On March 19th, Jen Collins and Alice Dautigny guided me to the OSVRSE bureau at 550 Sherbrooke Ouest. I was able to visit the Office and learn more about their work, a necessity for students’ wellbeing that I feel we should know more about.
The following interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.
Aurelien Lechantre for the McGill Daily (MD): Could you begin by introducing yourselves and what you do for OSVRSE?
Jen Collins (JC): Yes, I’m Jen Collins. I’m the educational advisor for OSVRSE, the Office of Sexual Violence Response Support and Education. I’ve been here since August and I do programming, promote things for the office and manage the volunteer team, which are called peer educators.
Alice Dautigny (AD): And I’m Alice Dautigny. I’m part of the peer educators team at OSVRSE: we are a team of seven student volunteers who give workshops to different groups and clubs from McGill, but we’re trying to open it up to more students. Thus our work consists in helping organize events, managing the OSVRSE Instagram, and educating the community on how to respond to assault disclosure or situations of sexual violence.
MD: Then would you say the main activity of the office consists in the education aspect through such workshops?
JC: OSVRSE is first and foremost a support space for those impacted by sexual violence. It’s a central spot on campus for that: we support anybody impacted by sexual violence by creating a safe space. We help people navigate receiving sexual violence disclosures from a friend, and support those who have experienced sexual violence themselves. Even professors come in and ask about how to make their classroom a more safe and welcoming environment. So we help with accommodation, psychosocial support and counselling, safety planning, etc.
Then our student volunteers do workshops for clubs. Peer-to-peer learning is great because the students understand each other: they know what they’re going through and how to adapt presentations to the audience.
MD: What do these workshops mainly consist of, and what do they entail? Is it like a class about the subject, the topic you’re about, or is it interactive? Who is your audience?
AD: Most of our audience, until now, is composed of clubs looking to organize events. Usually these events involve alcohol and drinking, so workshops are required for the audience to be able to respond if there’s any issue during their event. The workshops are educational content about several topics that can be interesting for student organizations to be aware of: being an active bystander and responding to disclosure (understanding how to behave if someone during an event comes to you for support). Our workshops are designed to be interactive, with lots of questions, simulations so people can put themselves in the place of an active bystander to prepare for real case situations, looking at real life scenarios, and always a 30-minute Q&A session.
MD: You mentioned active bystanders. What do you mean by that exactly?
AD: In a workshop context, we like to use the term active bystander to teach participants how to behave when you’re a witness of sexual violence or sexual harassment. So usually it’s looking at our behaviour as witnesses in public spaces and can also be if you witness your friends in toxic relationships with dangerous sexual violence behaviors.
MD: Why do you think it important to comprehend this role of active bystander, specifically on campus?
AD: I feel like McGill’s campus is both huge and very lively: partying, drinking and meeting people are an inherent part of campus life. Thus it is really important to have associations like OSVRSE and to make sure everyone is aware of the reality of sexual violence at our age. There’s the beginning of many relationships and discovery of the dating world, so it is important to help prevent and educate people on what is a safe relationship and how to recognise abuse, sexual violence or toxicity — as, unfortunately, sexual violence is a reality for thousands of people, especially students
MD: Do you think most McGill students are educated on such matters today? Are there other initiatives that OSVRSE has put in place to further education and awareness surrounding sexual violence on campus?
JC: It is difficult to measure this precisely with stats, but I think “It Takes All Of Us” (“It Takes All of Us” is an online education program about consent and sexual violence, mandatory for every student entering McGill) is great in that aspect. It was created before I came here, but I got to take part in doing it and seeing it in the office. It’s really helpful: I wish I had it when I was in undergrad at my university.
AD: Actually, I heard about OSVRSE through the “It Takes All of Us” form. I looked up who the association was after seeing it in the form, then I saw they were searching for volunteers and joined! But the other volunteers mostly heard of it through “My Involvement” or directly on the OSVRSE website.
MD: How and where might we find you? If a student needs support or just wants to participate in a workshop, how can we get to know that?
JC: You can go online at the OSVRSE website: you could book a workshop, you could see a response advisor, the different possibilities are all on our website and if you don’t see a time slot that works for you, you can always email the office, osvrse@mcgill.ca, and we’ll get back to you within our office hours.
MD: Do you have anything to add? Perhaps an upcoming event or somewhere we might find you?
JC: Yes! On April 1, in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we are holding a trivia event at Mac campus. There’ll be food and prizes, and it’ll be really fun. We got a lot of local businesses to donate gift cards for raffles and prizes. So we really want to end the year with a big, fun event – I think everyone loves trivia.
AD: And follow our Instagram (@OSVRSEmcgill) if you want to stay updated and participate in future workshops and events!