The Dane County Rape Crisis Center trained its first bar staff Sunday in intervention techniques designed to curb sexual assault as part of its “Safer Bar” program.
The effort uses assertive bystander intervention techniques to empower bar staff to intervene in instances where they suspect sexual assault may occur. The program, which instructors taught at The Madison Blind Sunday, is based on a hybrid between Chimera self-defense and bystander intervention programs and aims to bring training to as many local bars as possible.
The first step in the training, Natalie DeMaioribus, Safer Bar instructor said, involves educating staff that it’s OK to trust their intuitions when judging a social interaction. This means intervening whenever an interaction simply doesn’t sit right with a staff member.
Instructors also taught staff how to identify possible instances of sexual assault and ways to successfully intervene without escalating the situation. This means overcoming the different tendencies males and females have when approaching a situation, DeMaioribus said.
For women, the tendency is to approach situations passively while men are more likely to respond with aggression, neither of which are as effective as an assertive intervention, DeMaioribus said.
“Being assertive means standing in an even stance with your hands at your side and figuring out ways to interact with a person that is both neutral and clear,” DeMaioribus said.
This assertive response, DeMaioribus said, is part of the Chimera program originally developed in the 1960s. She said the program also involves teaching women self-defense techniques to break choke holds and escape from attackers.
Targeting bar staff to prevent sexual assault makes sense, given that alcohol is the most common date rape drug, Erin Thornley Parisi, executive director of Dane County Rape Crisis Center said. She said the program originated two years ago after discussions on how bars can be unsafe places for women, something bar owners wish to avoid.
“There have been similar initiatives across the country, so this is a low risk, high reward initiative for us to embark upon,” Parisi said.
With the pilot program completed, Parisi said she now aims to spread the program throughout the county and believes bar owners will be very receptive. She said she hopes bars and alcohol vendors near University of Wisconsin will be even more responsive, given their varied efforts to reduce campus sexual assault.
