Prevention Programs

As part of Vanderbilt’s ongoing efforts to enhance awareness of the university’s initiatives and resources to prevent power-based personal violence, incoming students are required to complete Understanding Sexual Assault, a 60-minute interactive module. Preventing Sexual Assault educates students about the types of interpersonal violence, prevention strategies including bystander intervention, as well as relevant laws, policies, warning signs, and campus resources.

Vanderbilt’s bystander intervention curriculum is an inclusive, comprehensive approach to violence prevention that addresses barriers and opportunities for intervention across all levels of the socioecological model. Informed by social change theory, the model targets all community members as potential bystanders, and seeks to engage them, through awareness, education, and skills-practice, in proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm, as well as reactive interventions in high-risk situations – resulting in the reduction of violence.  Project Safe offers training sessions that range from 30 minutes up to 3 hours. Contact us to learn more about what type of bystander training is right for your cohort, organization, unit, or department.

Project Safe offers a variety of programs designed to help students better understand effective consent.  We are available to serve as speakers, panelists, moderators, or facilitators for programs and events in the residence halls and working with interested students and student organizations.  Recent programs include Sex Ed & Healthy Relationships Trivia Night, the ‘I Mustache You for Consent’ card campaign, and participation in men’s health fairs and campus safety programs.

Offered in collaboration with the University Counseling Center, Rooted in Resilience is a recurring support group designed for students impacted by intimate partner violence. This group is intended to provide a supportive environment for survivors. Time is spent sharing experiences, challenges associated with trauma, and gaining tools and knowledge as students work toward healing. 

Project Safe provides information in a variety of formats to those interested in learning how to better support those who have experienced sexual and intimate partner violence.  We are happy to meet with individual students, groups of students. or student organizations to discuss what appropriate and constructive support looks like in the immediate aftermath of an incident, in the weeks following an assault, and over time. 

Learn how to affirm and support survivors and engage in prevention efforts on social media without causing unintentional harm.  Many students ask us what they can and can’t post, should or should not say, and want their good intentions to land with impact.  In this program, Project Safe staff will guide a discussion on cancel culture, offer scenarios and review lessons learned by students and student organizations nationwide, and provide suggestions for ways students may safely and meaningfully engage in online allyship.

Learn what constitutes sexual harassment, debunk myths and misinformation relevant to identifying and preventing sexual harassment in the academic environment, and develop skills to address sexual harassment whether happening to you or others.  For faculty and staff versions of this workshop, we will also review your reporting requirements as mandatory reporters. 

People of all ages are increasingly likely to experience harassment, unwanted sexual solicitation, and stalking through electronic means.  This program discusses the unique harms and considerations of online abuse and offers strategies for prevention, intervention, and support for those impacted.

The Director of Project Safe offers assertiveness training for individuals and small groups.  Assertiveness training may help a person set and maintain boundaries, resist unwanted advances, and actively intervene to prevent or disrupt sexual misconduct occurring around them. 

Project Safe offers this program to help students think critically about common phrases, slang terms, and/or expressions that are violent in nature and contribute to a culture that finds violent, sexualized language appropriate. Participants will be able to identify what spaces/environments this kind of language exists and recognize what cultures support it. This program helps students develop skills for talking with family members or friends when they use language that is potentially harmful. 

Project Safe offers the Actionable Next Steps workshop for students and organizations who are ready to move beyond awareness-raising to engaging in the work of changing our culture. Participants will be shown specific examples of the different kinds of campaigns and learn about their effectiveness in different communities. Participants will begin to think critically about the ways in which action campaigns, or simply actions are important when addressing rape culture and violent language. Students will learn how actions are essential when understanding culture change and the prevention movement.

Many students want to support survivors on their teams and in their organizations and chapters. This workshop guides participants through a case study to help you identify your rights and responsibilities as an individual, as a friend, as a student leader, and as a fellow group member. Project Safe and Title IX staff will review the resources their offices provide, identify other campus resources who may be able to provide additional support, and offer trauma-informed ways to support group members (whether they be the complainant, respondent, witness, or family member).

This program is supported by the Office of Greek Life and the Office of Student Organizations, Leadership, and Service, who help members understand the roles of their national organizations, group constitutions or bylaws, and University policy when student organizations choose to address member behavior. 

Project Safe offers its Creating Healthy Boundaries program in order to help students begin to think critically about their own boundaries (physical, emotional, and sexual) and how to hear and understand others’ boundaries.  Students will learn how to speak clearly about their own boundaries and how boundaries may vary from person to person and may change over time. Participants will hopefully begin to identify boundary-setting as self-care.  

Project Safe offers a variety of programs designed to help students better recognize, prevent, or address stalking. Students will learn the active bystander challenge in distinguishing between healthy or consensual relationship behaviors and those amounting to harassment, stalking, or control. Participants will learn about tracking features and privacy controls in popular apps and social media and about available on and off-campus resources for those impacted by stalking. Students will engage in exercises designed to develop conversational strategies for checking in with friends, peers, and family members who may be experiencing stalking. 

Project Safe recognizes that alcohol consumption is a contributing factor in the prevalence of acquaintance-based assault affecting today’s college students. While many Project Safe programs include education around the role drugs and alcohol may play in the commission of sexual violence, this program offers a more in depth examination of the interplay between alcohol consumption and the ability to provide or obtain effective consent. 

In this workshop, students will learn about the neurobiology of trauma and the ways in which the brain and body are affected by the experience of sexual violence.  Students will learn about the diverse responses of trauma survivors and will develop self-assessment skills, including learning about the benefits and considerations to keep in mind when engaging as a survivor-activist.

The Vanderbilt University Police Department offers the Rape Aggression Defense System program, which teaches realistic, self-defense tactics and techniques. The RAD System is dedicated to teaching defensive concepts and techniques against various types of assault, by utilizing easy, effective and proven self-defense/martial arts tactics. The program aims to provide participants with the knowledge to make an educated decision about resistance.

Learn More

Project Safe staff are happy to help design a program for your office, department, student organization, residence hall, professional association, and more.  We regularly present on timely issues of local and national significance.  We are also available to provide a victim advocate for appropriate programs occurring within the VU community.