Empowered Conversations

Using the Northwestern community as a starting point, we collected survey data asking about people’s education on sexual assault and their feeling of preparedness to discuss sexual assault with a survivor.

After researching sexual assault disclosure conversations and their effects, we found that the confidant’s reaction has a large impact on the survivor’s healing. We determined there was an opportunity to improve the outcome of disclosure conversations by providing a service for preparing confidants for these conversations. This motivated the creation of our survivor-activated confidant training tool.

We developed a process for survivors to register chosen friends or family for a confidant training module that prepares them to be an active listener and helpful resource to the survivor. We also wrote and recorded the confidant training module videos, which were reviewed by Dr. Alissa Levy Chung, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University.

Our tool provides a way for survivors to anonymously request their confidant to complete the training module without disclosing their identity. It also provides the confidant the option to decline the training if they feel it will negatively affect their own mental health.

Using Figma, I created a wireframe of the website and designed the user interface. I worked with the Development Team to decide how to communicate possible scenarios between the survivor and confidant while maintaining anonymity of both parties (ex: If the confidant declines to watch the training module to protect their mental health, their experience should not be disclosed to the survivor). 

If a confidant does not complete the training within one week, we will send them a reminder text message. If the confidant still does not complete the training, then two weeks after the initial text was sent, we inform the survivor that their confidant has not completed the training, but that this does not imply they do not support them. If a confidant clicks the Exit to Resources button during the training (ending the training for the confidant for their own safety), we also send this message two weeks after the initial text message was sent to protect the confidant’s anonymity.

Once the website (empoweredconversations.org), texting tool, and conversation database were developed, we asked for feedback from the Northwestern community in general and conducted a pilot study with individuals who decided to use the training tool.

The feedback we received told us that we needed to improve the user experience by making our texts to confidants more inviting and addressing questions about our tool. 

To implement this feedback, we changed the wording of the first text we send to confidants to explain the importance of watching the modules so that it is less likely to be ignored. We also added more information to our FAQ page to address questions about how the tool works and how to utilize it as a survivor and a confidant. Shortly, we will also be adding descriptions of our resources to make it easier for users to find the ones they need, and we will be adding the names and pronouns of our actors to the training module videos to make them more personal.

We also wanted to emphasize that we value the privacy and anonymity of our users, so we changed the blurb on our home page from “we seek to promote effective, authentic, and empathetic conversations between survivors of sexual assault and their family members and friends,” to “promoting effective, authentic, and empathetic conversations in a safe and private way.”

We worked with The Garage, Counseling and Psychological Services, and the Center for Awareness, Response, and Education at Northwestern University to ensure our product would cause no harm to users and lived up to our Mission. This entailed adding resources to our website to further the education about sexual assault and how it affects people of different identities. We continue to learn and keep our resources up-to-date with the goal of helping anyone who has been affected by sexual assault.