Student Brings Sexual Violence Conversation to SPH.
Staige Davis has worked in sexual violence prevention and survivor advocacy for eight years. So when she started her MPH in fall 2017, she asked, “Where’s the sexual assault prevention group? Where are my people?”
She found a School of Medicine student group, Sexual Trauma Outreach & Prevention (STOP), and then worked to extend the group to the School of Public Health at the end of 2017.
STOP raises awareness of sexual violence among students and educates them about how best to support patients who are survivors; develops sexual assault education and prevention materials and methods; and provides resources and advocacy for survivors in the community.
The group’s signature monthly “STOP and Talk” meetings also provide a supportive space to wrestle with different elements of sexual violence and its intersections with the full spectrum of identities and experiences.
“The medical students who started it, started it because there was no explicit trauma-informed care training in their first-year training, and they advocated for it,” Davis says. It seemed obvious to her that students from throughout the medical campus would also benefit, both as a community and as future health professionals.
Davis says she knew she wanted to continue working with sexual violence in her daily life, but wanted to do so with other students. “I could have joined the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center or something else in the Boston area,” she says, “but I think it’s really powerful to start in the community that you’re most a member of.”
To make STOP an official student group at SPH, Davis needed a list of at least 10 interested students. “I sent out one Facebook post and talked to a few of my friends, and within 24 hours I had 30 names,” she says. “Getting this overwhelming, immediate response really showed me that people want this space, and that this is something worth doing.”
Sexual violence is a major topic in public health, but Davis says timing has clearly also played a part in students’ interest. “It’s on everyone’s mind with the domino cascade of the #MeToo movement,” she says. “Toxic masculinity is at the forefront of everything that’s happening in our country, and now there’s this uprising, this recognition that sexual harassment and assault are violence and are damaging to women and to all kinds of communities.”
Contact Staige Davis to join the SPH chapter of Sexual Trauma Outreach & Prevention (STOP).
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