October 2015

Sign up now in the SU Office for FREE SHAG Week Consent Workshops or email su.reception@nuigalway.ie to book your place

• Tuesday 3rd November 2015 12.30pm-2.30pm Consent Workshop FEMALES Room 65, Ground Floor, School of Psychology
• Thursday 5th November 2015 5pm-7pm Consent Workshop MALE Room 65, Ground Floor, School of Psychology
• Friday 6th November 2015 1pm-3pm Consent Workshop FEMALE Room 65, Ground Floor, School of Psychology

Smart Consent: A Workshop to Develop a New Approach to Promoting Awareness of Active Sexual Consent among University Students

What is Active Consent?

Affirmative = The presence of a YES (Not just the absence of a NO) 

Active = Silence is not consent, participation is not consent

Freely Given = Not something you can be pressured into giving; it can be revoked at any time and is never implied. People cannot give consent if they are unconscious or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol

The objectives of the Smart Consent Workshops are, for students who take part, to:

• Have improved knowledge of the meaning of active consent

• Change their attitude toward a positive model of consent

• Identify links between consent, intimacy and pleasurable sexual experiences

• Describe how communication about consent could help reduce the possibility of rape or sexual assault

• Have a LOT of fun exploring active consent in a safe, peer supported environment!

These 2 hour workshops developed at the School of Psychology, NUI, Galway are a response to response to survey results during 2015 from students at NUI,Galway in which: 

• 86% rated ‘orientation of sexual health services for 1st year students’ as an important* service required.

• 87% rated talks on the topic of consent as important.

• 82% rated talks and information sessions on sexuality and  84% relationships (e.g. consent and sexual assault) as important student services. 

(* quite, very or extremely) 

The format for the workshops will be focussed, interactive, peer-led and involve:

• Introduction: of the facilitator and aim of the workshop; establishing ground rules on levels of comfort and expectations of the group

• Language we use: where do terms come from; what do they imply?

• “What is consent?”: each group member volunteers on a post-it their understanding of consent; these are then posted on a flipchart under three main themes. They will be returned to at the end of the Workshop by group members to see if their understanding of consent has changed.

• Personal Comfort with Hooking Up:  exploring social norms, that is how beliefs we have about how others behave, in turn affects and influences our own behaviour and beliefs.

• Illustrating Different Forms of Consent Through Vignettes: this allows group members to practice identifying different forms of consent, from both gender perspectives.

• NUI Galway Drama Students:  “One Night; Many Perspectives”

• Discussion: Consent and how to approach it

• “What is consent?”: the initial schema for consent is now reviewed by the group and updated following the Workshop experience.

• Close of Workshop 

Supported by the Irish Research Council 

#SmartConsent

#NUIGsafecampus