Social Safety at the UvA

Policy Proposals of the Central Student Council

Presentation by Alexander Gritsay

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 Overview
 The CSR’s instruments of priority in Social Safety
Policy
 Indicators of Social safety at the University
 Greater central efforts and a comprehensive online
environment
 Demonstration of successful examples at other
institutions
 The CSR stance has been formed in close
collaboration with the expert group on Sexual
Violence
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 Training for teaching staff
 Students have most contact with their teachers; a
notable portion of them are on part-time contracts
and in some faculties student assistants is
becoming a more common practice
 BKO & mandatory trainings – what is the place of
social safety trainings?
 To bridge the existing gap, a basic mandatory
training on social conduct must be given to the
teaching staff at the university

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 Trust Persons
 Students struggle finding trust persons, or
are unaware of their existence
 Facilitation of trust persons must be
carefully evaluated with particular
consideration of their working environment
and availability of hours
 Emphasis on training for as many cases of
social misconduct as possible

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 Monitoring Social Safety &
Anonymous Reporting
 There are currently no tools to monitor
students’ social safety
 Difficult to plan/amend policy when such
vital information is missing
 Reporting tools, including anonymous
reporting would help to address this
issue

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 Monitoring Social Safety &
Anonymous Reporting
The purpose of anonymous reporting:
1. Social safety indicator

2. Breaking the silence and empowering

students to seek help

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 Indicators
 more than 55% of students “know someone in (their)
community that has been pressured to engage in sexual
activity against their will’ (OBOV survey, 2019 )
 When asked if they “know someone who has been
intentionally and inappropriately touched without their
consent’, the number rises to 83% (OBOV survey, 2019)
 71% of students have "felt unwelcome in a social situation
because of (their) gender"(OBOV survey, 2019)
 67% of students "know someone in (their) community that
has been subjected to offensive sexual remarks"(OBOV
survey, 2019)

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 Online Environment
 Comprehensive support platform, offering a wide range of information
on social safety and wellbeing for students and staff
 Composition of tools for students, staff or any other stakeholders to
seek help in case of social misconduct
 Provide direct link to members of staff responsible for social safety (e.g.
trust persons)
 Demonstration of clear vision of the UvA on the topic of Social Safety &
Sexual Violence
 Such platform would necessitate a consistent effort in making it
functional and current. This is why the CSR has proposed that a distinct
structure/personnel is made responsible for the platform

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 Awareness Campaign
 Currently being led by student societies and
initiatives. The CSR asks that they are
supported in this by the University
 Most importantly, the CSR advocates for a
UvA-wide awareness campaign aimed at
breaking the silence amongst students
and staff and making it absolutely clear
that instances of social misconduct will
not be tolerated
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 https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/student
/index.aspx
 https://www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk/
 https://www.guildofstudents.com/noton/

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Thank you for your attention!

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