Kyra Laughlin presents “Strategies for Engaging Student Survivors in Campus Efforts to Address Sexual Violence”

M.A. in Policy Studies (MAPS) student Kyra Laughlin traveled to Washington D.C. last month for the 2019 National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Strategies for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response conference. While there, Laughlin held a round table discussion titled "Strategies for Engaging Student Survivors in Campus Efforts to Address Sexual Violence" to an audience of 50 campus victim advocates, Title IX staff, health/wellness/women center staff, and faculty from across the country.

Laughlin's presentation highlighted lessons learned from doing anti-sexual and relationship violence work for over two years at UW Bothell; the tensions of navigating institutional hierarchies as a student activist, lack of funding for the work, and the challenges of working within an institution that does not yet possess the infrastructure to adequately serve survivors nor support the long-term culture change needed to begin to meaningfully address and prevent sexual and relationship violence.

Laughlin also led attendees through an exercise where they were asked to create a map of their campus and to identify how institutional betrayal showed up (or may show up) in each space, both for survivors as a broad category, as well as for multiply minoritized survivors, e.g queer, undocumented, victim-survivors.