00:00 Megan Thomas: 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 Megan Thomas, Communication Specialist at NSVRC. On today's episode, we'll be discussing three key takeaways from the first ever completely virtual Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

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00:36 MT: So this April was the first ever Virtual Sexual Assault Awareness Month or SAAM. And we're gonna be talking about how this year's SAAM looked incredibly different than it has in the past, and also what we took away from it, and then how what we learned can apply to your work.

00:51 MT: So today, I'm joined by Susan Sullivan, NSVRC's Prevention Campaign Specialist, and Mo Lewis NSVRC's Prevention Specialist. And we're gonna discuss some of these hard learned lessons that we can all take away from this challenging time as we expand our outreach and prevention work. Susan and Mo, do you wanna introduce yourselves? 

01:12 Susan Sullivan: Yeah, thanks, Megan, this is Susan Sullivan. I'm the Prevention Campaign Specialist for NSVRC. So what I do is I go ahead and create the theme and develop the resources for NSVRC SAAM campaign, and then also I manage our social media pages throughout April and leading up April.

01:32 Mo: And this is Mo, I am the Prevention Specialist at NSVRC. I mainly work with state and territory health departments and coalitions and local programs who receive RPE funding, and that stands for Rape Prevention and Education funding that comes through the VAWA legislation. And I do a lot of talking with people, connecting people to others who are doing similar work, a lot of trainings which are now happening mostly online and creating resources.

02:05 MT: Thank you both. So during SAAM this year, we were facing just completely unforeseeable and unprecedented circumstances because of COVID-19. Can we talk a little bit about how things changed this year, what were the biggest things you noticed? 

02:19 Mo: First of all, everybody was just kind of like, What are we supposed to do now? I know that a lot of folks moved to working at home, which I think was easier for some people than others. We weren't able to have folks meet with clients in the same ways they had always been able to do. A lot of advocacy takes place face-to-face, and so I think there's been a lot of ways we've had to rethink how we've been working, and I know it also really impacted SAAM too.

02:52 SS: Yeah, that's right, it definitely impacted SAAM because a lot of events that had been planned for weeks or months ahead of time, had to be canceled there at the last minute, and folks had to make the transition to virtual events pretty quickly.

03:08 MT: Yeah, definitely. I think it's important to talk about what this moment can teach us moving forward, because it's not just April that was different, everything is different now, the whole world has changed. The way we interact with each other has changed. So why is it so important for us to reflect on the ways that advocates and communities and really everyone evolved in response to this crisis? 

03:30 SS: Yeah. Change was super charged due to the situation, and there was no way out. You really had to go through this, you had to sort of figure out a way to make your event happen virtually, but it did go to show us that innovation can happen really quickly, and I think it's important that we not lose that perspective now or get complacent, that we should always be thinking through how we can grow our messaging and resources to meet the situation and grow with the audience.

04:01 Mo: So I really agree Susan. As things are moving online, I've been noticing as someone who works remotely all of the time that things are way more accessible now. And I think that's really important and something to uplift and celebrate and also definitely keep going. So one of the things that I've noticed is that as a remote worker, now that we're all online for meetings, I can see people better and hear people better, I've also been able to really be involved in more things locally too, like City Council meetings that are being held online that are way more accessible. One of the things that I noticed was that there are a lot of disability activists who are saying like, "Hey, how come all these forms of access that we needed before and asked for before were considered legitimate then, but they are now?" This pandemic has really changed things and made people flexible in ways that we weren't before, so I think that just in terms of accessibility and making things like equitable and able for people to attend and be there is something that we can really continue to shape our work around as we go forward.

05:11 MT: Yeah, that's such a great point. And there are so many intersections in our work, we're seeing right now that the Black Lives Matter movement and activism to end police and racialized violence are really gaining momentum, so how are you continuing to see this theme? 

05:27 Mo: I think that there are a lot of people who are seeing these connections between these different social issues for the first time, and I'll say it's particularly white people who are seeing these connections. So when we have this pandemic that we're getting data about and seeing that black people are being affected at much higher rates and dying at much higher rates, I think some of that data comes out and people go, "Oh, I get it now." They're finally seeing this connection between our inequitable systems and how that's really directly linked to things like who is getting sick, who has access to really good care or PPE and that sort of thing. We see that there are really high rates of COVID-19 infections happening in the Navajo Nation, and this is a group of folks that sometimes don't have water or electricity, and the disparities are really showing.

06:27 Mo: And I think that even though these things have been here for a long time, this is maybe... I think the pandemic has made it more noticeable for people who have not had to notice this kind of stuff before, and I think that really it's also just highlighting in this really deadly way all of the oppression that's just been baked into the world that we're living in. So we have this pandemic that's happening, and then you add to that the murder of George Floyd that happened, and all of the other police violence against black people. It's always been happening, but now we have it on the video, we have it happening during this time of pandemic, and it really feels like it's coalesced into a lot of new energy in this ongoing movement for liberation, and people are seeing how it's all connected.

07:16 Mo: So I think for us in our organization, seeing these connections has been a really important shift that we've made in terms of thinking about how do sexual violence connect to all of these things? How do we need to be thinking more about the different social movements that are impacting all of us and really impact sexual violence as well? 

07:38 MT: Yeah, absolutely. So earlier this year, Susan, you wrote a blog called five key takeaways from the first ever completely virtual Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and so we're gonna talk in more detail about some of those points now. And in the blog, you said one of the first major lessons we learned was the importance of knowing our value as an organization, and by knowing our value, we're able to determine our focus and our direction. So what do you mean by knowing our value as an organization? 

08:11 SS: This year, everybody was on such a tight turnaround time due to the circumstances, and there wasn't enough time for folks to redesign every single in-person activity or to accomplish every preset goal. So advocates had to quickly read the room and really see what action would be most helpful when considering what they were gonna do, what sort of virtual action they were gonna take if any. At NSVRC for example, specifically, we held back on sharing a lot of the content that we had planned for the month prior to COVID-19 and instead we focused on sharing resources on our social media pages, for example, that felt most important to our online audience at the time, and since our online audience consists mostly of local programs whose SAAM events may have been cancelled, we really wanted to focus on sharing resources on transitioning events to online spaces.

09:10 SS: So something that hadn't been planned, for example. We also wanted to share the message that, Hey, Sexual Assault Awareness Month is still relevant, especially when thinking about consent. So, we sort of pulled out pieces from the I Ask for Consent campaign that were still relevant. In this case, we leaned on sharing our digital consent materials because that was a tangible way to make the connection between what was happening in the world around us, which had switched so much to online communications and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

09:49 SS: So in terms of knowing our value, knowing what people wanted from us or needed from us in a moment, and thinking about what we have uniquely to offer on our platforms and on our social media spaces, it's really about getting back to basics, figuring out what we're trying to accomplish through our work, and who's looking to us from moment to moment and how we can meet that need.

10:21 MT: One of the other things that you mentioned in the blog is the importance of re-evaluating the kind of content that you're putting out, so what are some good ways to gauge what your audience needs from you? 

10:33 SS: When it comes to online engagement, we can definitely look at metrics. Look at what sort of posts are performing well, not just in terms of news stories versus photos, but what sort of topics are performing well, what sort of current events does your audience engage with? Maybe there's a way that interest can play into the development of resources or help to determine the direction of what you go ahead and create or share. But it's also important to pay attention to the conversation at large, so looking across social media, what other organizations are posting and sharing and issues that they're bringing up.

11:10 Mo: And also for people who are doing prevention work, this is where good facilitation knowledge and experience can also really come in handy. So if you're working with a small community or a group of people doing prevention, you can really talk together about how you wanna shift your work in response to this moment. We really have enough knowledge and tools to be nimble and to try new things in prevention. At its core, prevention is really about creating the world that we wanna live in, and I think this is a really potent time for us to be involved in this work.

11:43 MT: Yeah, and one of the things I think organizations are starting to recognize is the power differentials that they might have in their communities, so how can an organization recognize the power that they hold and then work to affirm and uplift other voices? 

11:58 Mo: I think that's a really important question. When we think about who our audience is, we really know that people look to us as a resource center to provide relevant information and evidence-based information, so it's really been important for us to examine what counts as evidence. Who gets to say what counts as evidence? We're a mostly white mainstream sexual assault organization, and so are a lot of those who follow us on social media and in our email, and so that means that really our role can be really important in terms of sharing out our ongoing work to becoming an anti-racist organization, really making sure that we're uplifting the work of other folks doing community-specific and community-based work, and then also really just passing the mic too.

12:52 SS: Yeah, and I think part of NSVRC knowing our value is knowing what our role is, not in terms of just our own content, but thinking through how can a moment be an opportunity to share others resources, voices or perspectives. For instance, if there are observances that other culturally specific organizations are taking the lead on, we'll tend to re-share those resources or think through how we can uplift those efforts rather than create our own content. So it's really about being thoughtful and seeing every moment as an opportunity to think of how your voice can best be utilized.

13:30 MT: One of the challenges that organizations are running up against when it comes to knowing their value is this idea of a silo mentality, so what does this mean and how can organizations resist working in silos? 

13:43 Mo: I hear people talk about this a lot, and when I think about working in silos or the silo mentality, it's kind of like this, "Hey, I'm just here to end sexual violence, that's what I'm focusing on. I don't really have time to work on anti-racism." Or even worse, not even seeing how racism and all other forms of oppression are the exact things that make sexual violence so common.

14:08 Mo: So yeah, working in silos is not great. I think this has been one of the gifts of this pandemic, is this really expanded understanding for folks who didn't understand before, that everything is interconnected, and we're seeing that really clearly now with everything going on with COVID-19. There's these intersections of healthcare, childcare, paid time off, sick leave, Who has to go to work? Who gets to stay home from work? How does institutional racism play into the care that people are getting, or the access to care people have? 

14:44 Mo: It's just really an important time to push back on this whole thing about silos. Our work really is connected and our roles can look different, and that's okay, we don't have to stay in the silos. So one of the things I like to talk about is getting back to what your goals are in your work. If your goal is community-connectedness, in this time of COVID-19, you can think about doing mutual aid kind of work.

15:12 Mo: If folks wanna make masks or collect specific items for a local center who's helping out, getting to know your neighbors, showing up for your community and helping out, if your goal is improving parent and child relationships, there are ways that we can adapt our work as well, so a lot of rape crisis centers are doing things like story time for little kids, and then also sharing resources for parents about like how to have good communication with your kids, especially when you're just around each other all the time.

15:42 Mo: I think ultimately, we really need to be examining how this movement has been steered and shaped in the silos. That didn't happen on accident. We also really need to be examining how this has created upheld oppressive systems within this movement itself. This is work that we have to do, and I think it's gonna be exciting and it will also require us to have a lot of humility and really look into ways that we can make systemic changes and give up power.

16:12 MT: Another one of the major lessons we took away from all of this was that new approaches can help meet people where they are. How does relying on the way we've always done things end up holding back our prevention efforts? 

16:26 SS: It's not just about how our own progress is stunted when we don't leave our comfort zone and stick to the way we've always done things, but by reinforcing the status quo, we're usually leaving many out. We're inherently prioritizing who's familiar with us already and who already knows to come to us, or to seek us out. So it's really about thinking deeply about who we are and who we aren't reaching and acknowledging these gaps and seeking out opportunities to bridge them. Old strategies can't take us in new directions. For instance, some events don't reach everyone, even in the most normal circumstances. People who might not have gone to an in-person event in a normal year might be more likely to go to an online event.

17:12 SS: And so we all had to adapt in April and really quickly, but that shows us that we're capable of change, but also that we must change. But at the same time, it's okay to take risks and take chances, try out new things like virtual events. One of the biggest concerns that we saw during the transition to virtual events during SAAM was the concern that an event wouldn't meet the mark, but it's important to remember that not everything is always gonna be a hit, but it's okay. Because that's a moment where you can learn and have better information for next time.

17:46 MT: And the final takeaway we're gonna talk about today is about being vulnerable, we learned that it's okay and important to show that we're human too.

17:55 Mo: Yeah, I think that was a really important piece that we ended up learning. We held this webinar in the middle of April, we weren't planning on doing it, but with everything changing and people really scrambling to figure out, how are we gonna do SAAM stuff and is it even appropriate to do say stuff right now? We wanted to just create this opportunity for people to check in about how they're doing SAAM, and really give an opportunity for people to share what they've learned, resources they're using and that kind of thing.

18:27 Mo: And one of the things that I thought was really powerful and so helpful to people was when Susan acknowledged that this is just a really hard time in that, honestly, it sucks to have your SAAM plans be kind of upended. It's a big disappointment. These are things that people plan for the whole year. And that even though we're in a pandemic and there are lots of other things to worry about, that the feelings that people were having about this were really valid, and I think that it ended up being a really important part of the webinar and part of the conversation in general, and I think it was really useful for us as this national organization to be talking about the bad feelings that can come with this and the disappointment and having that vulnerability.

19:15 SS: Yeah, and in terms of showing that we're human, we saw so many advocates working from home, dealing with issues, real life issues like child care, personal boundary setting with partners, healthcare issues, etcetera, and a lot of them were using examples from their personal lives to teach lessons about consent. We saw that in the 30 days of SAAM Instagram contest. So that really came through more than ever, that sort of personal side of the field during this moment.

19:53 MT: So, advocates, we're seeing them becoming more vulnerable, sharing their personal lives, and... What do you say to organizations that maybe have worked really hard to develop a really polished corporate brand look and are now concerned that any show of vulnerability might impact their credibility? 

20:10 Mo: I think it's such a good question. To me, they're not mutually exclusive, I would really argue that vulnerability adds to credibility, but I think that that is something that has not always been the case within our movement. One of the examples that I think about is how we talk about survivors in the movement. We know that a lot of folks who are doing this work are survivors, and yet sometimes the way that we talk about survivors as if they're like these other people, these other people that we're working for or working with and not us.

20:45 Mo: So I think that this shift for us to make, to bring vulnerability back into our work is a really nice shift, I think I'm really happy that it's happening, I think that vulnerability can really add to someone's credibility, and I think that it's kind of a lesson that we learned in April with that SAAM webinar that I hope we can bring into more aspects of our work.

21:11 SS: Yeah, and coming back to vulnerability, I think part of showing that we're human is owning that we don't have all the answers and we can make mistakes, but that it's important to take accountability and learn from those mistakes. For instance, on NSVRC's social media pages on our Facebook page, for example, when an audience member leaves us a comment and lets us know that we could have used more sensitive language in a specific post, we always try to respond, make that change and acknowledge that we're working to grow in those moments.

21:57 SS: But with social media, the stakes always seem high, there always seems to be a pressure on organizations, and therefore the individuals that are operating those platforms for their organizations to make sure that things are performing well, so it seems harder to take chances and be vulnerable sometimes. But it's important to do and it's okay to do.

22:26 MT: So to wrap things up here, what we've seen is that these lessons are valuable both in the short-term during April and moving forward in the long term. Organizations are gonna continue to respond to unprecedented times, both because we're still in COVID-19, we're still gonna continue to see the impact of that moving forward. And now we're seeing this ongoing uprising to end anti-black violence, which is also really changing a lot of the ways that organizations are doing things. So before we finish up here, Susan and Mo, do you have any final thoughts you wanna add? 

23:03 SS: Learning how to best reach folks online is gonna continue to be important, we can't lose perspective or momentum that the pandemic has brought about, we should always be thinking through how we can grow our messaging and resources to meet the situation and grow with the audience.

23:22 Mo: That's so true. We can also apply these lessons to prevention too 'cause prevention is all about creating the world that we wanna live in. I really think that moves to get rid of these silos and understand how our work is really connected with other social movements, and the work to end oppression is so important. I think that thinking about accessibility and how we can always make our work accessible is gonna be so important.

23:51 Mo: And I also wanna bring up this point that Amita Swadhin made. They're the founder of Mirror Memoirs. And this is such an important point that they made months ago when this COVID pandemic started, and they said, I don't know the exact quote, but they were talking about how there's always been a pandemic going on, there's been this pandemic of childhood sexual abuse that's been happening. And I think that if we think about all of the pandemics that has been happening that we just haven't considered a pandemic or haven't thought about in the way that we're thinking about COVID-19. I think that also could help shift the way that we think about our work too, is that it's not just this one pandemic, but it's a great many. And maybe we're noticing things now that we did not notice before, I will say, as white folks, as people who are in mainstream sexual assault organizations, but I think making those connections is just gonna continue to be so important regardless of this pandemic or any other pandemic to create the world we wanna see.

25:02 MT: Yeah, that's great, thank you both so much. This has been a really great conversation, and I wanna let the listeners know, make sure you can check out the full blog with all five takeaways at bit.ly/virtualsaamblog. All lower case.

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25:18 MT: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource On The Go. For more resources and information about preventing sexual assault, visit our website at www.nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@nsvrc.org.

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