ideas into action. If you have questions or ideas, contact LB at lb.klein@soteriasolutions.org.
LB Klein, PhD, MSW, MPA is director of evaluation and implementation for Soteria Solutions and has served as a lead trainer for the Bringing in the Bystander® College Program since 2014. Learn more about LB.
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