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Prevention & Awareness

Prevention

Prevention

Primary prevention means stopping something from happening BEFORE it occurs. One of our goals at VPVA is to help our community engage in primary prevention practices. 

We do this in two ways:

  1. Addressing risk factors that exist that cause individuals to commit physical, sexual, and emotional violence.
  2. Engage and encourage bystander intervention to stop the attitudes and behaviors associated with violence and its occurrence.

Our Primary Prevention Programs

  

Up To Us

Up2Us: Bystander Intervention

Bystander Intervention programs are one of the main ways campuses and institutions across the country engage in primary prevention.  This approach engages community members to intervene in situations that support, promote or cause violence and it situations in which some form of violence is evident.

The Up2Us program is a multisession program that includes in person workshops as well as modules to complete on your own. Each workshop is designed to provide information to students and increase their individual skills to intervene.

More information about UP2US or bystander intervention.

Healthy Relationship Series

One of our primary prevention focuses on the individual and relationship levels.  The goal of this series is to increase student’s individual capacity to practice healthy relationship skills. The Series consists of four sessions that guide students through different times in relationships including:

  • starting and maintaining a positive and healthy relationship
  • consent within relationships
  • ending a relationship and accepting rejection
  • utilizing technology within our relationships

The Workshops:

Boo'd Up
This workshop will help students reflect on what defining relationships, boundaries and communication skills

Pizza and Fries
This workshop explores understanding consent and how to give and receive consent.  This workshop also explores how to deal with rejection.

Thank U, Next
This workshop helps students navigate ending relationships. We address toxic behaviors (including those of friends), healthy partner traits, and practicing self-care.

Swipe Right
This workshop explores the use of technology and how it impacts relationships, how we communicate within relationships and transparency while using apps.

Engaging Men
Our Engaging Men Program focuses on the individual and societal level of prevention. The workshop, which is co-facilitated by VPVA staff and some of our campus allies, works to assist our male students (cis or trans) in understanding the full range of the concept of masculinity and how rigid gender role socialization by individuals, families, groups and society increase the occurrence of interpersonal violence.

Socio-Ecological Model

The VPVA uses the Social-Ecological model to develop preventing programming that best fits our student population.

Socio-Ecological Model

Awareness

Awareness

VPVA at Rutgers-Camden strives to create in-person, virtual, and passive programming in hopes of bringing greater awareness to issues related to violence and survivor support. In doing so we engage our students through workshops and discussion to bring attention to the many forms of violence, the impact, and resources for supporting members of the community.

Turn the Campus Purple

An annual week- long awareness campaign to observe Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM). The student-body -including survivors, organizations, and faculty & staff- connect in efforts to raise awareness of dating/domestic violence and supporting survivors. Individuals and departments are encouraged to turn our physical, virtual, and personal spaces purple to connect us as a community that will not tolerate violence and abuse. As a campus we all need to make a statement that we will work together to:

  • support survivors
  • help prevent acts of abuse and violence as positive, active bystanders
  • speak out about dating violence and other forms of interpersonal violence

#LoveBetter Pop-Up Shop

This February program by the One Love Foundation uses common Valentine's Day gifts to highlight abusive and unhealthy behaviors. Each item in the shop focuses on a type of abusive or unhealthy behavior to highlight the ways in which people abuse their partners. This is a passive program to students and brings awareness to dating & domestic violence as well as the promotion of healthy relationship behaviors.

What I Was Wearing

An awareness event to remind viewers that sexual assault and violence has nothing to do with how we dress. This exhibit is portrayed in the Campus Center for the community to see outfits and descriptions of what a victim and survivor were wearing when assaulted. This program helps shift societal and community norms away from values and attitudes that uphold violence and victim blaming.

Turn the Campus Teal

A week- long awareness campaign to observe Sexual Assault Awareness Month. During this month our goal is to connect the students, staff, and faculty on campus to raise awareness and support around sexual violence.

Denim Day

A global initiative to prevent sexual violence and enforce the important message that consent has NOTHING to do with the individual’s attire. The Rutgers-Camden community is invited to wear jeans (denim clothes) to spread this message and support survivors of sexual violence.

Take Back the Night

An international event with the mission of ending sexual violence and dating/domestic violence. VPVA partners with fraternity and sorority organizations to bring our community together to show we are united in the resistance of fear and violence.

The Clothesline Project

The Clothesline Project is a visual display bearing witness to all forms of interpersonal violence. The mission originated in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1990 as a means of encouraging people to break the silence and bear witness to the issue of violence against women. Since then, the project has expanded to include many other (many times overlapping) forms of violence, including sexual abuse, child abuse, and stalking. VPVA created the Camden line and each year, students, faculty and staff can add a shirt for themselves or someone else.

VPVA hosts many other programs and workshops throughout the year.  Visit VPVA on engage for our upcoming programs.