Consent week on campus to build respectful community

Students at Reading are being encouraged to think about consent this week, with an online training programme part of a coordinated awareness campaign aimed at fostering respect within our community.

Consent is an unambiguous, affirmative and conscious decision by each person to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity. That makes it a tricky topic – it can feel invasive to start giving people advice about how to behave in what are often very private situations – but it’s really important we do what we can to help our students feel confident about having honest conversations that help establish boundaries and keep each other safe.

Student Communications have joined with RUSU to commission digital artwork promoting the importance of asking first, every time, created blogs and videos reflecting student voices on the subject of consent and highlighting new essential online training sessions all students should complete.

The Consent Matters training helps explain what consent looks and sounds like, how to clearly communicate what you want, when consent can be given and when it can’t, and how and when you might step in when consent is not present.

The training sessions are open to staff as well as students.

"Like other universities across the UK, we know that this is something many students welcome guidance with and that’s why we have introduced online training for the first time this year. We want to give our students the tools they need to build their knowledge and their confidence in navigating situations where consent is required and the Consent Matters training does this.”