Transcript

Host: Hello, and welcome to Prevention and Protection, the United Educators risk management podcast. Today, Jamie Forbes, CEO of Learning Courage, and Amy Wheeler, Executive Director of Learning Courage, will speak with Melanie Bennett, Senior Risk Management Counsel at United Educators.  

A reminder to listeners that you can find other UE podcasts, as well as UE risk management resources, on our website, www.ue.org. Our podcasts are also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Now here’s Melanie. 

Melanie Bennett: Thank you. Jamie, it’s great to have you back to the podcast. 

Jamie Forbes: Thanks, Melanie. It’s always a pleasure to be here with you. 

Bennett: This is Amy’s first time on the Prevention and Protection Podcast. I’m so happy to have you here. 

Amy Wheeler: Thank you so much for having me, Melanie. I’m really happy to be here. 

Bennett: Before we begin, I’d like to offer a trigger warning, as this episode discusses sexual assault. Today we’re talking about how schools can create healing spaces when responding to sexual abuse. Before we get into that, I want to give a little background on Learning Courage for anybody who’s not familiar with you guys yet. Can you tell us what Learning Courage is and how you help schools prevent and respond to sexual abuse? 

Forbes: Sure. Learning Courage is a nonprofit membership organization, and we work with independent schools across the country. Our focus is really narrow. We partner, really, with school leaders to help them reduce, respond to, and heal from sexual misconduct. And we do that in a number of ways. We can certainly get into those details, but that is the summary of our work, and we’ve been at it now for five years.  

Amy, would you like to share a few details about the work that we do? 

Wheeler: Sure. I’m happy to Jamie. Thanks.  

In terms of ways that we prevent and respond to sexual abuse, there are a few things that we do at Learning Courage. We spend quite a bit of time conducting trainings for employees, for students, and for other constituencies on school campuses in ways that they can identify: “What does a healthy relationship look like? What are healthy boundaries? What is sexual misconduct? How do you know the signs? And what can you do to stand up and say something if you see something?” 

And then we also spend quite a bit of time looking at school policies and procedures and helping schools create the best policies they can that students can understand to get the resources they need if something were to happen to them. And then we also help schools understand how to be trauma-informed and survivor-centered in the responses that they give to those students who come forward. And in that way, we help schools be the best that they can be in handling something that’s really challenging. 

Bennett: So a few years ago, we were seeing a lot of news reports about historical sexual abuse. So alumni from schools would tell their schools that they had experienced sexual abuse 10, 20, 30, sometimes 50 years prior at the school. Sometimes it was a single alumni, sometimes it was multiple former students. Are you continuing to see reports of historical sexual abuse? 

Wheeler: Yes Melanie, we are. I think there was an uptick back in 2016 and 2017 when the Boston Globe had a Spotlight article highlighting sexual misconduct in independent schools. So we saw an uptick at that point. But they still exist, and schools are still coming forward, alumni are still coming forward trying to reconcile their past and the things that they had to experience at their independent schools and trying to heal and repair those relationships with those schools. 

Forbes: I would just add to that there is a little bit of an ebb and flow to this. As Amy said, the Spotlight article really inspired a lot of schools to be proactive in communicating with their alums, and there was a really significant increase in the number of schools that were conducting investigations into their past. And the reality is that historically speaking, virtually every school that has been around for 50 years or more likely has a history. And so while there were many that explored that history after the Boston Globe article, others are exploring that more recently and will continue to. But we’ve seen a decline in that, in the cases, but we anticipate that that work will continue. 

Wheeler: And if I can just add to that, to piggyback off of what Jamie said, one of the things that we know about survivors is that it takes them a long time sometimes to come to terms with the abuse that they experienced. So it’s not unlikely for somebody to be in their 50s or 60s when they remember or are willing to face the abuse that they experienced in schools, which is really why it takes so long for survivors to come back to their schools to bring up a subject that happened possibly 30 years prior or 40 years prior. So that is one of the explanations for why these things come out so much later in people’s experiences. 

Bennett: How are schools creating space to deal with the harm caused and creating space for healing? 

Forbes: They’re doing that in actually many different ways. In the case of historic misconduct, they’re often holding space at alumni gatherings or reunions. We’re doing that with several of our member schools on an annual basis, returning to help alums process and reconcile the findings from the historic abuse investigations. We’re also seeing many schools create survivor funds to help pay for therapy. And we’re also seeing schools create spaces on campus, both for alums and for current students. So, for example, we’ve worked with a couple of schools that have created gardens, memorializing spaces. Others have taken a more micro approach, dedicating a specific location. But those are just three different examples of ways that schools are creating space to deal with harm and acknowledging that harm.  

Amy, do you have anything to add on that? 

Wheeler: I do. I think we’ve really seen a shift in change in how schools navigate the healing part of this process. I think early on when these cases were happening, it was a lot for the schools just to acknowledge the harm that was done. Period. And then there’s been an emerging desire and interest in understanding why it’s important to support their alumni in an ongoing kind of manner when it comes to sexual misconduct and responses to healing. And that’s where things like when Jamie refers to the garden, we see schools creating garden spaces, for example, to honor the survivors that experienced harm on their campus. But that’s taken some time to develop. And I think it’s taken some bravery on the parts of independent schools to be willing to not only own up to the harm that was done, but also recognize the power of healing that can happen when people come together and try to help current students understand their past so that it doesn’t repeat. 

Forbes: That’s such a good point, Amy, that you make about the courage that it takes for schools to create space. Because it can feel scary to continue talking about something that in many cases, there are a lot of people at the school who would like that chapter to be passed and no longer talked about. And it can feel very vulnerable to actually dedicate a space to a challenging chapter in the school’s history. And what we find instead is that while there are people who don’t always agree with what the school chooses to do, the vast majority of folks really applaud the school for doing that work, creating the space, and acknowledging the harm that has been caused to the community, and that ultimately ends up bringing the community closer together. 

Bennett: So I heard you say that there are healing spaces both for alumni and for current students. Are you seeing alumni and current students heal together in these spaces? 

Wheeler: That’s such a great question, Melanie, and it’s something that we are starting to see is how schools are expanding the ways that they think about alumni and current students interacting. And the way that we’ve seen that manifest, really, is alumni and current students getting together to think about how they can affect positive changes around school culture and climate. What can they be doing to advocate for certain policy and procedure changes on their campus? How can they take the things that they’ve learned on their current campus, learn from the alumni about their experiences, and potentially even think about what career options might be out there for them if this is a topic that they feel particularly passionate about. So we’ve started to see a little bit more of that emerging over time, and it’ll be interesting to see if that continues.  

Jamie, do you want to add anything? 

Forbes: So one other thing I’d like to add is just a story about a school that we’ve worked with for several years, where there was a group of alums who remained really hurt about the findings from the historic abuse investigation and how the school responded. And together with the alums and the school, we were able to work together to create a space on campus that was really an incredible garden, which enabled the school to acknowledge and recognize and memorialize the history that happened on campus. And to appreciate and recognize the courage of those alums who came forward and helped the school understand and learn from that history, while also creating a space that is active today for art, for English, for creative writing, and other uses. 

And the way they introduced that space was really remarkable, where the Head of School, at a ceremony with many survivors in that room, apologized for the history and the harm that was caused to those individuals. And that was an incredibly healing experience for them. And then, after that ceremony, all of the alums that were in that space walked down to the garden and it was lined by current students. It was an incredibly powerful experience that incorporated both history through the alums and present day with the current students, and it was just a really magnificent and powerful experience for everyone. 

Bennett: We’ve talked a lot about historical abuse and how students are healing. Can you speak more generally about whether you’re seeing any emerging issues this year or trends that you want to highlight? 

Forbes: Sure. Another thing that we are seeing as an emerging issue is restorative practices and schools really departing from a more punitive approach to major rule violations or rule violations in general, to just recognizing that there’s an opportunity for people to learn and perhaps learn better and more effectively by using restorative practices as opposed to a more punitive approach. So I would say that’s another emerging trend.  

Amy, do you have anything to add? 

Wheeler: Sure. We’ve seen a number of different things trending in schools, not necessarily specifically to historic misconduct, and they tend to be around what you can imagine: artificial intelligence; mental health issues; diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) dynamics on school campuses; and the importance of creating safe and brave spaces for students in general, and how do we do that amidst this polarizing time, with people coming from so many different backgrounds and experiences.  

And that dovetails with sexual misconduct prevention because we have to think about when we’re creating safe spaces and cultures: “How are we welcoming everyone? Does everyone know who they can go to? Do they have people they can go to who are going to understand their experience and their perspective?” And even if they may not align with their perspective specifically, they can certainly be compassionate and understanding. And so the intersectionality between mental health, DEI&B, artificial intelligence, and other sorts of issues is really significant in how we create safe spaces for students. 

Bennett: Before we leave, I want to congratulate you on your new Risk Management Premium Credit program with UE This year. We’ll provide a link on the landing page for any UE members interested in learning more about the program. Members can also learn more by going to www.ue.org and searching for Learning Courage. That’s it for today’s podcast. Thank you Jamie and Amy for joining me today. 

Forbes: Thanks for having us. 

Wheeler: Thanks, Melanie. 

Host: From United Educators insurance, this is the Prevention and Protection Podcast. For additional episodes and other risk management resources, please visit our website at www.ue.org.