For 25 years, has provided confidential advocacy to students, faculty and staff who have been impacted by interpersonal violence, sexual assault and stalking, in addition to providing prevention education.

UofL News talked with PEACC Director Tish Pletcher, who has been with the organization 10 years, about how PEACC continues to make a positive impact on the campus community.

UofL News: How would you define the core mission of PEACC?

Pletcher: We say our mission to pursue excellent and inclusive service has two primary parts: First, we work to end power-based personal violence by providing the campus community with the tools and support to make that happen through the programming. Second, we advocate for anyone affected by sexual assault, partner violence and stalking on individual, organizational and public levels through our services. With statistics like 1:3, 1:4 and 1:10, all of us know people affected by power-based personal violence.

UofL News: For 25 years, PEACC has been there for staff, faculty and students who need assistance. What kind of changes have been the most significant in that time? How has the issue evolved?

Pletcher: Our vision and mission have remained consistent, but our work is deepening. With our intervention, we are moving beyond crisis response to include multiple doors of access for survivors to address their trauma. We offer trauma informed yoga, meditation walks, writing workshops, a survivor network – you name it! These are all research-based approaches that might be helpful to a survivor after assault or intimate partner violence. It’s our job to offer as many of these as possible.

One way the issue itself has evolved is that we are no longer just talking about the violence, but all the life factors that a person might face with this issue.

UofL News: Prevention education programming is a core aspect of PEACC. Can you tell us more about prevention efforts and how allies can help in those efforts? 

Pletcher: We have shifted our focus from the victim and perpetrator to bystanders. We teach students, faculty and staff to recognize warning signs of intimate partner violence, stalking and sexual assault, and how they can respond. That might be to directly check in with a person, cause a distraction in the moment, or even delegate to someone else. It doesn’t matter what a person does; it just matters that they do something. If we as bystanders know what to do to step in and intervene, we can significantly impact the rates of violence on our campus.

UofL News: What societal or political factors affect the issue of interpersonal violence?

Pletcher: Funding. Resources. Politics and policies. Systems change (or lack thereof). Oppression in all its forms. I could go on and on.

UofL News: What is still disheartening? What is encouraging? 

Pletcher: It is disheartening every time another person walks in for services, and to hear the stories of people continuing to hurt other people. What’s encouraging is seeing all the people on campus who say “I want to help, I believe in doing my part, and I’m here for it.” Seeing them come out to a Green Dot Dodgeball Contest, join Men of PEACC for a Lunch & Learn, invite us to their RSO, walk a friend or classmate into our office to talk to an advocate. It makes my heart happy.

Another encouragement is the survivors who walk through our doors. They never, ever cease to amaze me. I learn something from them every day and I’m a better human being because of them. They make PEACC what it is.

“It seemed like something really important to be educated about,” said Meadows, a student success ambassador with UofL’s Student Success Center.

A comprehensive strategy called focuses on preventing sexual violence, dating violence and stalking. Changing campus norms by empowering bystanders to take action is a big part of the program’s goal, says Kathleen Elsherif, program coordinator for Green Dot and the .

“Combating power-based personal violence is a public health issue, and we all have a role to play. Green Dot gives faculty, staff and students shared language and a shared understanding of the small choices we can each make every day to change our culture – we say that no one has to do everything, but everyone has to do something,” Elsherif said.

A key component of creating this community is through campus-wide campaigns, mobilization events and targeted bystander intervention trainings that teach the model: direct, distract or delegate. A direct intervention involves a bystander confronting a situation to stop it, the second strategy aims to create some type of distraction to diffuse what’s happening, while delegating enlists the help of someone else, perhaps a friend or if necessary, police.

“The main takeaway from the training for me is whether I use my voice, behavior or attitude to promote safety it doesn’t matter – what matters is that I step up and help those around me,” said Meadows, an early elementary education major.

It’s been seven years since Green Dot trainings have been offered at UofL, as additional campus buy-in and resources were needed to continue and upscale the initiative. When the program relaunched this past spring semester, Elsherif says they started with student influencers, which included Meadows.

This fall,  have been extended to individual schools and departments, along with faculty and staff. Although the PEACC Center manages the program, there are now more than 20 members of the Green Dot initiative across UofL’s campuses.

“It is so important to become aware of the Green Dot initiative because in college we sometimes find ourselves or others in uncomfortable and maybe toxic situations. If you know about Green Dot, then you might have ways to get out of those situations,” Meadows said. “The training can give you some great tips and resources to use for yourself or to help others.”

Those were the horrific words from a patient’s sister who stopped by P. Gay Baughman’s dental practice to deliver the tragic news several decades ago. 

“I was a young dentist at the time and didn’t know what to do when the patient told me during an appointment prior to her death that she’d been hit by her boyfriend, and ever since I’ve been trying to make amends for what happened,” said Baughman, a professor at the School of Dentistry.

Baughman now teaches dental students to look for signs of domestic partner abuse, educating them to ask questions of patients including whether they feel safe at home, and helping students understand what resources are available to get help quickly for individuals at risk.

Annually, Baughman and a group of dental students, including members of the student chapter of the American Association of Women Dentists, join with the PEACC Center in Take Back the Night activities, an effort to protest sexual and relational violence and honor those who’ve been victimized.

This year, UofL’s Take Back the Night events kick-off with a resource fair April 4 at the Kornhauser Library Auditorium on the Health Sciences Center Campus. Scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., the event includes representation from the , , , , and . A workshop begins at noon and will educate participants on how to help a friend who has experienced power-based personal violence. The event also provides an opportunity to honor dental school alumna , who lost her life due to relational violence.

On April 6, a resource fair will be held at the Red Barn Plaza from noon to 2 p.m., followed by the “How to Help a Friend Workshop” at  2 p.m. in the Floyd Theater. Students, faculty and staff also are invited to take part in Chalk the Walk on the Belknap Campus beginning at 1 p.m. A virtual Take Back the Night tribute begins at 7 p.m. on Microsoft Teams. Learn more on the .

“If every student is equipped to help one person, what a difference that would make,” Baughman said.

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear wants to change that. On March 22, he came to the Belknap Campus to announce that his office is launching a video contest for students to help raise awareness of campus sexual assaults and aid in their prevention.

Details of Beshear’s “Voice of Justice” video contest can be found on the attorney general’s website, ag.ky.gov. The competition has two $500 prizes — one awarded by a panel of experts, another based on the video that gets the most views. Submissions are due April 1.

“What I love about this contest is that it’s students protecting students,” Beshear said Wednesday at a news conference in the Ekstrom Library’s Bingham Poetry Room.

Joining Beshear in announcing the contest was Student Government Association President Aaron Vance. He said his goal is to ensure that sexual assault “isn’t taken lightly on any college campus.”

The University of Louisville offers a variety of services for victims of sexual violence and harassment through the PEACC Center. PEACC stands for Prevention, łÉČËÖ±˛Ą, Advocacy on Campus and Community.

That programming reaches thousands of students each year, according to PEACC Center Director Sally Evans. She said that any report made to the center “matters and is taken seriously.”

Video from Beshear’s UofL visit is included below: 

The (SPHIS) Student Council is joining the , and other groups to host a panel discussion and training on Wed., April 6 from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at The Avenue – Cardinal Towne, 325 W. Cardinal Blvd.

Panelists will include representatives from the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, the Louisville Metro Police Department Narcotics Unit, BRICC Coalition and Metro Council District 6. A licensed Narcan instructor from the local chapter of Young People in Recovery will train students on use of the opiate antidote Narcan (naloxone), which can be used to reverse an opioid overdose.

This training builds on other intervention activities of UofL students to address a variety of public health issues. A number of medical, nursing and public health students have opted to become state certified HIV testers, and some have trained to help Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness with the needle exchange program designed to reduce the spread of HIV and blood-borne diseases.

Among other National Public Health Week activities are an Instagram contest and lunch and learn discussion with Brandy Kelly Pryor, PhD, associate professor in the SPHIS Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences and director of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness Center for Health Equity. Find the complete listing of events on the .

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