Healing Platform and Community for Campus Sexual Assault Survivors

One in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college in the US. With limited access to campus counseling services, many survivors remain silent or share the experience with someone who is not equipped to support them. In response, a Capstone team created First, Listen to connect recent campus sexual assault survivors with tools to drive their healing process. The First, Listen team conducted extensive interviews with industry leaders, students, and survivors, discovering that one of the most important moments following a sexual assault is a survivor’s verbal or written acknowledgement of their trauma. Survivors can use First, Listen’s anonymous website platform to either speak to trained peers with shared experiences and identities, or write about their experience through guided documentation technology. First, Listen will train campus “first listeners” through a trauma-informed, survivor-built curriculum to support survivors, help them develop coping and advocacy skills, and begin to heal.