Citation

Potter SJ, Fountain K, Stapleton JG. Harv. Rev. Psychiatry 2012; 20(4): 201-208.

Affiliation

From the Department of Sociology (Dr. Potter) and Women's Studies Program (Dr. Fountain and Ms. Stapleton), University of New Hampshire .

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, President and Fellows of Harvard College, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.3109/10673229.2012.712838

PMID

22894729

Abstract

Sexual and relationship violence are two major public health issues that affect an alarming number of undergraduate students. As a result, many colleges and universities have protocols to serve victims of these forms of violence. Despite federal legislation stating that all students should have equitable experiences, current protocols and programs focus primarily on heterosexual students. College student victims of sexual and relationship violence who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender can face particular challenges, including disclosure of their sexual and gender orientations, and revictimization when seeking services. In recent years an increasing number of campuses have adopted bystander prevention strategies to address sexual and relationship violence. These strategies seek to engage community members in the prevention of sexual and relationship violence by training them to identify and safely intervene in situations where sexual or relationship violence is about to occur, is occurring, or has occurred. In this article we review published bystander prevention strategies that focus on preventing sexual and relationship violence in the campus community, and discuss how bystander strategies are addressing or can address relationship and sexual violence in the LGBT community.

Language: en