Accompanying a poster series that will hopefully be launched next month, a coworker and myself collaborated to provide a series of discussion and support sessions titled “Friends Supporting Friends” to follow the campaign’s theme. The purpose of the sessions is to provide support, information and resources for friends of survivors who may not know how to handle a friend’s disclosure. In supporting and empowering friends, we hope to expand their skill sets so that they can in turn support and empower survivors.

As a campus crisis center, our office consistently sees friends and partners of victims coming through our doors in hopes of getting answers to questions about helping their friends.  The idea for the support sessions stemmed from this reality. By having sessions located within the student center, we hope to reach those friends who may not realize that crisis center services are afforded to them too, or who may not have the time or courage to come through the doors of our office.

The first session was last night, and although it did not generate the volume of participants we might have hoped for, just one attendee is one more person we reach. Every little bit counts. One more person we can arm with effective skills is one (and potentially more) surivor that will be better supported.

I hope each session draws more and more participants. While I’m working on being more confident and knowledgeable, I do enjoy the opportunity to educate the community on these issues. I wish I would have had more opportunity to facilitate support groups, but hopefully I’ll be able to do that in future years.

The accompanying link is to the handouts I created for the sessions. They offer some take away tips, information and resources for the attendees of our sessions. (The sessions are sponsored by and the information is provided by the Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) of the University of New Hampshire (UNH).)

Friends Supporting Friends Helpful Tips