Naomi Saxton delivered a presentation detailing the developments of the Sexual Violence, Harassment and Hate Crime Project at the May Shaping Futures Pillar Board.
This was in addition to the following board paper ahead of the meeting
The Board of Governors have received updates from the project team. At present an interim process has been in place since September 2017. A task and finish group has been formed. Current figures relating to sexual violence and harassment incidents indicate that reporting levels are low.
The project has focused on the following areas
- Processes and systems: the development of a mechanism to report incidents in a visible way via an off the shelf system ‘Report and Support’. This system can be personalised to Hallam’s requirements and to utilise this as a one stop shop for incident reporting.
- Staff training: Staff training will be introduced from September 2018. Key groups have been identified to attend face to face half day training sessions.
- External Liaison: The University has good relationships with the police service and external referral groups. It is anticipated that in the future these groups will be mirrored for hate crime.
- Policy and Procedure: There is an ongoing debate as to whether a separate policy is required. The Board noted the importance of having a policy that clearly sets out the process and support that students can expect when reporting an incident.
- Student Engagement- HEFCE are funding SHU projects on consent matters and bystander initiative training
- Marketing and Communications– A significant body of work has been undertaken to develop strap lines and creatives to convey the message and rationale for reporting incidents.
- Management information and reports– Currently reviewing the data sets required for reporting and how this feeds into governance. CH advised that it would be useful for this data to be coupled with the complaints data and for this to be reported to Shaping Futures once to twice a year. There was a suggestion that the data should be granulated down to Department level.
