LBCC has partnered with YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) of Greater Los Angeles to conduct a workshop series through the month of October in efforts to give victims of domestic violence a safe space.
The month of October will consist of four workshops every Thursday from 11am to 1pm.
Further, participants attending at least two of the four workshops will receive a certificate of completion in Survivor Advocacy, something that can be inserted into a resume.
Five years ago, member of the Office of Student Affairs, Sylvia Garcia, with the help of Interim Director of Student Conduct and Student Life, Teila Robertson, founded a committee of students.
The Sexual Assault Awareness month committee was created in order to get a better understanding of what is going on with students and their personal knowledge of domestic violence, along with sexual assault, as it was not spoken about openly before.
As a result, she decided to bring forth workshops in hopes of bringing awareness and resources to survivors of domestic violence and their supporters.
The workshops will be conducted via Zoom meetings in order to give everyone a chance to participate.
“We had an amazing response in terms of the students that were able to participate (during COVID)” says Garcia, due to the drastic change in the amount of people who participated in the online workshops. Whether it had to do with time availability or comfortability, more people were attending than when workshops were conducted in-person.
Although LBCC has supplied workshops on the topic of domestic violence before, the plan is to break it up into four parts in order to fully dive into the heavy topic.
“You just don’t ever know; domestic violence always can be a year round thing a student is going through,” Robertson added to explain why they hold workshops.
Each workshop will cover the same information as they have before regarding what domestic violence looks like and tips on how to get out of a toxic relationship. However, instead of just an hour, it will be two hours.
“A lot of the feedback was that they wanted the workshops to be a little bit longer,” said Garcia. This will give participants the ability to receive information as well as speak on the topic and share their ideas or concerns.
The first workshop on October 7, “When Home Hurts” will dive into domestic violence concurrent with sexual abuse that students may face at home.
YWCA sexual assault service specialist, Michaele Wiebe, will include detailed information about domestic violence and what resources are available to students who are experiencing it.
“People typically feel like home is where they can be safe, but that’s not necessarily true,” said Garcia.
The second workshop event will be conducted on the 14th of October which will shift focus onto LGBTQ survivors. This will include the barriers that eliminate services for the community, such as the lack of gender-neutral bathrooms for non-binary or transgender students.
On October 21, the “Real Talk” workshop conducted by Wiebe will be introduced to share signs of an unhealthy relationship and how to break the cycle.
The final workshop will take place on October 28, titled “Survivor Advocacy”. This refers to information about social and political movements regarding domestic violence.
In addition, Wiebe will share with attendees the signs or changes to look for in students who may be struggling or dealing with domestic violence.
These workshops are open not only for domestic violence survivors and student allies but also faculty and staff. Although there is no limit on participants, there is a pre-registration required to attend due to it being an emotional topic.
The pre-registration can be found on the Domestic Violence Awareness Month section of the LBCC Event landing page.