The Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct (RVSM) strategic plan builds on the work of the RVSM Expert Advisory Workgroup, which has been a major driver of RVSM efforts on campus and was tasked with creating a values-driven operational plan with recommended initiatives, timelines and metrics.

The Workgroup — co-chaired by Dr. Rebecca Campbell, professor of psychology and Lt. Andrea Munford, coordinator of the Center for Trauma-Informed Investigative Excellence at the MSU Police Department — was formed in 2018 to make immediate recommendations to transform MSU’s institutional response to RVSM and oversee the implementation of those changes in the wake of the Larry Nassar crisis. Members of the workgroup were appointed by the president based on their expertise in RVSM services, prevention, policy and/or research.

“What we've learned through conversations through the Nassar case and through other cases and conversations with survivors and with other community stakeholders is that people didn't report what was going on because we as a university didn't give them a safe place to report,” says Munford. “There was a lot of judgment and inaction in reporting. And that became more known that there was a pattern there. And so people stopped reporting because they didn't feel like it was safe to do so.”

“I also heard people didn't know where to go,” adds Campbell. “They didn't know what services we had, and they didn't know how to access them. We've had longstanding victim service programs, both in sexual assault and in relationship violence and stalking for decades, actually very strong programs, good trauma-informed services, and people didn't know that they were there. We knew that we needed to be doing more to create clear, accessible pathways to the services that we have and to strengthen those services. There was still more we needed to do in those services. Both in terms of improving options for reporting and in terms of getting support in healthcare, we needed to start over and we needed to really think through how to make accessible pathways for victims.

“We did a lot of listening. We have been in campus engagement sessions since spring of 2018. We've had an online portal forum where people could send in their suggestions, their comments, their concerns, their anger, and their fears. We read all of those. We did a crosswalk between our current programming and national recommended best practices to identify all of the gaps. And then we spent months looking at model programs, looking at what we had, and applying for grants. We have a number of initiatives in this plan that are funded in collaboration with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the Division of Victim Services, to create new programs. It was a combination of a lot of feedback, bringing some outside perspectives into the university through those funders and through consulting with national organizations to identify what would be model practices and to build out a plan around those.”

Campbell and Munford define relationship violence and sexual misconduct, and Munford defines trauma-informed.

“Being trauma-informed is really understanding what neurobiology of trauma looks like,” says Munford. “It's understanding that your body reacts in ways during trauma that somebody else may not recognize if they don't understand what that means. It's working with somebody who is in trauma and being able to support them through it because they may not know why their body and their mind is reacting a certain way and being able to guide them through that process by providing supportive measures along the way, too. Working with a survivor of sexual assault while they're in that trauma and what they're telling you about what happened may not make sense because their mind really in the midst of that trauma isn't processing it sequentially or their memories are very fragmented. And so, they're not able to say, ‘This is how it started. And this happened.’ That's not really how most people's minds work during trauma.

“So, guiding them through that process and saying, ‘I understand that you won't be able to tell me what happened from the beginning to the end manner. And that's okay. Tell me what you remember, and we can start from there.’ We've all in the past just made assumptions when someone comes forward to report something. And if it doesn't sound like an accurate story and because maybe we didn't know what trauma can do to people, we just assume they were lying. Understanding how trauma affects somebody helps us do a better investigation and helps us support a survivor better. And regardless of what process someone chooses, the outcome is better because we've supported them along the way.”

“One of the things we've been focusing on in the strategic plan is to look at all of the different stakeholder groups on campus like the survivors, the helpers, the leaders, the campus community, and our service providers to ask what training they have received,” adds Campbell. “Do they have training that's consistent with empirical research? Do they understand the impact of trauma? And are we preparing them to receive disclosures and to know how trauma affects people and to be able to respond in an empathic way and to connect people to support services? A lot of the initiatives in our strategic plan focus on training of the campus community in small groups and large groups and our leadership to know those basics of what trauma is, how trauma affects people, and what their role is in being part of a trauma-informed community.”

Campbell and Munford describe the values-driven and principles-focused approach to developing the plan and discuss how the plan needs to be intersectional.

“Violence is experienced differently in different communities, and certain communities have higher rates,” continues Campbell. “Depending on people's intersectional identities, they're going to need and want different resources. And different resources are going to feel more or less supportive or safe for them. It's not a one-size-fits-all, and we really need to be having multiple options for people depending upon what is safe and supportive for them.

“We also wanted to focus on the fact that all of our actions need to be trauma-informed, that we need to build on the work that Andrea has done in creating trauma-informed investigations to really think about how we do trauma-informed services all throughout the university. So that no matter where a survivor reaches out and to whom they may disclose, that that person has a fundamental understanding of trauma and can respond supportively and connect people to services.”

Specific initiatives of the plan?

“Our data from the Know More survey told us that the number experiencing RVSM was a much larger number than the people who were seeking help,” adds Campbell.

“Seeking help could include reporting to the police or Title IX, but it also means reaching out to victim service programs or employee assistance. And we just weren't having very many people come forward to seek help. We need to increase help seeking, and we need to make clear, accessible paths for people to receive help and support. And we simply need to reduce the number of people experiencing this. We need a real strong focus on prevention to reduce the incidents of RVSM.

“In terms of increasing help seeking, research is very clear, we need three critical things. Number one, we need trauma-informed services and clear, accessible ways to get to those services. Second, we need a trauma-informed culture. People need to feel safe to disclose, and the people in that community, particularly the leaders, need to know how to respond in a trauma-informed empathic way. And third, we have to change the way we handle RVSM sanctions and discipline. People will not repo...