Detailing the process
Provide detail and clarity about what happens, and who helps the students involved, at every stage of the process following a disclosure or report.
One of the messages we heard from participants was that, although they had received a summarized version of their university SV/SA policy at the beginning of their focus groups, they still did not have a sense of what a victim/survivor or respondent would experience in following the steps laid out in the policy. For example, who is this person they would they talk to? What kind of interaction would they have? What kind of information or support would they be given on first contact with the system? Would they be left alone after filing a report? The recommendation “Providing accounts of how the policy works” is also meant to rectify these kinds of uncertainties.