In its analysis of the consultation responses to the sexual misconduct and harassment condition of registration, the Office for Students noted ways in which providers could “reduce burden in relation to capacity and resources” through collaboration “with other organisations to support the provision of services”. There may, however, be ways in which universities could be better utilising internal resources in their sexual violence/misconduct prevention and response approaches.
It’s likely that no university sexual violence support service will be operating entirely on its own. Services will most likely collaborate with internal accommodation teams, security services, and local specialist charities. However, what seems to be rarer is university sexual violence services working directly with the sexual violence researchers and academics in their institutions. That’s not to say they are entirely unaware of one another, but that their respective specialisms are perhaps not clearly and routinely shared.
Universities are ultimately educational institutions and, therefore, they have the potential benefit of everything they do being evidence-based, informed by cutting-edge research. When universities have services and pockets of research focused on the same (or largely overlapping) topics such as sexual violence, they have the potential of everything they do being both research and practice informed. A mutually beneficial relationship.
I put out a general call for examples of practitioner-academic collaborative practice across the sector and heard back from six institutions, with varying experiences and approaches. What hasn’t seemed to work – and conversely what’s working well across these institutions, and in my own experience – is summarised below.
When it doesn’t work
Institution A had a fairly common set-up of having a working group, on which academics sat. However, the practitioner at this institution said that they did not have contact with academics on a regular basis.
The practitioner relayed some frustration in acknowledging that there is most likely relevant research happening which they are not aware of, but equally, their academics are not aware of the data and information student services hold. The practitioner gave an example of coming across a PhD student completing relevant research “by accident” but no ongoing contact has been made.
However clearly defined the terms of reference for a working/steering group, this alone doesn’t seem to be enough to create genuine opportunities for specialists to work together. With or without these groups, there is discontent across both academics and practitioners when events, training, and/or related projects are happening without the knowledge of relevant stakeholders.
When it works well
First of all, personal connections. Practitioners from Institution B said that they engaged with their academic teams on an individualised basis, allocating one practitioner per cluster of schools to help share information amongst academics. This comes in the form of joining departmental meetings and remaining as a named liaison/contact for those teams.
Across all the institutions I spoke with, where collaboration was working well, this was often between a small team of practitioners and a handful of academics. Being able to pick up the phone, or send an email, to somebody directly isn’t a ground-breaking recommendation, but it is one that seems to support universities’ sexual violence work, amongst other areas.
Another common theme from my conversations was that collaboration works best when focused around specific projects. For instance: Institution C reflected on joint working on a clinic on online safety (an area of specialism for the academic); Institution D spoke of training co-developed by academics and practitioners which has been running (with the same staff input) for over three years; and practitioners at Institution E work closely with academics on the analysis of their campus climate surveys and the evaluation of their university’s consent training.
As well as being positive collaborative opportunities, these can create incredibly useful outputs that significantly bolster the university’s sexual violence approach. Being able to use in-house research skills to provide a strong evidence base for training provision (an expectation from the Office for Students’ recent regulatory requirements) is a clear benefit to the university at large.
Academic-led projects with practitioner involvement also seemed to work well. At Institution F, an academic spoke with me about developing a multi-site, multi-media exhibition, designed to raise awareness around sexual violence, its manifestations and impacts, and available support. The curation of the exhibition combined academics, practitioners, and artists which meant that it was better able to “speak” to a range of audiences because of combined expertise, areas of focus and networks, as well as use those to disseminate information about the exhibition.
Working with student services also meant that there were more coordinated cross-campus communications around the exhibition, because of it sitting within a broader, student-facing agenda – inevitably extending its reach and impact. The academic reflected that the benefits of combining academic and practice-based expertise were multiple and ones that extended well beyond the life of the exhibition itself. The ability for research to have helpful practical impacts in “real-world” settings is also increasingly expected in academic circles and practitioner involvement could support this trend.
Mutual benefits were a key theme in considering what works well. It was common for practitioners to reflect that the academics with whom they worked were often common recipients of disclosures, given their respective subject expertise – that is, students may be more likely to disclose sexual violence to an academic they know is aware of the intricacies of sexual violence. Academics may not have previously been aware of internal pathways for reporting and support, meaning their engagement with university practitioners allowed their responses to student disclosures to be better informed and supported. In turn, this better supports these members of staff.
For practitioners, I heard examples of being able to better reach out to the academic community, and use networks they had already established for their research, from collaborative projects. The opportunities for practitioners to be directly involved in research and potential publications may also be a draw for some.
A final theme was that of recognition. It is vital for universities to understand the time requirement in developing and maintaining these collaborations. Although this was not being done anywhere in the examples shared with me, best practice would definitely involve suitably incorporating this work into staff’s workload models and/or compensating them appropriately in other ways.
Better approaches
My hope is that the above experiences help provide tangible examples of how university sexual violence academics and practitioners can work together, and how this may in fact be a mutually beneficial collaboration.
In being able to improve the approach to sexual violence as an institution, universities will ultimately improve the response to victim/survivors within their community.
The author would like to acknowledge the practitioners and academics with whom she spoke for this piece, and thank them for their honesty and insight.