Mentors in Violence Prevention
Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP), founded in 1993, is a leadership training program that motivates student leaders to play a central role in solving problems that historically have been considered “women’s issues”: rape, battering, and sexual harassment.
Until recently, few campuses, community-based programs, professional organizations or corporations have encouraged men to actively work on these issues. MVP motivates individuals of all genders to work together to prevent men’s violence against women and other genders. Utilizing a unique bystander approach to prevention, the MVP Program views student leaders, student-athletes and adults not as potential perpetrators or victims, but as empowered bystanders who can confront abusive peers.
The MVP approach does not involve finger pointing, nor does it blame participants for the widespread problem of gender violence. Instead it sounds a positive call for proactive, preventive behavior and leadership. The foundation of the MVP curriculum is the MVP Playbook. The MVP Playbook consists of a series of real-life college and social scenarios ranging from sexual harassment to a potential rape involving alcohol. By focusing on bystander behavior, MVP reduces the defensiveness and hopelessness that many individuals often feel when discussing men’s violence against women. The MVP Playbook is supported by supplemental exercises, many of which utilize media images from popular culture, which prompt critical thinking, open discussion and allow participants to examine issues such as the social construction of gender.
The Auraria Campus received a federal grant in late 2009 to train 25 Auraria students, staff, and faculty to implement the MVP program on campus over the 2010-2011 academic year. Twenty-five representatives from all three Auraria institutions and AHEC attended a four day train the trainer session in February 2010 and are now seeking opportunities to provide this leadership training to Auraria students.
The program is generally 90 minutes in length but can be tailored to accommodate our 75 minute class structure and is facilitated by two members of the Auraria community. The minimum number of students required is 12 and we can provide single gender training sessions as well as mixed gender sessions.
To set up an MVP training for your class or student employees, please contact Lisa Ingarfield, lisa.ingarfield@ucdenver.edu or call 303-352-3745.