SU Commitment

Progress

Revive the Ask for Angela initiative. Deliver training on the scheme to all staff in the SU Commercial team, and ensure all promotional materials are intact or replaced.

Commercial staff will be trained early in Term 2, and all promotional materials replaced as soon as they are produced.

Reinstate consent and active bystander workshops.

There are several upcoming Active Bystander courses, which include consent education. We are lobbying and working with the University to integrate these courses within students’ degree courses, so that they become mandatory for all students to take part in. This has been the case for PAIS and Law 1st year students this year, and is something the University seems keen to push forwards with.

The Active Bystander training that occurred in Term 1 was advertised to all members of Club Execs, and uptake was good.

You can sign-up to Active Bystander courses here

Improving promotion of Report & Support, and other support services through the SU

Communications regarding R&S have gone out on SU social channels and the All Member Email, and will be a regular feature of our comms plan going forwards.

Report and Support has been communicated to all Sports Club members on 11th September and again on 7th December. Report and Support has also been communicated to Societies. 

Improving University’s promotion of Report & Support

LM has contacted the University’s Marketing Team to request much more active promotion of R&S, as there is currently no sign of it on University social media channels. The University has agreed to stick promotional stickers for R&S on the back of all toilet and kitchen doors on campus. We are currently exploring other methods of promotion, such as issuing students with R&S keyrings. The University has many R&S information cards printed, but these currently cannot be distributed because of the  pandemic.

You can find Report & Support here 

Improving training for staff to deal with sexual misconduct disclosures

All SU staff will be trained in this throughout Term 2. Campus Security are trained in handling disclosures already. We will work with RLT to ensure their training covers handling of disclosures.

Pushing for harsher sanctions

We will be working with the University’s disciplinary team to push for harsher sanctions for students who have committed sexual misconduct.

Training for sports club and society exec members

Training in Report and Support was given to Club and Society exec members in March 2020. We will deliver similar training to a new intake of exec members in Term 3 2020. 

We have been promoting Active Bystander training to current exec members throughout Term 1, and will be encouraging at least 2 members of the new execs (who will be elected at the end of Term 2) to complete the workshop in Term 3 2020. 

A Club Culture Survey has also been circulated amongst all Sports Club members to identify specific clubs which may need intervention and further specialised training.

The SU Officers have monthly meetings with the Report and Support team at the university to identify any trends (e.g. specific socials, specific clubs/societies) so that intervention and training can be targeted at the right people.

Pushing for an extension of ‘Ask for Angela’ to Wellbeing Support Services

We will work with Wellbeing as soon as possible in term 2 to ensure this is implemented.

Pushing for more student representation on University committees

We are putting forward a request for representation from It Happens Here society on University committees directly related to sexual misconduct. 

Improving the prominence of Report & Support on the MyWarwick app

LM will request the link to R&S becomes its own ‘tile’ with the MyWarwick Steering Group.

Make students aware they won’t be sanctioned for COVID rules breaches when reporting sexual misconduct

The University and police have said they will not sanction reporters for COVID breaches. We will share this information with students more widely, and urge the University to do the same

Exploring ways of extending Good Night Out/sexual misconduct disclosure training to off-campus venues and bars frequented by Warwick students

We will explore the options for doing this alongside the University at the beginning of Term 2.

We hope to implement this as part of a Safer Nights Out campaign (this campaign was delayed due to venues not being open during the pandemic) which implements the recommendations from the Going Out, Staying Safe report. Our aims include: 

• Implement a safe zone scheme which employs local services & businesses as safe points to seek shelter and report unsafe situations
• Work with students to identify areas of Leamington in which part-night lighting provides a risk to residents' & visitors' welfare, and institute all-night lighting in these areas
• Venues should implement an 'Ask for Angela' scheme, as used within Warwick SU venues, to allow customers to report an unsafe situation safely and discreetly.
• Implement a 'safe taxi scheme' which enables students to take a licensed taxi home despite not having sufficient funds available on the night.
• Extend the student bus timetables so that the services continue further into the night, potentially subsidised by venues, allowing students to return home by bus after a night out.

Urging the University to demonstrate that they do deal with students who have committed sexual misconduct to encourage others to report

We are actively urging the University to release non-identifiable case/sanction numbers to demonstrate action being taken

Improving the relationship between students and RLT

We are involved in an upcoming piece of work on the role of RLT. However, in the immediate future we will work with Senior Wardens to ensure RLT are trained to be more approachable, so that students feel they can disclose incidents of sexual misconduct to them if they wish.

WeGetConsent

Continue running the #WeGetConsent campaign. Further marketing of WeGetConsent on SU comms. University to advertise WeGetConsent page on Warwick Presents. Introduce a dedicated newsletter for WeGetConsent to go out regularly to all students, starting in the new year, which will keep students up to date on the work being done by the SU and societies to tackle sexual misconduct at Warwick and provide info on how to get involved.

The webpage for WeGetConsent is here

Introduce Sexual Misconduct Training for Sports and Society exec members.

Sports and society Welfare execs were trained in Report and Support in early summer 2020. Report and Support are also in the process of creating a presentation to be given to execs in the new year about what Report and Support does, and how to access it. Active Bystander Training has been advertised to both Sport and Society Execs on an optional basis. We will be making Active Bystander training mandatory for all exec members by Term 3. The SU will also be collaborating with Report and Support to organise regular consent training workshops for all execs. Further training will focus on issues such as recognising signs of harassment & drink spiking, recognising when someone is too drunk to consent, how to intervene in unsafe situations, unpacking socio-sexual norms, and disclosure referral.