Following this initiative, a proposal was put forward in June 2015 requesting internal funds
to investigate the university’s approach to dealing with students who have experienced
unwanted sexual incidents. The proposal was approved by the vice-chancellor and this
coincided with the announcement by Universities UK of the establishment of its Taskforce to
examine violence against women, harassment and hate crime affecting university students. It
should be noted that although the UUK Taskforce is focused on women and girls, the
Coventry study decided not to focus on one gender. It is recognised that although women
and girls are disproportionately affected by sexual violence in all its forms, men and boys can
also be victims.
Key to this project is the collaboration between academic researchers, lecturers, the students’
union, students and the local Rape Crisis center (CRASAC), underpinned by robust support
from the university’s Equality and Diversity Group, comprised of deans, Student Services,
students and academic staff reporting directly to the vice-chancellor’s office.
The project used a range of methods in its research:
1. Online anonymous survey for students to gauge their experiences, which yielded 613
responses
2. Online anonymous survey for staff to assess their experiences of handling disclosures
from students, which yielded 226 responses
3. One-to-one interviews with eight students and 10 members of staff
4. Examination of the existing electronic data available to students (external website and
internal intranet)
From this the following recommendations were made:
Immediate tasks
Set up sexual violence taskforce to:
(i)
Liaise with UUK Taskforce
(ii)
Advertise existing services
(iii)
Data collection from students and staff (app/email)
(iv)
Develop disclosure training and policy for staff
Longer-term tasks
Students
(i)
Awareness raising campaign on acceptable/unacceptable behaviour
(ii)
Drop-in facility
(iii)
Emergency response unit
(iv)
Out-of-hours support
(v)
Bystander training
Staff
(i)
Out of hour welfare support for protection
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