Advice I Give My Friends That I Should Listen To: Safety Edition

If you’re like me, you give great advice to the people that you care about. If you’re also like me, you don’t listen to your advice, despite how phenomenal it is! Today we will go through a summary of the Red Watch Band Training and Bringing in the Bystander training that our first year, second year, and transfer students have been going through for the past month. This is information I remind my friends to use in their day-to-day lives — advice I know I should be listening to too.

Red Watch Band training is a brief presentation for first year and transfer students to educate on the rules in place at Marquette that protect students from penalties when dealing with an intoxication issue. The meaning of the program is to give students a baseline knowledge of how and when to react in potentially dangerous situations. In their second year, students go through Bringing in the Bystander training, which builds off of the first program. It includes heavier topic material, but again enforces the idea that if you see something, do something. Marquette encourages students to not take risks and to play it safe in terms of reacting to potentially harmful situations

Red Watch Band: Mission

Our Mission is to provide students with the knowledge, awareness and skills to prevent toxic drinking deaths and to promote a student culture of kindness, responsibility, compassion and respect.

Red Watch Band: Good Samaritan Policy

This policy is in place so students will place the safety of their peers first.

Care — Marquette expects you to care about one another when you are out in the community, regardless of potential consequences of conduct for involving alcohol or drugs.

Conduct — No formal disciplinary actions will be taken for violations of the alcohol/drug policy when a student calls for help in an emergency medical situation. There may be follow up with an administrator to ensure that the whole story is known, but no formal conduct hearing will take place.

Call — for these reasons, it is important to call for help in a medical emergency!

Red Watch Band: Signs of a Life-Threatening Overdose:

• Cannot be woken up
• Person is passed out or semi-conscious and cannot be awakened — even if you shake them and they groan/make some kind of noise, that DOES NOT mean that they are conscious
• Gets sick and does not wake up
• Person vomits while sleeping or passed out and does not wake up — remember, alcohol inhibits the involuntary systems in your body. If you were sober and felt like you were going to throw up and you were sleeping, your body would involuntarily wake you up — when you are highly intoxicated this reaction will slow down or not occur, causing someone who is sleeping to not wake up while vomiting, risking swallowing/choking on vomit
• Slow breathing
• Rate of breathing seems slow or irregular — alcohol slows down different systems, including respiratory
• Cold, clammy, or altered skin
• Person has cold, clammy, or pale or bluish skin color — lips, in specific, can resemble a bluish tint, blood goes to the heart to make sure it continues to function, leaving outer organs, like skin, which makes skin cold and/or clammy

These are all signs and symptoms to look for when you think a friend has had too much to drink! It only takes one sign to tell you that this person needs medical attention

Red Watch Band: Intervention

• Call 911 or campus police (Emergency: 1–414–288–1911)
• Provide accurate information such as location, condition of the individual, name, etc.
• Gather information about the amount of alcohol consumed by the individual to share with the emergency services personnel
• Stay with the person/friend until help arrives
• If you are an individual who is uncomfortable around police officers or your safety could be put at risk, delegate. Ask a friend or someone else to stay with the individual until help arrives. Calling for help is a big enough action that could be life changing. Help within your safety range.

Bringing in the Bystander: Bystander vs. Prosocial Bystander

Bystander: Individuals who witness emergencies, harmful events, or situations that could lead to harmful events and by their presence may have the opportunity to provide assistance, do nothing, or contribute to the harm.

Prosocial Bystander: Individuals who intervene to positively impact a harmful or potentially harmful situation.

Bringing in the Bystander: Continuum

Sexual violence or sexually inappropriate behavior exists on a continuum.

Some of these behaviors are obviously inappropriate and some are less so. Our next exercise demonstrates this. We are going to acknowledge that sexual violence does exist on a continuum and we will talk about this continuum in two ways: recognition and frequency.

Let’s talk about recognition first, since that one is a bit trickier. Recognition is the extent to which a given community recognizes that a given behavior or action is sexually violent or inappropriate, and we can use our campus as the community.

Things on the high end of this continuum are behaviors that are clearly violent, the sorts of things that people immediately think about when they think of sexual violence. They may be the most obvious examples of what we’re talking about

The actions in the middle of the continuum are clearly inappropriate, but they may not always be noticed as such or as widely condemned. They are clearly problematic and not the sorts of behaviors we want happening on our campus, but they may not be the first things that come to mind when we think about sexual violence.

The actions on the lower end of the continuum can happen on our campus and can hurt people.

However, most people may not see them as a big deal, or even notice they occur. Nevertheless, they are crucial to this discussion.

Frequency is much simpler. We will define frequency as how often these behaviors actually occur in our community.

On the high end of the recognition continuum, sexual Violence, rape, stalking, domestic violence are the most highly recognized as violent.

Behavior in the middle of the continuum might be catcalling, online harassment or online stalking or emotional abuse in relationships.

On the low end of the spectrum are sexist jokes, derogatory language about women, gay slurs, and microaggressions.

Bringing in the Bystander: Statistics

• 1 in 4 women will be a victim of relationship abuse
• 85% of victims of physical relationship abuse are women
• Women ages 20–24 are at the greatest risk of nonfatal relationship abuse
• 20–30% of college dating couples experience at least one act of physical aggression
• 70–90% of college dating couples experience psychological aggression
• Most men don’t rape, the few that do commit multiple rapes as well as other assaults
• The majority of perpetrators in our community are not caught
• Most (73%) of sexual assaults are perpetrated by a non-stranger
• The majority of people tell the truth about rape. Only 2–10% are false reports

Bringing in the Bystander: Consequences of Relationship and Sexual Violence

Impact is divided into three categories:

1. Emotional Symptoms: include sadness, anger, confusion, anxiety and fear, nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty connecting with others and wishing to isolate, and symptoms consistent with PTSD

2. Physical Symptoms: include headaches, neck pain, back pain, sleep disturbances, appetite disturbances, and in some cases, injuries directly related to an assault

3. Daily Routines: include absence from school and/or work, negative impacts on relationships, and financial loss due to medical bills and legal costs

Many people may discount how violence impacts people daily routines.

Bringing in the Bystander: Support

Supporting survivors is important for their healing. You can support survivors by believing them, connecting them with resources like the counseling center or Marquette Advocacy Services.

Marquette Advocacy Services support students who’ve faced violence with confidential help and can be reached 24/7 at 414–288–5244 or in business hours at advocacy@marquette.edu

Campus Resources:

Marquette University Medical Clinic

(414) 288–7184 | www.mu.edu/medical-clinic/

Counseling Center

(414) 288–7172 | www.mu.edu/counseling

MUPD

(414) 288–1911 | http://www.marquette.edu/mupd/

Want more info on the Good Samaritan Policy? Check out more at this link:

www.marquette.edu/osd/policies/good-samaritan-policy.shtml

Sexual Violence Advocate

(414) 288–5244 | http://www.marquette.edu/sexual-misconduct/victim-advocacy.shtml

Student Wellness Center

707 Building, Suite 130 | https://www.marquette.edu/medical-clinic/phe.shtml

All of this information is important to remember not only at Marquette, but for the rest of your lives. It is really easy to be a bystander, but prosocial by-standing leads to more positive outcomes. I wish you luck in using these new skills in your life. Take care of yourself and the people around you to the best of your ability. I believe in you! Until then — I am Katie, and I hope you have a fantastic day, week, month, and year of self-care and community support. :)