Taking Back the Night in Chicago

In recognition of April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Huffington Post  published a blog by IMPACT Core Skills grad (WGS150) Nancy Matthews who is also Professor of Justice Studies and Women's and Gender's Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. In "Taking Back the Night in Chicago," Nancy opens with acknowledgment that violence in Chicago often makes the news but focuses on the constructive ways that students at Northeastern Illinois University are creating space to address and counter violence in the student-organized Take Back the Night program. Nancy mentions IMPACT Instructor Martha Thompson (also Professor Emeritus in Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies at Northeastern) and the self-defense program she did for Take Back the Night.

To read Nancy Matthews blog, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-a-matthews/taking-back-the-night-in-_b_5167063.html?1397746484.

RVA Promotes Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention

April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. An organization that creates awareness and promotes prevention year-round is Rape Victims Advocates (RVA). In recent years, RVA has shifted from an anti-rape approach to a “pro-consent” approach.

RVA has been around 30+ years , setting the gold standard for rape survivors, their families, and loved ones. RVA supports work, legal and medical help, counseling, and perhaps most well-known, emergency room advocacy.

The ER advocates receive 56 hours of training to be a responder to survivors of sexual assault. Once trained, advocates are on call (on a rotating basis) for 24-hour periods, and are called/paged to respond to participating Chicago area hospitals when a rape survivor shows up in the emergency room.

For more information about RVA, check out http://www.rapevictimadvocates.org/.

Rob Babcock, IMPACT Chicago Board Secretary and Suited Instructor

What is Trauma-Sensitive Prevention?

Susan Schorn, Austin TX (with many thanks to Lynne Marie Wanamaker, Northampton MA, for her input)

Remarks to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, March 2014
I'm a university administrator in Austin, Texas and I also teach empowerment-based self-defense for a local non-profit. I want to speak briefly on the neurobiology of trauma, a topic that I'm sure has come up already, but perhaps not in terms of prevention efforts. Researchers like Dr. Rebecca Campbell at the University of Michigan have made great strides in increasing awareness of the unique neurobiological effects of sexual assault, how the brain processes memories during and after an attack. We know that law enforcement officials need to be better educated about these effects in order to avoid re-traumatizing assault survivors during the reporting and investigation period. But we also need to take the neurobiological effects of trauma into account when we plan sexual assault prevention efforts. Here's why.

The CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey from 2010 found that 30% of rape victims are between the ages of 11-17. This means that a substantial number of incoming college students have already survived assaults. Thus anything that we call "prevention" must also be trauma sensitive, in order to avoid secondary victimization of assault survivors. In other words, there's really is no strictly "primary" prevention of sexual assault possible for adult populations, because so many of us are victimized as children or adolescents.

I spoke on an earlier listening session about how empowerment-based self-defense instruction furthers both the long- and short-term goals of this task force, by providing concrete tools for immediate disruption of assault, and by fostering cultural change. I want to point out that recent research also shows empowerment self-defense is especially effective in reducing RE-victimization, and it is affirmatively trauma-aware. We have assault survivors in our classes all the time, and our methods are designed to support and empower them. In the population we're talking about here, young people around the age of 17 and up, we know there will be a substantial number of survivors, and our prevention efforts need to reflect that fact. Empowerment self-defense reduces the risk of future assault while actually helping survivors process past trauma.

So again, this instructional approach, typified by the teaching of organizations like IMPACT and the National Women's Martial Arts Federation, reduces the harm of assault in multiple ways. It's a very efficient approach, and there is a good evidentiary base out there to support its use. I'd like to urge the Task Force to foreground empowerment self-defense instruction as a way to immediately reduce risk for students, change the campus culture surrounding assault, avoid re-traumatizing survivors, and provide affirmative, trauma-aware support. Thank you.

Everyone Has the Right to Be Safe

Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address, The White House, January 25, 2014
Hi, everybody. This week, I called members of my Cabinet to the White House to deal with a challenge that affects so many families and communities – the crime, the outrage, of sexual violence.

Sexual assault is an affront to our basic decency and humanity. And it’s about all of us – the safety of those we love most: our moms, our wives, our daughters and our sons.

Because when a child starts to question their self-worth after being abused, and maybe starts withdrawing… or a young woman drops out of school after being attacked… or a mother struggles to hold down a job and support her kids after an assault… it’s not just these individuals and their families who suffer. Our communities – our whole country – is held back.

Over the past five years, we’ve stepped up our efforts stop these crimes. And this week, we took another important step to protect young women at college. An estimated 1 in 5 women is sexually assaulted at college – and that’s totally unacceptable. So I’ve created the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. We’re going to help schools do a better job of preventing and responding to sexual assault on their campuses. Because college should be a place where our young people feel secure and confident, so they can go as far as their talents will take them.

And we’re going to keep working to stop sexual assaults wherever they occur. We’ll keep strengthening our criminal justice system, so police and prosecutors have the tools and training to prevent these crimes and bring perpetrators to justice. We’ll keep reaching out to survivors, to make sure they’re getting all the support they need to heal. We’re going to keep combating sexual assault in our armed forces, because when a member of our military is attacked by the very people he or she trusts and serves with, that’s an injustice that no one who volunteers to protect our nation should ever endure.

Some of this is a job for government. But really, it’s up to all of us. We’ve got to teach young people – men and women – to be brave enough to stand up and help put an end to these crimes. We’ve especially got to teach young men to show women the respect they deserve. I want every young man in America to know that real men don’t hurt women. And those of us who are fathers have a special obligation to make sure every young man out there understands that being a man means recognizing sexual violence and being outraged by it, and doing their part to stop it.

Perhaps most important, we need to keep saying to anyone out there who has ever been assaulted: you are not alone. We have your back. I’ve got your back.

I’m going to keep pushing for others to step up – across my administration, in Congress, in state capitals, college campuses and military bases all across our country. This is a priority for me, not only as President and Commander-in-Chief, but as a husband and a father of two extraordinary girls. And I hope it’s a priority for you. Because here in the United States of America, every man and woman, every girl and boy, has the right to be safe and protected and to pursue their own piece of the American dream.

Let’s all do our part to make it happen. Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Audio and video of the address are available online at www.whitehouse.gov.

Check out unpublished research on IMPACT/Model Mugging, 1993-2011

IMPACT Chicago Instructor Martha Thompson summarizes unpublished research on IMPACT and Model Mugging, 1993-2011. 

IMPACT participants

·         Most have never taken self-defense or martial arts (Cox 1993; Holzman 2011).

·         More than half have experienced some form of verbal, physical, or sexual abuse (Cox 1993; Holzman 2011).

Survivors

·         Self-defense training provides survivors with an opportunity to reconnect with their bodies and increases healing, confidence, self-esteem, and self- care (Anderson 1999).

·         Survivors, in contrast to those who have not experienced abuse, find the simulated scenarios in IMPACT as more realistic (Cox et al 1994; Holzman 2011).
      A safe and respectful classroom space  creates a positive experience for survivors (Rosenblum and Taska 2008).

Self-assessments

·         Participants’ confidence increases after taking IMPACT (Cox 1993; Cox et al 1994; Holzman 2011).

·         Participants’ confidence, self-efficacy, and self-esteem last for a considerable period of time (Chipping 2002; Cox et al 1994).

·         Though no difference in skill level, recent graduates have a higher level of confidence than those who have not participated in a course for a while (Cox et al 1994).

·         Participants report improved assertiveness, personal safety and self-perceptions (IMPACT Safety 2004).

·         Participants report increased physical safety and a reduction in fear-motivated avoidance behavior and these assessments remain after the course (Shim 1998).

·         Women learned to use the strengths they already had (Holzman 2011).

Self-defense skills

·         Women who practice with a padded mock assailant develop stronger self-defense skills than those who practice only against inanimate targets (Cox 1997).

·         Women’s ratings of self-confidence in their skills are supported by independent observers’ assessment of their skill level (Cox et al 1994).

·         Participants’ skills last for a long period of time (Cox et al 1994).

Beyond Self-Defense

·         Most participants report positive effects on other areas of their lives (Cox 1993).

·         Participants develop more positive body images (Shim 1998).

·         Participation increases healing for those who have experienced sexual assault (Anderson 1999).

·         IMPACT youth violence prevention programs give youth alternatives for making safe choices and living with greater confidence in the world (IMPACT Safety 2004).

 Symptoms of anxiety and depression are significantly reduced after participation in self-defense training and these observed changes are maintained (Shim 1998).

Marketing

·         Photos of physical technique stimulate the most interest but also the most anxiety (Amoroso and Thompson 2006).

·         Photos should tell a story from the defender’s point-of-view and accompanying text should say how the course will help address real-life problems (Amoroso and Thompson 2006).

References

Anderson, K. M. (1999). Healing the fighting spirit: Combining self-defense training and group therapy for women who have experienced incest. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (University of Minnesota)

Conlon, Lynne. 1993. Aggression in women victimized during childhood: The effects of self-defense training. Unpublished dissertation. San Francisco CA:The Professional School of Psychology.

Cox, D. S. An analysis of two forms of self-defense training and their Impact on women’s sense of personal safety self-efficacy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Old Dominion University)

Fisher, L. W. (1994). Facing the demon: Women, Model Mugging, and self-esteem. Unpublished master’s thesis. (Smith College School of Social Work)

.Frost, H. L. (1991). “Model Mugging”: A way to reduce women’s victimization. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Univ. of Kansas)

Gaddis, J. W. (1990). Women’s empowerment through Model Mugging: Breaking the cycle of social violence. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (UC Santa Barbara)

Lidsker, J. (1991). Women and self-defense training: A study of psychological changes experienced by participants in relation to assault history. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Pacific Graduate School of Psychology).

Peretz, M. E. 1991. The effects of psychotherapy and self-defense training on recovery of acquaintance and stranger rape. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (California School of Professional Psychology).

Rowe, N. P. 1993. Self-defense training: An empowerment process for women. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (California Institute of Integral Studies)

Schuiteman, J. A. 1990. Self-defense training and its contributions to the healing process for survivors of sexual assault. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Michigan State University).

SShim, D. J. 1998. Self-defense training, physical self-efficacy, body image, and avoidant behavior in women. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Boston University)

Vaselakos, W. D. 1999. The effects of women’s self-protection training on the belief of perceived control. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Adler School of Professional Psychology).

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[1] This does not include dissertations completed prior to 1997 because they are not available through Dissertation Abstracts online.

[2] Thanks to Richard Chipping, Julie Harmon, Meg Stone, and Erica Neuman who provided references and research on IMPACT/Model Mugging.

Why People are Against Self-Defense Training and What You Can Tell Them

A big surprise to many people who have seen the positive effects of IMPACT self-defense training is that there is resistance in the anti-violence movement to women learning self-defense. The positive outcomes of self-defense are not limited to personal anecdotes. There is much evidence that through self-defense training (Gidcyz and Dardis 2014), women and girls:

• Learn rape resistance strategies that decrease rape
• Experience positive mental health outcomes
• Increase their feelings of empowerment and self-efficacy
• Increase their general confidence and assertive sexual communication
• Do not blame themselves for prior sexual violence once they learn self-defense 
• Reduce post-traumatic stress
• More actively engage in social and recreational activities.

In spite of the overwhelming evidence for the effectiveness of self-defense training, misperceptions and misrepresentations remain (Gidcyz and Dardis, 2014), such as

• Women are not strong enough to resist rape
• Rape resistance is ineffective 
• Self-defense programs blame women for assault 
• Men should be solely responsible for stopping rape and teaching self-defense puts the responsibility on women.

All of us who have experienced IMPACT self-defense training know that women are strong enough to resist, that rape resistance is effective, and that women are not to blame for assault. The remaining question is, then, does teaching self-defense put responsibility on women when it should be on men? The answer is not either/or—men do have to stop raping women, but in the meantime, women need self-protection skills.

As Susan Schorn, self-defense instructor and author of Smile at Strangers, testified to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault:
"In the next 24 hours, 720 people will be assaulted in the United States, some of them on college campuses. Research shows that empowerment-based self-defense skills can prevent many of those assaults, and reduce the trauma and harm resulting from virtually all of them. And those skills could do the same for another 720 people the next day. And the day after that—that’s over 2,000 assaults we could prevent or mitigate, just between now (Wednesday) and Friday, with some simple but powerful instruction. So as we work toward our long-term goals, please be aware of the immediate, on-the-ground benefits of empowerment-based self-defense. It is a crucial tool for preventing and reducing the ongoing, daily harm of campus sexual assault, while also advancing the cause of cultural change."

While we work to change cultural values, norms, and behavior that support gender-based violence, Let’s make sure people have the tools to resist sexual violence right now!

Martha Thompson, IMPACT Chicago Lead Instructor

Dear Vice President Biden

IMPACT Chicago instructors—Ben, Bruce, Katie, Margaret, Mark, Martha, Molly, Nat, and Rob—joined over 90 other violence prevention and self-defense educators in writing a letter to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. The letter appears below.


Dear Vice President Biden, Ms. Jarrett, and members of the Task Force:

We write to you as prevention educators in the field of sexual assault reduction. We are encouraged and heartened by President Obama's recent decision to accelerate efforts to reduce sexual assault on our nations' campuses, and we have great hopes that your Task Force will make a real difference in our ongoing efforts to prevent sexual violence.

In light of the Task Force's mission to recommend "evidence-based best and promising practices for preventing and responding to rape and sexual assault," we wish to bring to your attention the prevention methods we teach—specifically, education and awareness about consent, boundary-setting, and self-defending. These methods, variously known as Personal Safety Education, Empowerment Self Defense, and Bystander Intervention Education, have a long history of success; they have been painstakingly developed over many years and rest on a solid evidentiary base. They teach the social, verbal, and physical skills necessary to reduce the risk of violence. When employed in a community as part of a spectrum of interventions, the methods we teach can effectively prevent violence before it occurs, give at-risk populations tools for immediate response, and help targeted populations prevent recurrence. We urge the committee to foreground these kinds of programs in its recommendations to the President.

As you no doubt know, there are now very clear directives for campuses to prevent and respond to sexual assault, thanks to the passage of the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act last year as part of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization. One new element is a mandate to provide comprehensive prevention education to all incoming students. This policy shift, recognizing the value of concrete, effective violence prevention skills, is long overdue—in fact for many years, educating students about self-protection methods was explicitly forbidden under the Department of Justice's Campus Grant program. We believe young people deserve skills they can use in their communities to effectively identify, prevent, respond to, and heal from violence; an emphasis on such skills-based education by the Task Force would do much to make up for lost time in prevention efforts on campuses nationwide.

Fortunately, the methods we advocate are already proven to work. Various federal U.S. institutes, grant-makers and departments recommend that people at high risk for violence practice them. A 2005 report commissioned by the National Institute of Justice, The Impact of Victim Self-Protections on Rape, found that skills taught and practiced in Personal Safety Education reduce the risk of rape more than 80 percent compared with nonresistance and did not significantly increase the risk of serious injury to the defender.

Personal Safety Education is also a key recommendation of numerous national experts in violence prevention, public health, sexual violence, criminology, and trauma studies. Prevention experts like Alan Berkowitz, Judith Herman, and Gavin De Becker have all recommended such training.

In accordance with the Task Force's directive to measure the success of prevention and response programs, we further note that Personal Safety Education has a demonstrated track record of quantifiable assessment. Its impact can be, and has been, measured. It provides good accountability along with its other good results. We have appended a bibliography that summarizes some of the many studies showing its benefits.

Furthermore, Personal Safety Education not only teaches effective skills to immediately prevent, disrupt, or reduce the harm from assault; it also contributes to broader cultural change. According to University of Illinois criminologist Paul Schewe, Personal Safety Education skills are supported by a preponderance of the evidence "for changing knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, or behavioral intentions and for reducing . . . victimization.” The more young people we equip with these skills, the closer we are to achieving a society that no longer normalizes or tolerates sexual violence, that speaks up to prevent or report it, and that supports victims and potential victims rather than blaming them. Thus Personal Safety Education should also be considered in light of the Task Force's mandate to "maximiz[e] the Federal Government's effectiveness in combating campus rape and sexual assault."

We deeply appreciate all your efforts to reduce sexual violence on our nation's campuses, and we hope you will consider us a resource as you continue to build effective policies on that front. Please know that we are working alongside you every day, teaching young people, supporting them, and assessing the effectiveness of our work. We are grateful to feel that the White House is our partner in this vital endeavor.

Thanks to Susan Schorn, self-defense instructor and author of Smile at Strangers for preparing the letter.