Campus Sexual Assault & The Red Zone

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Sexual Violence

It’s our first episode of the 2025-2026 academic year! 

Join Racheal Reed-Maloney (she/her) as she connects with representatives from The Blue Bench, Community Education Director Kaity Gray (she/her) and Executive Director Becca Tiell-Krekeler (she/her), to talk about sexual violence on college campuses, The Red Zone, the impact sexual violence has on college students, and how you can intervene if you are witnessing something that may lead to sexual violence. 

Learn more about the free and low-cost services The Blue Bench has to offer to the Denver Metro Community below.

The Blue Bench

24/7 Hotline (available in English & Spanish)  303-322-7273

Live Chat 

Sources for this podcast episode 

If you are in crisis and need immediate support, please call our 24/7 interpersonal violence helpline at 303-556-2255.

Request an Appointment with an Advocate at
https://www.thepca.org/online-appointment-request

Request a Violence Prevention Presentation at
https://www.thepca.org/prevention-education

Instagram @phoenixauraria

Transcript

Racheal Reed-Maloney  0:00  
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Phoenix cast.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  0:19  
Hello Auraria, welcome back to campus. We're so excited to see you all this semester. We wanted to kick off our podcast for season eight this year by starting with talking about sexual violence on college campuses and the red zone. And I have some special guests with me today to talk about that from the Blue Bench here in Denver. So I'm going to turn it over to we'll start with Katie. Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?

Katie Gray  0:44  
Yeah. Hi. My name is Katie Gray, and I am the Community Education Director at the Blue Bench. I have my master's in educational psychology, and I've spent most of my career doing nonprofit education and training, and I'm really happy to be here today. Thanks so much. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  1:01  
And Becca, would you like to introduce yourself next? 

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  1:05  
Yeah, my name is Becca Tiell-Krekeler. I use she/her pronouns, and I am the Executive Director of the Blue Bench. I have a master's in social work and my license to practice therapy, and my whole career has been in working with survivors of interpersonal violence, doing advocacy therapy and mentoring those who who work with survivors. So I'm really happy to be here. Thank you so much for having us. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  1:34  
Of course,yeah, we're trying to expand out our networking with who we do podcast with. So I'm really glad that y'all were able to find some time and connect with me about this topic today. And before we get started, listeners, I want to give a quick content warning. So we're going to be talking about sexual violence and sexual assault throughout this podcast today. So if anything you hear is triggering and you are needing some immediate support, you're welcome to call our 24/7 Helpline at 303-556-2255 or you can call the blue benches helpline, which is also 24/7 which is 303-322-7273

Racheal Reed-Maloney  2:19  
Alright, so Let's jump into it. Before we talk about the specific scope of sexual violence on college campuses, we want to give you all some context about the larger scope of how sexual violence affects folks in our country and our community. I want to turn it over to Katie. Can you tell our listeners more about the larger scope of sexual violence and its impact?

Katie Gray  2:38  
Yeah. So we know that sexual violence impacts a really high number of people. We know that research is telling us that one in two women, one in three trans individuals, and one in three men will experience contact sexual violence in their lifetime. And contact, sexual violence refers to any unwanted sexual touching. We also know that when we talk about more specific types of sexual violence, those numbers change. So whether we're talking about rape specifically, which is defined by the FBI as the penetration, no matter how slight of the vagina or anus with any body part or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person without the consent of the victim, those numbers are about like one in four or 25% of women, and for men, it's one in 26 or 4% but a lot of that comes from the way that the rape is defined and the statistics are measured. So when we also count men who are forced to penetrate someone else, that number goes up to more about 10% or one in 10. And we also know that sexual violence impacts different populations at different rates. Some groups experience it disproportionately often. This is due to the fact that they have less power in society and are less likely to be believed if they report. So we know that women of color are impacted at higher rates, specifically and especially Native American women. Also people with disabilities, three to four times more likely to experience sexual violence, and then also young people. 42% of sexual assaults are people under the age of 18. So we also know that young people on college campuses experience high rates, which is what we're here to talk about today. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  4:15  
Thank you for that overview that's really helpful, just so folks have a better understanding of sexual violence before we talk about it, like we mentioned, with that more narrow scope when we're talking specifically about our campuses. So now that we have that understanding of sexual violence and the different ways that it might be defined, we're going to talk a little bit more about the red zone on college campuses. So I do want to note, when we're talking about the red zone, I'm talking about very narrow research, to provide some context, the research, like I said, is very limited, limited. It's narrow, and it specifically focused on the experiences of cis gender white women at traditional four year schools where they had residence halls. So I do want to name that, because there is a lot of critiques of that research about how do we adequately talk about the red zone and the impacts when it's such, it only really focuses on a specific identity group who attended a specific kind of school. When you think about like our campus, Auraria, we're not a traditional school. We have students who come to our campus between the ages of 18 all the way up to their 70s. So maybe you're wondering, why even talk about it if it potentially doesn't apply, is just so important to talk about. I know our office, we often have folks who come in to seek our services because they identify they've experienced some form of sexual violence within that time frame for the Red Zone, which is usually between student New Student Orientation and around Thanksgiving break, and what the research has shown for the red zone is that the red zone is when, generally, first year college students are at the highest risk of experiencing sexual violence, and over 50% of all college campus sexual assaults happen within that red zone. So that's why I want to talk about it. Because yes, while that research is limited, we just want to provide information and education around this issue. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  6:04  
So when we're specifically talking about students, as I mentioned, the current research around the red zone specifically focuses on cisgender white women. When I was doing some research trying to get a better understanding of just the general students experience with sexual violence, even if it's not within that red zone, I was able to find some information that shared that folks between the ages of 18 and 24 at higher risk of experiencing sexual violence. So definitely applies to our campus and a lot of other colleges and campuses, men enrolled in college are 78% more likely to experience sexual assault compared to other men of the same age who are not enrolled in college, a lot of that research specifically focuses on the hazing that can happen if students, like specifically young men are trying to pledge into a fraternity. While there's a lot more education about the harms of certain forms of hazing. Unfortunately, it still happens that men experience sexual violence in those spaces, but also young men may feel pressured to engaging in sex acts they don't want to engage in because of social pressures in their communities or with their friend groups.

Katie Gray  7:11  
And that makes sense, because we know that at its core, sexual violence isn't about sex or desire, but about power and control. And so I think that would relate to the hazing that you mentioned, because we know that perpetrators use manipulation and coercion to really force or assert dominance over someone else, and oftentimes they'll choose people who they perceive to be more vulnerable, less likely to report, less likely of their rights, or who have something to lose.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  7:37  
Exactly. Yeah. So even, like we were doing research, we do this for our supporting survivors workshop. We go over research that shows that a lot of young men don't tell anybody they're a survivor of violence, whether it's sexual violence, relationship violence, or stalking, and a lot of that is the case because maybe they're being hazed into a fraternity and they're like, Well, this is just how it is. I shouldn't be talking about this. There's a lot of barriers for men to come forward and share that they are a survivor.

Katie Gray  8:03  
The low reporting on statistics for male survivors of sexual abuse is certainly due to the low reporting and the barriers that exist. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  8:14  
Yeah,definitely. Also for college students who are trans or non binary, there is research that shows that they experience higher rates of sexual violence compared to folks who are cisgender. Disabled Students are more likely to experience sexual violence than able bodied students. Katie kind of mentioned this before, but LGB plus male students are nine times more likely to experience sexual violence than heterosexual male students, and LGB plus female students are two times more likely to experience sexual violence than heterosexual female students. And then lastly, black and Latino students experience sexual violence at higher rates than white students.

Katie Gray  8:53  
And I think we can draw conclusions, we can make assumptions based on the data that we know about sexual violence in general, and then sexual violence in the red zone, knowing that more marginalized identities are going to experience sexual violence at higher rates in a lot of different contexts,

Racheal Reed-Maloney  9:10  
Definitely, exactly, and that's why it's so important to talk about these things, even if some of this research isn't specific to our campus. 

Katie Gray  9:16  
I also think it's important to mention that just because someone has a marginalized identity doesn't mean that they will experience sexual violence, it just means that that likelihood is increased

Racheal Reed-Maloney  9:27  
Exactly.So we touched on a bit about the red zone. We talked about some research about college students who experience sexual violence. Now, despite everyone knowing sexual violence is bad, it still happens. Katie, this is going to sound like a loaded question, and, can you give us a general explanation as to why sexual violence happens, especially on college campuses?

Katie Gray  9:49  
Well, again, I'm going to call back to the power and control. We know that sexual violence is usually an act of control and not desire, and I think there are a lot of reasons. And said it's especially, especially likely to happen during this red zone and on college campuses in general, a lot of that is going to be due to sort of new social dynamics and alcohol fueled environments. We know that alcohol does not cause sexual violence, but it is used as a tool to incapacitate victims and also to disguise perpetrator behavior. So at the beginning of a school year, there are a lot of parties, and sometimes alcohol is being used for the first time, sort of unmonitored. And a lot of these parties and gatherings are common early in the semester, oftentimes with heavy alcohol use. And sometimes people intentionally use alcohol to lower their inhibitions for maybe sexual activity that would be consensual or possibly for just new environments and socializing, and perpetrators may exploit intoxication to reduce someone's ability to resist, remember to sort of disguise that behavior. We also know that even though it's problematic, that alcohol can complicate reporting and credibility, and sometimes victims are even isolated and incapacitated by alcohol and sort of orchestrated schemes that are employed by groups of people or individuals. And I also think the newness and isolation of first year students who may be less familiar with campus resources, safety protocols and support systems, who also may be feeling additional pressure to possibly fit in new socially and make them more susceptible to this kind of manipulation or targeting. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  11:31  
Yeah,you bring up a great point, because I oftentimes think about college students back when I was a college student over 10 years ago, which is wild to say, but it's kind of like some students come to college and they want to reinvent themselves and find new peer groups and friends. So definitely, a lot of that piece you were talking about feeling like you want to fit in, and that peer pressure, I want to experience these new things I didn't have an opportunity to experience before, can unfortunately leave folks vulnerable to experiencing violence, and it's not because of them, it's because of the environment, not taking care of them, making sure they're safe.

Katie Gray  12:06  
Yeah, I want to make sure that I'm very clear that the perpetrator is always responsible, and the responsibility always lies on the perpetrator, and just because people may do something that puts them at risk, like someone's not going to become assaulted unless someone makes that choice to cross their boundaries and assault them. So when we talk about alcohol, I always want to be very clear that alcohol does not cause sexual assault. However, it does invite some additional conversations to think about how we can define consent when alcohol is present, and how we can really look at what incapacitation looks like as well. So I think that that's really important to understand.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  12:41  
And you just mentioned consent. Can you define to our listeners what consent is?

Katie Gray  12:48  
Yes, I would be happy to so consent can be really complex and it does it have some nuance, but we know that we can define it pretty well when we talk about some elements that have to be present in order for consent to be present. So consent at its core is permission. It is permission that has to be asked for, and that ask needs to be met with an enthusiastic agreement, so an agreement that can't be confused for anything other than a yes. I grew up hearing that no means no, but really, a better way to talk about consent is saying that yes means yes, because we know that the absence of no is not a yes. Consent also has to be possible under free will, which means they're making decision without the fear of a negative consequence or a promise of a reward. Also has to happen under equal power, and it is a mutual agreement among all of the parties that's clearly communicated that clear communication and a mutual agreement needs to be there for each new activity, for specific named activities as well. You don't want to just be like, I consent to doing stuff. Right? That means different things for different people. If you took your car to the mechanic, you wouldn't say, do stuff to my car. You would say, I need my tires rotated and my oil change. And expect that that and only that would be the activities and on that it can be withdrawn at any time. It must be present every time. And it is the initiators responsibility to make sure that consent is there again. There are a few times we know that consent is not possible, which is if there is any sort of force, pressure or coercion. And we do know that non violent coercion, which is like pressure, manipulation, trickery, promises and friendship or relationships is the most common way to get compliance without consent for sexual assault, and really, weapons are only used in about 11% of overall sexual assault cases. We also know that consent is not possible if someone is incapacitated due to drugs or alcohol, and I think we're going to talk a little bit more about alcohol, because what is incapacitation? That is another complex question. Also, it's not possible if someone is asleep or unconscious for whatever reason, or if someone has an intellectual or developmental disability that renders them unable to understand the nature of what's being asked by them. I want to be very clear that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can absolutely consent, have healthy sex lives as long as they understand and have the capacity to understand what's being asked of them. And then also outside of the ages of consent, which does vary by state and just because someone is within the legal ages of consent, I want to be clear that all of those other things that I mentioned before still need to be present in order for consent to be present. We also know that perpetrators will often use trust and familiarity, and we know that over the for adults, 80% of people will know they're assailant, and for children, that number is even higher. So it's important that we think about that most sexual assaults are committed by someone that the survivor knows. And I think that we have sort of a myth that's been perpetuated by the media and through a society that we're really looking at strangers in the alley, but a lot of times it has to do with trust and familiarity. And I think that that is another thing that has this red zone number be so high, because there's a lot of new relationships that are forming, and it can make it really harder to identify the behavior as violence, even when it's clearly involving the crossing of boundaries or the disregarding of consent. It really does make it harder for people to identify even when it's happening to them.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  16:11  
I appreciate you bringing that up, because, yeah, there's this common narrative, even in 2025 that if you experience sexual violence, it's going to be a stranger you don't know, someone jumping out of the bushes or you're just gonna get drugged at a party, but that's not the case a lot of the times, and that can make it really hard for survivors to even want to come forward and share that something's happened to them, because if it's a friend they have, or if it's someone that they are trying to engage in a romantic relationship with, or just an acquaintance, they may have concerns about coming forward and putting this label on them that they were assaulted by this person create complexities for survivors.

Katie Gray  16:46  
Yeah, and it's interesting that you mentioned being drugged. So we know that overall reported drug facilitated sexual assaults, 96% of them involve alcohol alone, without any drugs like ghp or Hypno and all, and studies are estimating that between 50 to 77% of sexual assault involve alcohol consumption by the victim or the perpetrator, or many times both. And we know that this makes consent feel even more complicated, and so it's really important to be able to talk about how to use alcohol safely and how to help others be able to consume alcohol safely and make sure that we are directing that attention appropriately, which is on the perpetrator and not on the environment or the alcohol itself.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  17:31  
And I know that y'all have a program. Do you mind taking a moment to talk about that program at the Blue Bench has that addresses this specifically? 

Katie Gray  17:38  
Yeah, absolutely. We have identified that because alcohol and sexual assault are so heavily linked, it's important to have specific intervention and prevention programs that are for those environments where there is a lot of alcohol, because people should be able to recreate and enjoy alcohol and not have it have to lead to assault. You know, the worst thing that should happen is that someone has a hangover the next day. And because of that, we at the Blue Bench use a nationwide program which is called Safe Bars, which is a two hour prevention program for alcohol serving establishments, where we train staff to specifically identify problematic behaviors and be able to figure out how to intervene in those behaviors, to be able to disrupt the violence from happening and make, let people have a safer environment to be able to recreate in. And again, we are trying to direct our attention appropriately in those places, because we do know that in environments where there's maybe more drinking and more partying, it can be harder to recognize things. And college campuses this may happen too. People may be downplaying or normalizing these harmful behaviors because where they're happening in sort of party environments. We also have a Change on Tap, which is a annual event that educates the public about the relationship between alcohol and sexual violence. We're really working hard to eliminate that stigma around alcohol involved sexual assault, and we want to empower alcohol serving establishments to strengthen their prevention and safety. We're asking them to reduce sexual assault by engaging in active bystander and challenging these behaviors and stereotypes that do uphold some of these problematic assumptions around alcohol and sex. So people can help by asking their favorite bars, restaurants, events, spaces that have a lot of alcohol and organizations to join our campaign in November, which is Change on Tap, and also sign up to be Safe Bar certified, which really just helps everyone feel like they can more safely enjoy those sorts of environments.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  19:39  
That's amazing. So yeah, listeners, if you work at a bar, if you happen to be a bar owner of Tivoli Brewery, if you're listening, please connect with the Blue Bench, because this sounds like a really great program. And even, again, it helps people be able to enjoy drinking while feeling safe and secure that they can do it in a safe environment. 

Katie Gray  19:57  
Yeah,and you can learn more about change on tap or about our Safe Bars program at our website, which is the bluebench.org

Racheal Reed-Maloney  20:04  
So thank you for sharing all that info with us. Katie, as we discuss the reasons why sexual violence happens can be an entire podcast of its own. Hopefully this conversation is helpful for folks to have a better understanding behind some of the factors that can lead to sexual violence. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  20:19  
Now I want to turn our conversation over to our Advocate on the podcast, Becca. Can you speak to how in your experience, or what you've seen in research, sexual violence impacts college students mental health and their academics? 

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  20:34  
Yeah, I think that for college students and for any person who's experienced sexual violence, there's a wide array of responses and emotions that come along with it. And so there is no one right way to respond or to feel. And so I really want to, you know, share that with survivors that I think we have this idea of like, oh well, the perfect victim. You know, this person needs to act this certain way, but that's just not the case. There are many different ways to feel and many different ways that it's going to impact each individual and so many emotions. Folks can feel anger, depression, anxiety, they can feel short tempered, they can feel forgetful, they can have trouble sleeping, and they can have trouble going out and doing things that they once really enjoyed, like hanging out with friends or going to their favorite bar or restaurant or even just going to a study group. Can just feel really overwhelming. Folks may feel they want, they want to be more isolated, or they feel fearful about leaving their room or their home. They might feel more mistrusting of other folks in their in their social circle, especially if they were assaulted by somebody that they knew or had a trusted relationship with. 

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  21:50  
So there are a lot of different ways that trauma can show up for folks, and it's going to have a lot of different impacts and ramifications on any person's daily life, whether that's with their friends, family, in school, at work. So when I think about too, like thinking about why that is, there are big impacts that trauma has on the brain, and so hopefully really normalizing or providing some education that, like the things that, if you are a survivor, listening to this might feel really scary. You might be feeling some things that or experiencing some things that you've never experienced before. And when our brain and our body experiences trauma, there are big impacts on the brain. And so when we might talk about the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response. And we don't have to go into all of those, but essentially, what often happens when somebody experiences trauma is that their amygdala is what that's the lizard brain, that's what turns on, and so the body and the brain are trying to survive a really scary time, and the rest of the like, core processing of like, Oh, I'm gonna think that through this really logically, has completely turned off. So folks may experience lack of memory around what happened for the assault, and may have trouble talking about it, which can make it really challenging to go and make a report. If that's something that someone feels strongly, that they'd like to do, or they might feel confused around what happened to Katie's point, there are times where people are unsure, like, was this? Was this even sexual assault? I don't really remember all of the details. Friends and family may ask for details, but survivors may not be able to come up with those picture perfect details, or even a timeline of what happened during the event of the sexual assault and all that is very normal, and that's because the brain was unable to take that snapshot and file it away in the library of your brain, where most of the time, we're able to draw on memories and create a timeline of things that have happened to us, but When trauma happens, that whole filing system is completely disrupted. It's as if somebody were to just hand you an envelope full of photos, and you're just supposed to understand how these different snapshots might fit together in a timeline. Well, that's just impossible. We're just not able to do that. 

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  24:17  
So really thinking about that those impacts, and how that can impact school work. You go and you might have trouble remembering things the way that you used to, or filing information away. You might have trouble paying attention in class or experiencing brain fog. You might just find that you're overly tired or perhaps overly stimulated. You might feel more agitated than you've ever felt before. So there are a lot of ways that these feelings and emotions and symptoms can impact college students. Whether you're on a traditional campus or you're on a campus like Auraria, you're you're going to be impacted, because your brain just isn't functioning the way that it normally has because it's experienced something really traumatic. So any way that that might be showing up for for a survivor is is really normal and also like can be supported with healing trauma therapy, a supportive safety net and a social group. So there, it's not that the brain will be like that forever. There takes time, it takes time to heal, but certainly in those first few days, weeks, months, even sometimes a couple of years, it can just take the brain and the body time to heal from traumatic experiences, and we want at the Blue Bench, certainly want to make sure that folks get connected to those resources and supports to begin that healing journey.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  25:40  
Yeah. Thank you so much for that. That's very helpful, because, yeah, a lot of that can be so overwhelming for survivors after experiencing that, especially those neurological pieces. I know that's something our office also supports survivors with understanding how our brain shifts after experiencing violence, and to touch a bit about some research about the impact on like, grade point average and dropping out of university. For survivors, this information comes from a bunch of different studies, so if you want to look at those, they will be in our show notes. If you want to look at the research where we found this information for survivors who were surveyed on some campuses, 14.3% of them shared that after experiencing sexual violence during their first semester on campus. So potentially, that red zone that we've been talking about, they had a GPA below 2.5 at the end of the second semester, compared to 5.9% of folks who were not survivors of sexual violence. So it has like double the impact on survivors of sexual violence. And then for trans students who experience sexual violence, they share that they had a more severe negative impact on their academics compared to women and men students on campus, and then also for dropping out, especially for first year students who experienced sexual violence within the first year of their education on campus, about 34.1% of survivors shared that after experiencing violence, they dropped out of school and left compared to 29.8% of folks who chose to leave school. So again, that is higher for survivors. So just keep those things in mind as we're talking about this. It does have an impact on survivors. It is not just coming from us, advocates in the space who work with survivors every day. This is supported by research. 

Racheal Reed-Maloney  27:20  
So I want to acknowledge that we've talked about a lot of information today, and listeners, we want you all to walk away from this podcast episode feeling empowered with knowledge, but also with tangible skills that you can use when you are concerned you are witnessing a scenario where someone may experience sexual violence. So I want to turn it back over to Katie, can you share with our listeners what they can do if they see a scenario unfolding that may require intervention?

Katie Gray  27:45  
Yeah, absolutely. We have some strategies that we use to help make it maybe more to help make it easier to be able to intervene for folks, I think when we're talking about college campus and one more note on alcohol, it's just really important to sort of understand what incapacitation look like. A good rule of thumb is like, if you want would want that person to drive a car, they can't consent to sexual activity, it's important to just sort of look at those indicators, although they do not look the same for everyone of incapacitation, which can often show up in like, you know, slurred speech, not being able to walk straight, things like vomiting or being unconscious are more clear. So just being able to be aware of those and also paying attention to less recognized interactions. So I mean, that's one reason why, I think looking for men who may be being the target, also looking for same sex targets, women who are perpetrating these are things that are less recognized, and so it's really important to pay attention to those. And I think that's one reason that some of the more problematic behaviors go unrecognized in recreational alcohol heavy environments, because some of those things like maybe have behaviors that may be happening more consensually and maybe less recognized as being problematic. So if somebody does see something that feels like it is an inappropriate behavior where perhaps with someone's boundaries are being crossed, we like to talk about intervention in the five D's. 

Katie Gray  29:10  
The three main D's of intervening are going to be DIRECT, DELEGATE, and DISTRACT. So a DIRECT intervention is where somebody really just assertively addresses the person engaging in the harmful behavior or the person who's being targeted by the harmful behavior. And essentially, a DIRECT approach involves one or more people directly addressing the aggressor by being like, "Hey, what are you doing?" "Leave them alone." "We don't do that here." "That's inappropriate." Calling out the behavior or examples to the person being targeted is just checking in with them. "Are you okay?" "You know you don't have to put up with that." "Do you need some help?" "Is that person bothering you?" We can't always directly intervene for a lot of reasons, and people may not feel comfortable to just due to their personality or their identity, and so we also like to promote DELEGATE, which is those situations where we can't use those direct strategies, is getting somebody else who can intervene. Sometimes this looks like an authority figure, sometimes this looks like another person who just has a personality that is more direct, more comfortable with conflict and intervening. So sometimes when we talk to young people, we talk about like, maybe getting a trusted adult, or perhaps, when we're talking with order adults, it's like, maybe we're looking for someone that has an existing relationship with those people, or maybe the friend of someone who came with them, like maybe Hey, flagging a friend down. "Is this your friend? It looks like they can maybe use some help." We also really want to promote just increasing group size and some of these more risky environments, and making sure that people are kind of keeping a count of other people, checking in other people, making sure you sort of leave with who you come with, and then another D is DISTRACT, so which is really just disrupting the energy of that interaction by using a distraction. So maybe it can just look like dropping something and making a loud noise, and then once that is sort of disrupted, getting the targeted person away from the aggressor, or maybe asking for help with the problem, just changing the conversation, or even just telling somebody that authority figures are on the way, you know, even if they're not, we also want to say that the other Ds are going to be DOCUMENT. So if you can't actually do anything in the moment, making sure that we're documenting things in case somebody did decide later to report, maybe documenting the time, possibly taking pictures. Although want to make sure that we're always getting consent for people that we're taking pictures of, especially for the targets, and then we also have DELAY, which is having a delayed response. So even if we can't do something in the moment, we want to be able to go up and offer our support later and ask for help, ask if the person can need help. And the thing that we always say in all of our programs are, if you somebody, you know we can't always stop every bad thing from happening, but we can always help somebody after the fact, and the Blue Bench is always here to support survivors after the fact, but we say to tell community members, if someone comes up to you and discloses that they've experienced sexual violence, the three best things that you can say to them is, "I believe you", "It's not your fault", And "how can I help?" and make sure that you're really letting them be empowered to lead the way, and what that help looks like, because we know that sexual violence can be extremely disempowering. So asking someone, "Hey, would you like help reporting?" "Would you like help at the hospital?" "Would you like help figuring out what to do next?", offering options, and then making sure that you're really just there for helping them in the way that they want to be helped. And of course, at the Blue Bench, we offer a lot of resources for people, such as our hospital advocacy program, our case management and individual and group therapy.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  32:34  
Thank you so much for that. Yeah, the five D's is amazing, especially those three, those first three you mentioned Katie. Listeners, if you want to learn more about the five D's and their origin, or just want to get, like, a little copy for yourself to have when you're going over it, we have that linked on our website. We'll also put that in our source notes, in case you want to learn more about those tactics that Katie was just talking about. And before we conclude our time together, you were just talking about a lot of the services that the Blue Bench provides. I'm going to turn it back to Becca, can you talk a bit more about some of the services that the Blue Bench provides that is available to folks on our campus, but also in the larger Denver metro community?

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  33:13  
Yeah, the Blue Bench has been around for over 40 years, and we've had the same mission for 40 years, and that is to serve survivors in the Denver Metro area who have experienced sexual violence. The only requirements to be able to access our services are that you're over the age of 13 and you live or the crime occurred in the Denver Metro area. The Blue Bench serves Denver and the eight surrounding counties, so from Douglas County to all the way up to Adams County, and we're able to provide a variety of services, no matter where the person might be at in their journey. So we have a 24/7 crisis hotline, which was named at the beginning of this podcast. So please feel free to access that. It's available in English and in Spanish, as well as a chat version or a chat option. I mean, that's also through our website, if folks would feel comfortable connecting with that. As Katie mentioned, we have 24/7 hospital advocacy so if someone is eligible for a sexual assault nurse's examination, we can provide an advocate to accompany them to a local emergency room that provides those exams. We'll travel to them and be with the person as long as they need. And we do have two Spanish speaking advocates, so we're able to provide that service in English and in Spanish. And then we have case management so that support survivors. If they would like to engage with the criminal legal system, if they would like to make a report to law enforcement, we can support them in doing so and walk them through the entire process, all the way to like as far as the process goes all the way up to if the offender is convicted or takes a plea deal. We have post conviction victim advocacy, where the survivor still needs to be involved in that post conviction process. Our case managers can walk them. Through and be a support to them the entire duration of that experience, however long it goes in the process. We can also help with crime victims, compensation, address, confidentiality program and general safety planning. 

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  35:14  
We also have individual therapy and group therapy. We offer virtual and in person, options, English and in Spanish, and there's no cost for therapy at the Blue Bench. We are a donation based organization, and so if someone feels that they're able to contribute anywhere between $1 and $35 a session, then we welcome that, but we never turn anyone away for inability to pay. We, many of our therapists, are trained in modalities such as EMDR, somatic therapy, so just really wonderful interventions that have been evidence based to show that it is helpful for trauma survivors. We also have many groups that we're running right now, and that includes a female identified adult survivor skills group and an LGBTQ plus identified adult survivor skills group, those switch off being run in virtually and in person. And so we have, we also have the capacity to run a men's group and a teen Group. We are running lots of groups to since that's a big ask from folks. So if you're looking to connect with other survivors who may have similar experiences, or just want to be in a space of community and healing, our skills groups are a really great option. We also have a Someone I Love workshop, which is for secondary survivors. So if you have a loved one that has experienced sexual violence, and you'd like to know how you can support them. We run a workshop every two months or so that switches off between in person and virtual, and it's a three hour workshop that talks about the impacts of sexual violence on a person, what you can say and do to support your loved one. And then, how do you take care of yourself when you're taking care of somebody else. So really great, a really amazing workshop for many folks who have a loved one that's experienced sexual violence and they just want to be a good support system for them. And then we have our resource line, so that is basically our main office number, and we have a whole resource team that's able to connect folks to our services internally and externally in the community, and that's available in English and in Spanish as well. So that's the overview of our direct service. 

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  37:31  
Katie and her team also do some amazing community engagement work. She mentioned Safe Bars, and we do programming in schools. And we also have a Shield program, which works with corporations to train in prevention education.

Katie Gray  37:46  
So yeah, we also have a community education department where we offer prevention education for middle school all the way through various adult groups. So we have a middle school program called Let's Talk About It, where we teach healthy and unhealthy relationships, looking at intervention strategies, sort of understanding what sexual harassment might look like, and then some of the sort of problematic norms and stereotypes that lead to these types of violence over the years. Then we have a high school program as well as a just general community program called Knowledge is Power, which is a one hour just overall program that talks about using practical tools, learning about harmful myths, unsafe situations, how to support and intervene, sort of generally. And then we have, of course, our Safe Bar programs, as I said before, it's an interactive bystander intervention training designed specifically for staff working in bars, restaurants and other alcohol serving establishments. And then one of our newer programs is SHIELD, which is Sexual Harassment Intervention, Education and Leadership Development. And this program is designed for businesses to foster sort of harassment free workplaces. We're equipping employees with very clear understanding of legal definitions workplace rights and responsibilities that can maybe impact be impacted by harassment. And then we have our newest program, which is Youth Empowerment and Safety, which is an educational workshop for parents or youth serving professionals to help reduce child sex abuse by talking about how to recognize, support, intervene, and also strategies, lots of strategies and practical tools for prevention. If anybody is interested in scheduling any of these programs again, you can find out more through our website.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  39:30  
Thank you all so much for sharing that. Listeners, I hope you all see why the Blue Bench is such an important partner to our office, but also in the Denver Metro, they have so many amazing resources and programs. So if for whatever reason, you don't feel comfortable coming to the Phoenix Center at Auraria, or maybe we just don't have what you need, like therapy or those certain prevention programs that Katie mentioned, they're a wonderful resource, so please make sure to reach out to them. And is there any last things Becca or Katie that y'all would like to talk about before we close, close out this episode?

Katie Gray  40:00  
I just want to really thank you for having us here today. I want to emphasize that sexual violence prevention is a community issue, and we all have a role to play and a responsibility in preventing sexual violence, so I really appreciate everybody committing to having safer communities where everyone can enjoy a life free of sexual violence,

Becca Tiell-Krekeler  40:22  
yeah, and I, I just want to say, like, I really appreciate this partnership with the Phoenix Center and how we can continue to partner and collaborate in serving survivors and just in serving the community. So know that we're here for you if you are a survivor, and then we're here for you if you are a secondary survivor, and you just want to be supportive to your community, so we thank you for working with us to help create a safer Denver.

Racheal Reed-Maloney  40:47  
Of course. Yeah, thank you both. And then reminder listeners, if anything came up for you and you're activated looking for some immediate support, the Blue Bench and our office has a 24/7 helpline. So the Phoenix Center's helpline is 303-556-2255 and then the Blue Bench's hotline number is 303-322-7273. Reminder, they do have English and Spanish if you are in need of that, and they also have a chat line on their website if you are needing support, but not through a phone call, but by using a chat option they have. And then also remember to follow the Phoenix Center at Auraria on Instagram @PhoenixAuraria, and make sure to follow the Blue Bench if you're interested in any of those programs they mentioned on Instagram @thebluebench. Thank you all for being with me today. My name is Racheal, and I look forward to learning with you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai