Executive Summary

The Intervention Initiative is a free resource for universities and further education settings in England, developed in 2014 by the University of the West of England on receipt of a grant from Public Health England. It is an evidence-based educational programme for the prevention of sexual violence and domestic abuse in university settings, through empowering students to intervene as prosocial bystanders.

In 2016/17 Warwick Students’ Union launched a pilot of the Intervention Initiative at Warwick, in partnership with the Law and PAIS departments, with some initial development to adapt the programme content for a Warwick audience. Following the success of the pilot, in 2017/18 the delivery of the programme was extended to all first-year undergraduate students in the PAIS department.

Whilst a preliminary analysis of the feedback and impact assessment has been completed and shows encouraging results, we are seeking support to embed a student researcher within the project who can conduct more detailed analysis, and to identify avenues of further development for the programme. We wish to engage stakeholders in the development of the programme by facilitating two programme development workshops, one in the first half of the 2018/19 autumn term and another in the second half. The estimated budget for this is £991.90.

Our ultimate goal is to develop and embed the Intervention Initiative programme, or a programme born from it, within the curriculum of every undergraduate student at the University of Warwick. Preliminary analysis suggests that the programme has the potential to empower students to make safe, skilful interventions in situations of sexual violence and domestic abuse, as well as to learn skills transferable to other forms of situation requiring intervention such as hate crime and bullying.