Consent Education Sessions
What are Consent Education Sessions?
Western Washington University (WWU) Civil Rights & Title IX Compliance (CRTC) coordinates with the Counseling & Wellness Center to provide education opportunities for students who may have engaged in risky or problematic sexual behaviors. Educational interventions can be included as part of an Alternate Resolution Agreement or independently initiated by students without CRTC involvement.
Consent education sessions are individualized learning sessions with a consent and healthy relationships professional from the Counseling and Wellness Center. Sessions are private and confidential, except for safety concerns and mandated reporting disclosures. Sessions incorporate a variety of learning activities that are designed based on research related to behavior change in cases of sexual misconduct. They are designed to address and change harmful or problematic behaviors but are not intended to serve as therapeutic clinical counseling.
A Confidential and Private Educational Space
- Assess their learning, understanding, and conditioning related to sex, relationships, power, and communication
- Identify personal, relational, and sexual goals
- Reflect, process, and assess the impact of specific experiences, both on oneself and others
- Build sexual and relationship communication skills
- Create a learning plan for the future
- Definitions of consent
- Empathy and perspective-taking
- What are healthy and harmful sexual behaviors?
- Sex and substance use
- Consent language and communication
- Communicating desires and boundaries in sexual interactions
- Receiving and responding to boundaries in sexual interactions
- Social and body language cues
- Gender, masculinity, and power dynamics
- Social conditioning related to intimate relationships and sex
- Sexual scripts and expectations
- Peer influences in relationships
- Sexual citizenship: the acknowledgment of the equal rights of each person to sexual self-determination
- How to build healthy relationships
Sessions are Individually Designed
Sessions are individually designed based on the assessed needs of each student. They are typically 4-6 sessions in total, although the total number of sessions can be adjusted according to the needs and requests of the participants. Interventions are based on behavior-change research and are facilitated by a provider with over 15 years of experience working with survivors and in sexual violence prevention.
Before sessions begin, the Complainant is invited to share their goals, hopes, and any context they want to share with the provider designing content for the sessions. This input is not required, and when a Complainant chooses not to share their input, the facilitator will be briefed by the Civil Rights & Title IX
Compliance Office on the basic context and guidance for what would be most helpful in the sessions.
Considering Educational Intervention as part of your Title IX Alternative Resolution?
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Both parties need to voluntarily agree to participate in the Alternative Resolution Agreement process
- The outcomes of this intervention depend on the participant's openness to learn
- Each party has the opportunity to offer feedback on the topics and priorities addressed in educational sessions, it is ultimately up to the educator to determine content
