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What is BEST?
A program of Men As Peacemakers (MAP), BEST is a comprehensive approach to campus sexual violence prevention that includes:
The BEST Party Model - An innovative environment-shaping program designed to empower students with the awareness, relationships, and skills necessary to shape the campus environments they occupy and influence. This 8-week curriculum (with facilitator training) targets social environments that are high-risk for sexual violence, engaging student leaders and other influential student groups (athletic teams, Greek houses, clubs and associations) in community-building and making grassroots, student-driven changes to campus life and culture.
NEW! The BEST Alternative Response Project – Incorporating both primary prevention models and restorative justice approaches, this tertiary prevention program was created in response to feedback from both survivors and victim service providers. The program is designed to enhance the campus adjudication process, and aims to help students who have caused harm learn about the impact of their choices and their role in addressing the root causes of sexual violence. Currently in development, this program will be piloted by some of our university partners during the 2021-2022 academic year.
BEST Technical Assistance and Support Packages - BEST also supports school administrators, coaches, staff, and community partners in identifying their roles, partners, and prevention tool that best meets the needs of their campus. Technical assistance includes specialized training of relevant staff and volunteers (including student center staff and volunteers, resident assistants, etc.) in order to build campus capacity to effectively educate first year students and engage student leaders, consultation on developing a training process and framework, adaptation of existing tools to fit a specific campus context, and practical tools and resources that will help campuses to identify “hotspots,” assess buy-in, identify key community, campus, and student partners, and plan next steps for implementing BEST on their own campuses.
The 2022 BEST Campus Prevention Institute Summary:
The BEST Campus Prevention Institute is a 5-part virtual series that combines live presentations, interviews, and panel discussions with opportunities to interact with the content, engage with presenters, and receive personalized recommendations for creating and implementing a campus sexual violence prevention plan using BEST tools and strategies.
This virtual series is designed for:
Campus staff and administrators;
College/university students (including: student center staff and volunteers/athletes/Greek life, student leaders…);
Community-based advocacy programs doing campus work; and
State agencies connected to campus sexual violence prevention efforts.
Teams of 3 or more per campus are encouraged to attend!
Event Purpose:
In light of several recent high-profile occurrences of campus sexual violence across the state, and combined with the challenges of creating a safe campus experience for all students and staff during a global pandemic, the BEST Campus Institute Virtual Series provides tangible next steps for identifying and implementing proven – and innovative - prevention models that meet the specific needs of your campus community.
At the BEST Campus Institute, attendees will:
Engage with other campus and community partners, public health experts, and student leaders, exchange practical knowledge, ask questions, and problem-solve together;
Interact with multiple innovative prevention tools created specifically for the campus community and identify which tools will best meet the needs of your own campus;
Learn new strategies for measuring the impact of campus sexual violence prevention programs on campus culture and environment;
Using a campus-specific inventory tool, assess administrative buy-in, identify key community, campus, and student partners, and plan next steps for implementing BEST on their own campuses;
Sign-up for a personalized consultation and support session!
Registration Price: This series is FREE and space is limited. It is recommended that participants attend all sessions, as the content is sequential, and each session builds on the next. However, if you are unable to attend, a recording of the session and materials will be sent out to registrants.
Virtual Session 1: The BEST Party Model and Interactive Student Panel
Date: January 20th, 9-11AM
Description: Parties can be a vital part of the college experience. They are student-driven environments, and they shape a culture that exists in parallel with sanctioned campus spaces and policies. In turn party culture has a big effect on the overall campus environment. While parties are intended to be great experiences for everyone, there are many students on college campuses for whom the party scene is simply not safe. Every campus is unique, yet parties are consistently a significant point of intersection with sexual violence on college campuses. These conditions present a tremendous opportunity for students to reimagine their experiences and practice new skills and ways of being that can lead to student-shaped equitable campus environments.
In this session, participants will receive an overview of the BEST Party Model, a component of the BEST Comprehensive Approach to campus sexual violence. The BEST Party Model is innovative, primary prevention, environment-shaping program designed to empower students with the awareness, relationships, and skills necessary to shape the campus environments they occupy and influence. This 8-week curriculum (with Facilitator Guide and Facilitator Training) targets social environments that are high-risk for sexual violence, engaging student leaders and other influential student groups (such as, athletic teams, Greek houses, clubs, and associations) in community-building and making grassroots, student-driven changes to campus life and culture.
Participants will also hear directly from students, who will share their perspectives on campus party culture, their experiences with the BEST Party Model, and how they anticipate using their new skills and knowledge to reimagine a more equitable, safe, and fun campus experience for all. If time allows, the student panel will respond to audience questions during the live Q&A portion of the session.
Missed the live session? click here to watch the recording! Fill out the evaluations for each session to receive a BEST swag bag.
Virtual Session 2: BEST in Context: Public Health Models and Primary Prevention Strategies on Campus
Date: February 10th, 9-11 AM
Description: What is community-level prevention? How can environment-shaping be used to change campus culture and environment? The BEST Comprehensive Approach to campus sexual violence recognizes the complex nature of campus culture and climate, and utilizes a variety of tools in order to leverage existing buy-in and meet the specific needs of each campus.
In this session, participants will hear a live, facilitated conversation between public health experts and community-based prevention experts about which prevention strategies they have used (successfully and unsuccessfully) for campus sexual violence prevention, what short and long-term outcomes campus prevention programs are capable of producing, and how to decide which prevention approach to take on a given campus. Participants will also learn about the BEST Theory of Change and will have the opportunity to ask the panel experts questions during the live Q&A portion of this session.
Missed the live session? click here to watch the recording! Fill out the evaluations for each session to receive a BEST swag bag.
Virtual Session 3: Campus-Wide Culture Change: Understanding Community-Level Prevention and Measuring the Impact of an Environment-Shaping Strategy
Date: March 10th, 9-11 AM
Description: When attempting to get buy-in from campus administrators and stakeholders for the implementation of a sexual violence prevention program, the first question typically asked is: “Does it work?” The BEST Party Model engages influential student leaders, student groups, and organizations as the primary drivers of the environment-shaping strategy, resulting in holistic, student-driven shift in campus culture. But creating a college atmosphere and culture where sexual violence doesn’t happen in the first place is a long-term process, and measuring the impact of an environment-shaping program entails more than participant surveys. So how do we effectively measure the impact of this strategy on campus environments?
In this facilitated conversation with public health experts, researchers, and BEST staff, participants will hear about how MAP and its evaluation partners have used different research approaches to better understand and measure changes to culture and environment on campus. Additionally, participants will learn new ways to shift the narrative and better communicate the campus prevention “story” to partners, stakeholders, and administrators.
Missed the live session? click here to watch the recording!
Virtual Session 4: Implementation/ Overcoming Obstacles
Date: April 7th, 9-11 AM
Description: What does it take to implement an environment-shaping program like BEST on your campus? Who needs to be involved? How do you recruit students? In this session, participants will hear from MAP and campus and community partners about the various pathways to implementation, potential challenges, and lessons learned from their unique perspectives. Participants will use a campus-specific inventory tool to identify “hotspots” on their campus, assess administrative buy-in, identify key community, campus, and student partners, and plan next steps for implementing BEST on their own campuses.
Missed the live session? click here to watch the recording!
Virtual Session 5: The BEST Alternative Response Program: Tertiary Prevention Program for Accused Students
Date: May 19th, 9-11 AM
Description: When an act sexual violence is committed on campus, preventing harm from happening again (ie: tertiary prevention) often becomes the priority. Traditionally, victims of campus sexual violence are offered three possible paths: participating in the campus Title IX process, reporting to law enforcement (criminal justice process), and/or accessing campus or community-based advocacy services outside of the campus or criminal justice processes. However, survivors and advocacy partners have long requested an additional response: a program aimed at changing the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that led an accused student to cause harm, and encouraging that student to take responsibility for their choices and actions.
The BEST Alternative Response Program is a new educational program informed by, and created in response to, survivor and advocate feedback. This 4-week curriculum integrates both primary prevention models and restorative justice practices, and provides campuses with another option for tertiary prevention of campus sexual violence. To be truly effective, tertiary prevention programs like the BEST Alternative Response Program should occur within the context of a commitment on behalf of campus administrators and student leaders to primary prevention – preventing the harm from happening in the first place. In this interview-style session, participants will be introduced to a framework for campus sexual violence prevention that includes both primary and tertiary prevention components, learn about how some campuses have set up their referral and completion process, and hear from restorative justice experts about how these approaches can be effectively used for long-term prevention of sexual violence.
Missed the live session? click here to watch the recording!
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Questions? Contact sean@menaspeacemakers.org