of appropriate support. Staff across the university should have a basic awareness
of what to do and who to refer victims/survivors to – the template in Annexe F
and case study 10 provide examples of clear referral pathways.
168. The operational response has two components; (i) victim/survivor duty of care
and (ii) alleged perpetrator duty of care.
Victim/survivor duty of care
169. The duty of care to victims/survivors should be underpinned by an institutional
commitment to take seriously and at face value any disclosure of sexual violence.
170. Effective and holistic support for individuals that have disclosed sexual violence
to their university will cover a wide range of considerations – academic,
accommodation, finance, support whether or not they decide to go to police, and
referrals to external agencies such as the local SARC, ISVAs or other specialist
services including local and national charities. The specialist support available
will vary between locations – details of local and national services can be found
via organisations such as Rape Crisis and The Survivors’ Trust. The support
required will also depend on the nature of the case – whether historic or recent
– and the gender of the victim/survivor.
171. The identified ‘go to’ people within the university should develop and retain an
extensive and up-to-date knowledge of external support as well as knowledge of
internal processes and links to the relevant staff in different departments
(accommodation, finance, registry, mental health and counselling services etc).
In this way, they can act as a facilitator on behalf of the victim/survivor,
providing an ongoing point of contact and mitigating the risk of the
victim/survivor having to disclose on multiple occasions to different staff.
172. There should be clear pathways into the university as well as pathways out of it.
As well as being the main referral point within the university, the ‘go to’ people
should be the main link with external specialist support and the identified point
of contact should victims/survivors approach specialist support services and not
the university in the first instance. Confidentiality and data-sharing agreements
are important in this respect particularly in enabling information to be shared
between key staff to prevent victims/survivors having to make multiple
disclosures.
173. Effective and coordinated support will also require university staff to have a
general awareness of what to do should an individual disclose an incident of
sexual violence to them. For example, currently there is a high chance that
students may disclose to a member of staff such as an academic, security staff or
out-of-hours personnel, and a low chance that the staff member will know what
to do or who to refer the student to internally. The situation may be further
complicated by a fear of getting it wrong or trying to be helpful but causing more
harm than good. Problems are likely to arise when people go outside their
roles/expertise. There should be a clear understanding across the staff,
including staff of companies delivering outsourced services and partner
institutions, of who the ‘go to’ people are within the institution, what their role is
and what is required to refer a student to them.
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