0:00:01.1 Sally Laskey: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to, and preventing sexual abuse and assault. I'm Sally Laskey, NSVRC's Evaluation Coordinator. This episode is a conversation about the process and findings from an equity focus, sexual assault community assessment process in Michigan. I was joined by Kelly Mays, licensed therapist, poet, Community and Staff Training Program Manager with Hegira Health, Inc and MPHI Community Sexual Violence Prevention Advisory Committee member, as well as Sarah McGirr, PhD. Sarah is the manager of the Office on Gender, Sexuality, and Violence at MPHI. She is an evaluator, facilitator, and passionate advocate. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

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0:01:02.7 SL: Welcome to you both. I'm so happy that you're on the podcast with us today. Could you share a little bit about yourself? Sarah, could you start us off? 

0:01:20.1 Sarah McGirr: Absolutely. Hello. I'm so happy to be here, chatting with you. So, as Sally mentioned, my name is Sarah. I use she/her pronouns, and I am with the Michigan Public Health Institute's Center for Healthy Communities. And we recently formed a new office on gender, sexuality, and violence that I'm leading. So, in that space, I work with partners to advance reproductive and sexual well-being and to build a violence-free future for women and LGBTQIA+ communities. And I've been lucky enough to be an evaluator and a thought partner for Michigan's CDC-funded rape prevention education program for just about 10 years now, since 2013.

0:02:06.3 SL: Wow. I feel lucky that I've been able to work with you for a lot of that time. Not all of it, but so good to have you here. And Kelly, what would you like our listeners to know about you? 

0:02:18.8 Kelly Mays: Thank you for having me. My name is Kelly Ann Mays, pronouns she/her, and I had the amazing opportunity to be on the advisory committee and not in the initial process, but in like more of like the second "let's gather information" process. And I've been working with Sarah now for a little over a year and been able to give my insight, help with guiding the project on into the next phase. So, I'm really, really thankful and blessed to be a part of this.

0:02:50.3 SL: Well, we're thankful to have you here to share your experience with us. So, let's dig in to how you all came to be involved in this community assessment work.

0:03:01.2 SM: Absolutely. Just as a little bit of background, we come at this work knowing that people in all walks of life and all identities experience sexual violence, but that some groups are more at risk. And let's just be a hundred percent clear here: Identity isn't the risk factor. Simply being LGBTQ+ or black or a woman in and of itself isn't risky. It's beautiful. Instead it's those systems that predictably treat folks different, put them at a disadvantage, and in terms of their health, economics, social support, safety. And these things happen systematically, and so we see the risk profiles of certain communities increase accordingly. So, all of that is to say we in Michigan believe that RPE work needs to be one part of a larger movement to end many kinds of oppression, including racism, ableism, sizeism, poverty, in addition to violence and gender oppression.

0:04:08.8 SM: So by shifting those underlying power dynamics and strengthening the rights and influence of people most impacted by sexual violence, I see it as our role to, yeah, create safer futures for our beloved communities. So we realized that this value... So, Michigan RPE program realized, with the help of a lot of partners, that our state was doing a lot of really great prevention work, but like many RPE programs, a good portion of our resources were going toward creating protective environments and preventing sexual violence in white, cisgender, heterosexual Michigan communities rather than communities that were maybe more at increased risk of violence. So we wanted to be part of changing this. But we didn't really know how, [chuckle] so, we decided to embark on a participatory assessment to build our own capacity to do this work better in those communities that are more at risk and to hopefully guide our next five-year cycle of our RPE. That's what brought us to this assessment work.

0:05:29.2 SL: And how did the connection form for you Kelly? How did you become involved in the assessment project? 

0:05:39.3 KM: It started off with just like an email, and I responded, they reached out, and did the initial first process steps, asking me questions. And for some reason, they liked me enough [chuckle] to ask me to come back and sit on the committee in the initial process where they were gathering more information. And then from there, it just kind of evolved into this advisory space where I felt like my opinion mattered. I felt seen, and I felt like I was helping to move sexual assault prevention into its next phase, or at least bring it up to 2023. And I think that the work that they're doing there is great, and I admire them for all the work that they're doing to make the world a safer place for my babies.

0:06:32.9 SL: Yes. And that's... It is really powerful to hear about this very intentional focus on building equity in the process, in this participatory, as you called it, Sarah, this community engaged assessment process. And I wonder if you can just... If you have anything else to share about why this approach was the strategy for Michigan in moving the prevention work forward.

0:07:10.6 SM: Absolutely. And thank you, Kelly, for your kind words and reflections. Kelly has been instrumental partner the last year, brings so much to the table. So, you asked about why an equity-focused or participatory assessment was important. So, in my job at MPHI, we do a lot of assessment work. I'm an evaluator. It's my job to ask people questions and crunch the data. But we are definitely not experts when it comes to all of the communities that we decided our Michigan RPE wanted to look into the needs and assets and aspirations of. So we really, truly believe that in order to make the most equity-focused and accurate, frankly, assessment that people most impacted in those communities, the focus needed to be actively engaged.

0:08:15.5 SM: So we decided to take a leap that we'd never done before in Michigan RPE and took a much more participatory approach. We shared power, we invited critique, and we just... We had to open ourselves up to lots and lots of learning. And one of the components that was incorporated in this was forming and working alongside this advisory committee that Kelly mentioned. We called it the AC, if you hear me say that word. And a lot of assessments have advisory committees. Similarly, this was intended to ground us in what are the current realities of local communities, what do folks with lived experience and deep roots with their neighbors with these identities suggest would be good practices in ending sexual violence. I think, though, that the relationships that we built with this advisory committee were really what helped us deepen our equity practice and keep us laser-focused on trying to uphold those values.

0:09:28.9 SM: So in our equity practice, we weren't just trying to highlight disparities or look more deeply at existing data at some intersections, disaggregating data. We did those practices, but we also unpacked and addressed a lot within our team and acknowledging, recognizing issues around power and trust between our organization, the state health department, and communities, or us as individuals and our partners. And we really needed to do this as a team, because our team is dominated by white, cisgender, largely able-bodied, economically privileged folks, and we are embedded in a very white system. And so we understand sexual violence and its root causes through that lens. And we see solutions through that lens as well. So, we needed other lived experiences, other deeply-rooted connections in community with folks that were more affected to get that diversity of perspectives.

0:10:48.8 SM: And we did this work as individuals, of learning and unlearning and how our power shows up, where we're reproducing patterns of oppression. Yeah. And we also valued lots of different kinds of knowledge. So we collected secondary data, but we didn't over-prioritize it. We also looked at blog posts and reflections from practitioners, and we did interviews with people like Kelly and folks from all over the state that are outside of our normal networks. And we did some really in-depth sense-making sessions to put it all in the context of Michigan. Kelly, what do you think some of the equity considerations are? 

0:11:33.2 KM: If I could, I wanna talk a little bit when you're talking about connection, what I felt, what I experienced when we were talking, not just about, "Well tell me your story as a survivor," or "Tell me your experience." It wasn't so much there as when we listened to each other's stories or we talked about our experiences. It was like a sense of connection, and kind of a solidarity among... And we were kind of inspired to support each other, but also inspired to continue the work. And that you don't see that a lot or often. You guys kind of helped space, humanized us, you humanized our experiences, and I think that that's one of the things that was the most impactful, for me, at least. I've been on advisory committees before for various things, but I felt seen.

0:12:26.2 KM: And oftentimes, and when I go and I speak as a survivor, you have these... It's usually for fundraising events. And I talk about all the time, "Well, I'm here at the fundraiser event speaking on the behalf of survivors," but the people that I'm speaking to don't look like me, may not have the same, economic background as me, or raised the same as me. But I'm speaking on survivors that look like me on their behalf, and being able to connect with other survivors who have similar backgrounds or I think was just like, "Oh, I'm not alone in this. And someone cares." And I'm not just speaking so that people will donate their money; I'm speaking so that we can change lives and prevent sexual violence. And I think that that was one of the most beautiful experiences about the whole process.

0:13:21.2 SL: It is beautiful. And I wanna say thank you for inviting us and our listeners in... It's a different experience. It's this intimate experience, learning about what this was like for for both of you, and not just the learning that happened, but that relationship-building, that connection. And we're all about sharing those real-world, practical things here at the NSVRC, but on this podcast specifically, especially related to this coming together and having so many... We need everyone, [chuckle] as many folks as we can, coming together in order to create actual solutions.

0:14:15.3 SM: Absolutely.

0:14:15.8 SL: And I'm just wondering, you shared, Kelly, these ways that you felt heard and and brought in and and cared for in the process. Is there anything specific that was said or done or an approach to these conversations that you could highlight as, "Oh, that," the way that that was approached really helped create that that connection and safety for you? 

0:14:48.9 KM: I think that one of the things that I really enjoyed is that, first, how they set up everything was there was initial time to reflect on the last time we met. There was time to reflect after we met in that space, but there was also if there was something maybe that they said that needed some correction, they were open to listening. They made sure that they tailored the messaging and that it was culturally sensitive. They asked questions. Oftentimes people assume and don't ask questions, but they ask clarifying questions and ask for permission to ask clarifying questions, which people don't often do. They ask questions but don't understand sometimes the questions that they ask can be offensive and culturally insensitive. But they ask questions, say, "Hey, I want clarification on this. If it's okay, I'm gonna ask this question," and then they would ask the question.

0:15:44.3 KM: And they were very intentional, which I love. And it just made you feel like you could be your authentic self and that the information that you were providing was information that was valued, and it is just overall just a really healing experience. And I know that sounds weird 'cause it's an advisory committee, but the way that they set it up and then they had us break out into different breakout groups and what I loved about that is we had our our populations and over each meeting, they said, "Well, you can go to the group that you're feeling the most aligned with today." 'Cause we all have these intersections. I'm Afro-Indigenous I'm also queer. I'm also a mom. I'm also a wife. I have all these different intersections, different things that make me who I am. A mountain is not just a mountain; there's rocks and sand and dirt and all those different things that make that mountain a mountain, right? 

0:16:46.7 KM: And so, one day I might align more with my indigenous side. One day I might align with being more African-American. But they gave us space to speak on where where we gravitated to during those sessions. And I love that. We weren't just pigeonholed into that space, and they honored our intersectionality.

0:17:11.8 SL: Well, and I felt that in reading the report, I felt like, "Oh, this this came from humans." It really... I saw that there was language that the advisory committee came together on and made decisions, that, "We are going to use this, and here's why." I saw... I could feel, I could feel people's presence in reading that. And I read a lot of stuff and I don't always feel like it came from humans. And now sometimes it's not coming from humans. So, well, thank you for that. I don't know, Sarah, do you have any practical ideas about some of the... About the practice you used that also stood out or you felt like it's something you would do again to help support that relationship development? 

0:18:06.6 SM: Absolutely. I think one of the big lessons learned that I'll definitely carry forward with me was around slowing it down. We initially had the timeline for this assessment as about six months, and I believe we ended up going for just short of two years. We ended up meeting with our advisory committee 18 times, and these were 90-minute to two-hour meetings. And it was an intensive process, and at times, it was really uncomfortable, because we were inviting people to be vulnerable with us, to be authentic. And in order to do that, we had to show up in that way as well. And I will say that hard work and that time was incredibly valuable. The results were incredibly valuable. I think we built a level of trust by centering relationship and that hard work and being open to admitting when we were wrong. That has just... Like you said, you can see it in the results and the recommendations that they're informed by such deep dialogue and brilliant community members at the table. We're taking that time, though, to create a space where that dialogue can happen. I will definitely do again.

0:19:42.1 SM: And there were a couple of tools I wanted to make sure to share with folks that are just really practical in terms particularly of the practice of actively trying to work against oppression work against those power dynamics. And that included setting expectations around decision-making authority. So, when a big decision came about, we had a tool in place that we would use called the gradient of agreement, where we would position an option and ask people to place where they were on this gradient so anyone could have the opportunity to veto a decision and bring us back to the drawing board. So, being able to share power in that way ensured that folks' voices were represented, not just the loudest folks in the room.

0:20:31.7 SM: We also used a lot of processes from We All Count, which is a fantastic company out of Canada. And one product, or one of their tools I wanted to mention was called a Motivation Touchstone, where we got clear what all the motivations were for this project for RPE as a program, for our organization of Michigan Public Health Institute, for us as a team, for me as an individual, for us as a... What we hoped the motivation was for the field as a whole. And by seeing where our goals sort of overlapped, we could see where those points of intersection were, but we could also be transparent about what else we were hoping to get out of this professionally and personally.

0:21:21.6 SL: And I think the last thing I'll share is I think [chuckle] being very willing to start with humility and just being comfortable with how much you don't know, and that if anyone takes anything away from this conversation, I think it should be that if you are in a position to try something, to take actions, to move against oppression, start. Even if you don't know how to do it perfectly yet. We were completely building the plane as we were flying it. And we talked to a lot of smart people, including folks like Sally in NSVRC and other RPE evaluators and technical assistance folks and folks in equity spaces and in our focus communities, which I don't think I mentioned, were LGBTQ folks, black folks, native folks, and disability communities.

0:22:23.2 SL: So I think just trying to learn as much as we could along the way, but just taking action with what we knew at the time. And then holding ourselves accountable to be transparent if it turned out that wasn't the right step in the future. And it was scary to do that professionally, stepping out in that way, but it really felt aligned with pushing back against that white supremacist kind of value or practice around perfectionism, to be able to admit when we're wrong. And people understood, [chuckle] and were still accepting of us and still invested in the process, and perhaps more, because we were willing to show that vulnerability.

0:23:05.9 KM: And just to add, I think by them being transparent, I think that that was one of the things that built trust the most. And also having them frame our feedback as a treasure and welcoming it into that space, like, "You're valued here. What you say is valued here." Oftentimes when you talk about your survivorship, wherever you are at in that space, people wanna know details or they ask questions that are inappropriate or that might be traumatizing or triggering. But there was none of that. It's like, "Wherever you are at, whatever feedback you can give it's a treasure to us." And they took their time as we provided our feedback. And if at any time, we needed to step away, they let us step away and they followed up with us if we had to step away.

0:24:00.6 KM: That was the really... I've been in research studies, and you have to step away and I have to step away 'cause there's some emotions that I need to unpack. And the researchers, they're not calling me to say, "Hey, you're alright," but they did that. And I forever will love these people ever, ever, forever ever. [chuckle] But I love that and definitely something that I'm gonna incorporate into my work to make sure that people feel like their experience is the thing that we're keeping on focus, keeping on the top shelf, and that we're... That they're seeing... They're being seen and felt seen.

0:24:34.7 SL: It's such an important model. And too, a lot of... We get a lot of folks that reach out to our office that are figuring out, how do they honor and support survivors in these spaces where we're talking about prevention. And you just outlined it [chuckle] right there. That's exactly how we do it. And there're always gonna be survivors in any group, and so, that should be the approach with all of our work. So I think that it's just a really... A great experience to hear you talk about how this was different from some previous experiences that you've had. And I'm sure many of us have been engaged to share information and have not always felt that we were being included in a loving way. There's actually a session at NSAC about measuring love as part of our evaluation and prevention work, and it's kind of keying in to some of the elements of that for me.

0:25:44.0 SL: Are there any other key lessons that you both have learned in this process that might be helpful to share with listeners that may be in that space, Sarah, that you talked about about wanting to do it, but being nervous or unsure how to move forward? Or I should add, for folks who are really tired of being asked and not being listened to? I need to include all components in this.

0:26:15.2 SM: That's a big question.

0:26:18.4 SL: Yeah.

0:26:18.4 SM: Well, I think if a foundational step that Kelly spoke to a little bit is around how we honor and treasure what people have to offer. And I think part of that is in the interactions and in the care and the love that we show. And part of it is in compensating folks at rates appropriate for the expert consultation that they're providing. So we did a request for applications process where we put out a call and did some really intentional outreach to organizations deeply embedded within and alongside our focus communities to try to expand our advisory council beyond our usual partners. And we even used our contacts that we did have to say, "Who else can we reach out to? Would you do a warm introduction?" We also just made a huge list of people from Google and did cold calls, to varying degrees of success. We got shared on listservs and social media in ways that we didn't expect, and we invited folks into our advisory committee process along the way as well. Interviewees who were phenomenal became part of advisory committee members, for example.

0:27:39.7 SM: So being able to do that RFA process, we were able to recruit this amazing group of folks that we wouldn't have known about otherwise. And we had intentionally set aside funds in our budget, from a supplemental, from CDC, to be able to compensate them at levels where it would make sense for their agency, to allow them to use their time in this way. So that would be something I would definitely recommend as a foundational step when you're starting out, when you're planning.

0:28:17.4 SM: I think another key lesson I'll share is around the willingness to continue confronting our identities as a team. So, we had folks on our team who share many of these identities that are in our focus communities, but we are not the ones most impacted by these forms of oppression on a daily basis, or most connected, frankly, even to these communities and to their movements for liberation. And so, when we brought in these advisors, we wrestled with where to trust our expertise from an evaluation perspective, from an assessment perspective, from sexual violence prevention landscape perspective, and when we should defer to community lived experience and knowledge of the diversity of opinions and knowledge and lives within each community. So it was consistently asking ourselves, "Are we the right people to make this decision? Who else do we need to bring on board? Who else needs to be consulted?"

0:29:28.0 SM: We have pivoted to convening what we're calling a design collaborative, and their job, as probably about 20 people, 10 to 13 organizations that are intimately connected at these intersections. And folks are gonna be looking at the recommendations from the assessment, adding their perspectives about needs, assets, and aspirations of these communities, making recommendations about what programming is needed, shaping the application process, and even participating in selecting our sub-grantees. So that's gonna be happening over the next six to nine months or so. We're really excited about moving toward that participatory funding model. A couple other pieces of work that we're gonna be doing are hiring a strategic communications team that's gonna help us make a plan for how to share our findings and get them in the hands of folks who can actually use them, and how we can potentially use RPE resources to support campaigns to shift mainstream norms toward LGBTQ folks.

0:30:32.0 SM: And then the third piece of work I wanted to highlight is we are doing a ton of internal work to build our capacity within our RPE team. We are doing an equity assessment with an outside evaluator that's gonna help us see where our gaps in our anti-oppression practices are as we move to working in these new communities. We are gonna hire three to four what we're calling community engagement consultants that are gonna work as an extra layer of internal advising, weekly, with us so we can run ideas, decisions, past them, so we have folks more connected to community, really engaged in all parts of the work. And then we're gonna be making a learning community within our own team to make sure that we know all that we can learn from the literature and folks' narratives regarding LGBTQ folks at these intersections and experiences of sexual violence, so we can show up having done our own learning as well.

0:31:36.6 KM: I'm here for all of it. I'm here for all of it. I'm like an '80s hairstyle that's been restyled to fit 2023. It's outdated; I'm here for all of it. And I'm so glad that they're... And I'm here for the process.

0:31:54.1 SM: Yeah. So Kelly has agreed to come on as one of our community engagement advisors, so she's gonna be one of our internal folks helping shape us along the way.

0:32:02.8 KM: Yes. So my eighties '80s hairstyle, again, has been restyled to fit 2023. I'm here.

0:32:08.5 SL: I love it. I mean, it all comes back with a little new funk, and when we can, it's great to hear that this isn't sitting on a shelf, right? Actively changes are... New systems are being put in place, capacities being built. I hope at some point, we'll have on some of these new grantees and have them talk about what they're building and developing and co-creating with folks in their communities. That's very exciting, to hear about not only the ideas, but the approach that has been informed by the assessment process.

0:32:55.0 SM: So we have some incredible organizations that have never been part of sexual violence prevention funding spaces before and are doing good work around those protective factors of connectedness, bodily autonomy, and we're just so excited to make those connections.

0:33:15.3 SL: I really appreciate anyone who's inviting in and holding up folks that have ideas around how to make our world a more peaceful place.

0:33:30.0 KM: Yeah, Yeah. I'm all about non-traditional partners, and I think I've probably said that at [chuckle] every time we met, I was like, "Hey, what about those non-traditional partners?" Because oftentimes it's like the grassroot organizations that are out there knocking on doors or delivering services that aren't a part of these larger committees that meet at the state level or at county levels. And those are the partners that interact with survivors or interact and do a lot of the education, sexual education, piece that needs to be included in this work.

0:34:04.3 SL: Well, I think the timing is really important. There's so much work that is happening within the anti-sexual violence movement. We've been talking about anti-blackness in the movement and how we need to really interrogate that and look at the systems that folks like me have helped to create and how we're going to change them. And sometimes that's from the inside out, and sometimes it's from the outside in. And so, figuring out how we're all, as this community, doing that together, is what I hope we're able to do at the NSVRC. We are on that plane with one wing [chuckle] right now, but we're glad to find partners that help keep us headed in the right direction and not nose-diving, at least yet. We're hopefully on the upswing.

0:35:06.8 KM: We're balancing on that wing, though. We're balancing.

0:35:10.8 SL: Yeah.

0:35:11.3 KM: Yeah.

0:35:12.1 SL: Most days, yeah, most days, for sure. I hope so. Well, this conversation feels very balancing to me. Very healing. As you mentioned, Kelly, about your experience, I'm just really excited for your next steps, and I don't know if there's anything you would like to close us out with, anything else you'd like to add for our listeners to know about you, the process, or what you're looking forward to? 

0:35:40.8 KM: I'm really looking forward to the next next steps when we can get out into the community. And really, I'm all about doing community work. I do community work in my position at Hegira Health, and I love talking to people and I love seeing the impact of the work. So that's... But I know that right now, we have to start with intention and commitment and slow down, just seriously, we gotta slow down, but that's the part that I'm looking forward to the most, is like getting out there in the community and really seeing the work progress and impact the lives that it's intended to impact.

0:36:18.1 SM: Yeah, balancing that the urgency of the need with the benefits of intentionality and an inclusive process. Yeah. It is ever-present challenge. I guess I would just invite folks to visit our webpage at mphi.org/svp. We have all of our amazing briefs from the Community Sexual Violence Prevention Assessment, the CSVPA, there. We also welcome and encourage folks to reach out to us at Michigan RP. We've had countless incredible conversations with RPE folks and preventionists from all over the country, and we love collaborating and just learning from one another. So don't hesitate to reach out. And Kelly and I will be part of a presentation at INSEC this August in 2023. So if you're listening, hopefully this lunch is before then. But come find us, come hang out with us at INSEC.

0:37:19.8 KM: There's coffee. We like coffee.

0:37:20.7 SM: Yes. [chuckle] Have some coffee and chocolate with us. [chuckle]

0:37:22.8 SL: Well, I hope everyone heard the five invitations they just got to learn more, to be part of this community, to connect, to meet up at our national gathering out in San Francisco, or maybe follow up with some of the stuff that will be coming out, to share our experience in San Francisco with folks that aren't able to be in person with us. We'll have some opportunities for folks to connect online and in other ways. And just thank you. Thank you all for all that you're doing and being part of this amazing community of folks trying to change the world.

0:38:01.3 KM: Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for giving us this platform. Thank you.

0:38:05.2 SL: You bet.

0:38:06.5 S?: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go. Please make sure to also listen to a special bonus episode where Kelly Mays, also known as Slam Poet Native Child, shares her art and performs a poem about her experience being part of this assessment process. For more resources and information about sexual violence community assessments, check out our online evaluation toolkit at nsvrc.org, or connect with us by email @resources@nsvrc.org.

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