Strategies for Developing, Implementing, and Sustaining Sexual Harassment Bystander Intervention Programs for Faculty, Staff, and Graduate Students (2023)
Chapter: Lessons Learned from Program Staff
Lessons Learned from Program Staff
The program staff from the seven institutions also raised several considerations that could make the development, implementation, and evaluation of bystander intervention programs challenging. While not exhaustive, the following points highlight gaps that could be an opportunity for institutions to create even more robust bystander interventions and/or provide additional support:
- Developing bystander intervention programs: Program staff noted that it could be difficult to generate buy-in from leaders across every department and school of an institution. Additionally, staff noted the challenges in tailoring trainings to the climate of the department, school, lab, and so forth because of all the power dynamics and climate issues in the environment—especially those that are not obvious. For instance, if the program staff are unaware of subtle microaggressions that may be occurring in an environment, it could be hard to develop programs that train and educate individuals to address and respond to such actions. Finally, program staff highlighted the need for programs to account for learners’ roles and responsibilities (e.g., faculty members that are mandatory reporters) so that the training content supplements their obligations.
- Implementing and executing bystander intervention programs: Several of the highlighted programs indicated having very few staff members (sometimes even just one) leading and executing the trainings. They noted that staff bandwidth and heavy workload can also make it challenging to implement programs and deliver content effectively. Staff also highlighted the need to have effective trainers and facilitators that can successfully equip learners coming from different environments.
- Maintaining and evaluating bystander intervention programs: Program staff highlighted the risk of retaliation that bystanders face, which may make them more hesitant to engage or use the training in opportunities that require intervention.4 Additionally, staff commented on the challenges in maintaining funding and resources for supporting programs. Furthermore, they highlighted a need to evaluate bystander intervention programs and use effective measures (Banyard et al., 2014; Mennicke et al., 2022; NASEM, 2018, 2021).5
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4 The Remediation Working Group of the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education is working on a paper on how institutions can move beyond compliance and effectively respond to and/or prevent retaliation; see https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/preventing-retaliation-to-discourage-sexual-harassment.
5 The Evaluation Working Group of the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education is gathering information and research on the methods for evaluating interventions for preventing sexual harassment; see https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/methods-for-evaluating-efforts-to-address-sexual-harassment.
