Project SAFE teaches students about sexual violence

By Tina Nazerian     8/28/13 7:00pm

This Orientation Week, students learned about sexual violence through a new initiative at Rice University called Project SAFE.

Clinical counselor Kasey McKee said Project SAFE, which stands for Sexual Assault-Free Environment, seeks to inform students about sexual violence and to empower them to be proactive members in the community to keep the Rice campus safe.

According to Wellness Program Specialist Patrick Lukingbeal, Project SAFE is working in conjunction with the Houston Area Women's Center. 

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The Rice-HAWC collaboration has existed in different capacities for many years, such as when the HAWC co-taught courses with Wellness Center staff, McKee said. 

"Rice staff have also referred students to HAWC services for years as well," McKee said. "As we've been refining the sexual violence outreach over the past year and [a] half, we wanted students to have the best information available and thought they would be a natural collaboration.  This particular team from HAWC led a training [session] for some of us in the well-being and counseling departments last fall, and we thought it would be great to one day make that training available for students."

Project SAFE at Rice has been in the works for the last year and a half, and future goals of the program include refining the workshops and making them more accessible to students while sustainably growing the program, McKee said.

Advisers attended a two-hour workshop which focused on bystander intervention while new students received a one-hour workshop. There will be ongoing three-hour workshops offered through HAWC for all students throughout the year, Lukingbeal said. 

According to Lukingbeal, O-Week coordinators and Wellness Center staff have gone through the three-hour workshop - which will be offered throughout the year - and helped fine-tune it for Rice students.

"We call it our response workshop for now, and while lengthier, it is designed to give the most in-depth education on supporting someone who has experienced sexual violence and then offer students several opportunities to practice the skills learned," McKee said. 

O-Week advisor Alexandra Krawetz said Project SAFE was a great addition to advisor training.

"The training involved topics such as the discussion of consent and various levels of sexual harassment," Krawetz, a Will Rice College sophomore, said. "The training also allowed us to apply the issues to life at Rice. We were given different scenarios and discussed what we could do to rectify or better the hypothetical situation."

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