Day in the Life of an AmeriCorps Member at a College Crisis Center

As any advocate in a crisis center, you never know how your day will go. The SHARPP office staffs a 24hr hotline, each morning we check in with the call center to see if any calls were received and if we need to follow up with anyone. Then from there anything goes, I work on all kinds of projects, organize the Clothesline Project, plan Take Back the Night, field crisis calls and do direct service with walk-ins. There are some unique aspects working with college students that I would like to share-

1.UNH geographically is a very small campus-if a perpetrator is on campus there is a huge chance that the survivor may encounter them.

2.The survivor and perp could have classes together; they even may have same major. Often survivors struggle with whether or not they should change majors and or classes because of their perp.

3.Most often parents tend to pretty involved with students; usually monetarily. Survivors are often afraid of telling their parents for fear of losing finical support. Not every parent believes their child or they may blame their child. Sometimes if a student is in a DV situation, parents will say leave or lose money. This same fear often will prevent a student from coming out to their parents.

4.Outing someone is a serious threat to some people on campus because it is an isolated small community. They are afraid of the negative consequences, such as parents finding out and pulling finical assistance.

5.The majority of the cases that come in involve alcohol, both parties drinking. This often blurs the line of what consent is, and if it was given. This makes victim blaming so easy and very hard cases to prosecute in a criminal manner.

6.Our building is marked, often staff students or faculty are afraid to come to the office, they don't want anyone to think or know they are seeking services.

7.Also a lot of times people will start to recognize faces and know you work at SHARPP, this sometimes means while you are out of the office and on campus doing outreach or an errand for yourself-someone may disclose. Kind of caught off guard sometimes.