How the Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator Can Help
The Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator provides information to uLethbridge community members affected by sexual violence. You can meet with the Coordinator for more information about options regardless of when or where the sexual violence happened.
Reporting and Complaints: Assistance in making an informed decision about next steps should you choose to report to authorities within the university or to the police
Information and Referrals: Provide up-to-date community resource and support information.
Education: Deliver education, prevention, training and awareness activities with campus partners
The Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator can work with you in determining what support and/or accommodations may best support you and help you access them. Everyone's needs will be different, and the types and forms of support and accommodations made available will be tailored on a case-by-case basis. The Coordinator can assist you in understanding each of these options and help you collect all the information that you need in order to make an appropriate decision on next steps.
Guiding Principles
Everyone who accesses support from the Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.
- We believe that everyone who accesses service has skills and strengths for survival, resistance, transformation and autonomy.
- We affirm and respect that individuals are the experts of their own lives and support self-determination.
- We acknowledge that acts of sexual violence are linked to acts of systematic oppression, including but not limited to sexism, racism, colonialism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia.
- We understand our work is connected to the larger movements to end gender based violence and will work with community partners both on and off campus
- We recognize that hurt people can hurt others and have the right to heal.
- We believe that while harm caused cannot be erased, accountability, justice and healing are possible through more than one path.
- We ensure that we work with service users to support and promote informed decision making.
- We believe service users have the right to ask questions and provide feedback.
- We acknowledge that as people, we are always learning, which is how we grow and do better work.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is essential in allowing you to feel safe when seeking support. Before you disclose, you have the right to ask the person about the level of confidentiality you can expect.
All discussions with the Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator are confidential, however, there are times when we are obligated to share information, including:
- An individual is at risk of life-threatening, self-harm;
- There is risk to the safety of the University and/or broader community;
- Disclosure is required by law; and/or
- Evidence of the disclosed incident of Sexual Violence is available in the public realm (e.g. video shared publicly on social media).
If any of these situations apply to you, you will be supported at every step of the process. At any point, you have the right to clarify the boundaries of the Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator's confidentiality. Here is the Consent For Services/Confidentiality Form that the Coordinator uses in information meetings:
The Current Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator
Whitney Balog is the uLethbridge Sexual Violence Prevention Coordinator. She is committed to supporting the uLethbridge campus in deepening sensitivity and compassion for individuals who have been affected by sexual violence. Working through an intersectional and power-sensitive lens, Whitney hopes to work with campus partners to develop and offer education programming, resource information, and training opportunities that meaningfully contribute to a campus that shares responsbility for prevention efforts, practices everyday consent, and honors autonomy and choice. Whitney is a Registered Social Worker and holds a Masters in Social Work. Whitney is a former undergraduate student of the University of Lethbridge where she first stepped into gender-based violence prevention work.
Contact Whitney for questions related to sexual violence or to schedule an information meeting:
Phone: 403-317-2862
Email: sexualviolenceinfo@uleth.ca