Believing in a world free of sexual and intimate partner violence means daring to imagine what communities would look like of everyone had equal access to health… safety and livelihood. 
When we allow ourselves to imagine “what if…” we create the stepping stones to get us there. 
For Sexual Assault Awareness Month… the National Sexual Violence Resource Center is calling on people to think about what their communities could be… and take steps to get there. 
In a special bonus podcast episode… taken from our instagram live event earlier this month… we spoke with NSVRC staff Jayla Murdock and Mo Lewis to talk about their national campaign: Building Connected Communities… which leverages Health Equity Frameworks to impact whole communities in the work to end sexual violence.
Because this is a recording from an Instagram LiveStream… there may be moments where audio cuts out or gets spotty. You can find the video stream with captions at our instagram PreventConnect… and follow-along with the live transcript to this episode at PreventConnect.org. 
Well, I am so excited to have you here, Mo and Jayla. For folks who are just joining, these two human beings right here are some of the biggest forces behind the National Sexual Violence Resource Center's SAM campaign and a lot of your prevention and communication efforts. I'm a huge fan of yours. This is our second time doing this live. I'm excited to have you all here.


on, let's just get started with some quick introductions. Can you let viewers know who you are and for anyone who doesn't know what you do with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center? So I'll start. So hi, everyone. My name is Jala Murdock, and I'm part of NSVRC's communications team. And my role specifically involves developing and implementing the annual Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign.


with the support of my team, of course, and other NSVRC colleagues who volunteered to be a part of the development process. Yeah, and hi, I am Mo. I am on the prevention team, and Jaila and I have worked together on SAM stuff for a few years now. And mainly my job is to connect with people at state health departments and sexual assault coalitions.


who receive the rape prevention and education funding and that specific funding for sexual assault prevention that comes down through the Violence Against Women Act. So a lot of my role is doing training, technical assistance, creating resources, answering questions, and I've gotten to work with you a lot too. So it's nice to be here. If I gotta be on Instagram Live, it's good to be with you too. I know. Again, we do so many between all.


of us, so many virtual connection opportunities and web conferences, but something about it, it just, it makes me nervous every time. I've spoken to this a little bit. While it is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and that is an incredible time for the movement, there are 24th and a fifth of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, all the activities have been going on for decades before it was officially recognized.


PreventConnect (07:25.613)
The advocacy to end sexual violence does not begin and end in April. April is an amazing time to bring new people into this movement and to center on our values and think intentionally. But you all are working year -round, doing incredible work. And for folks who don't know, you can find out more at nsvrc .org. Is it nsvrc .org? Okay, great.


But we're here to talk about your campaign. So people who don't know, the National Sexual Violence Resource are on top of everything else that you do for the movement to end sexual violence, which is, by the way, free and available. It's an incredible resource. You are also the real think tank behind the sexual assault awareness campaign. Tell me about your campaign this year, Building Connected Communities. Yeah. So.


So like you mentioned earlier, each April we launch a campaign for Sexual Assault Awareness Month to raise awareness about sexual violence and how as advocates we can support survivors. And we achieve this by providing folks with those free resources and materials to educate communities on prevention strategies. So this year's campaign, Building Connected Communities, is aimed at


reducing that likelihood of sexual abuse, assault, and harassment within our communities. And we shift the focus from what we can do individually to what we can do as a community to prevent sexual violence. So we often interact with multiple communities that we are a part of on a daily basis, whether it's our neighborhoods, places of work, schools.


church and even online like we're doing today. So we hope that the campaign encourages like a sense of togetherness in a world where people may feel disconnected and showing what we can do with each other along with for each other to make the world a better place and preventing sexual violence.


PreventConnect (09:42.253)
Thank you so much for sharing. I really love that with each other and for each other. Oftentimes, survivors feel in this world and in this movement because there is so much shaming that happens around sexual violence. And I really appreciate that togetherness that we are doing this both with each other. I already see a question in the chat. Jayla, you mentioned the same day of


is today. What is that? So it's the day of the month where we want folks to really show their support, whether it's wearing teal, changing your zoom background for your meetings, showing that support, showing sharing graphics on social media, and just showing survivors that we stand with you, we believe you.


And yeah, so it's the day of action today. Thank you so much for sharing. So, you know, we're talking about building connected communities. I think it's important that we zoom out for a moment. What is a connected community and how does that prevent sexual violence? It's a good question because sometimes the link is not that clear, right? So a connected community, I mean, I think everybody knows.


what it feels like when you're connected to your community. So it's like a place where people feel like they're part of things, where people can make a difference, where people are relying on each other, where they have their needs met, that belonging and sense of connection. And the thing about community connectedness is it's one of those things that's considered a protective factor. That means it can buffer against sexual assault perpetration. And that's been found through research, but it also


makes sense if you think about all the ways that our communities influence our behavior. So I don't know, we're all influenced by our community, right? There's rules, there's norms, there's like things that you know will be cool in one community, but you would never do in another community. There's examples from like how people treat each other. There's places where like your neighbors are looking out for each other. So even things like having good like after school programs or accessible.


PreventConnect (12:02.285)
parks where people can hang out, community gardens, culturally specific groups and organizations. These are all things that shape a community and they also shape us. So these are things that influence that protective factor, right? They can buffer against sexual violence. So they influence us all in positive ways and that's how they can prevent violence.


Thank you so much. That makes a lot of sense and I think comes at really important time because sexual violence prevention is really changing. And I think by that, the way that we prevent sexual violence is changing. Historically, and I myself have done this as well, I think we all have, we have considered education, education, if we


We educate people on the problem, then the problem will change. And that is not necessarily the case. Although awareness is an incredibly important piece of this. It's when we have Sexual Assault Awareness Month. You know, a lot of people think going into classrooms and setting up booths and giving people the facts and figures are going to end sexual violence. But you all are really focusing on that whole community well -being. So not informing people.


about the way we live, but changing it. Why? Yes, so of course, educating ourselves and also educating other people is important in creating this awareness about sexual violence. And they're all good things, but it's more than just changing what we're doing individually and looking at it from this community level perspective.


point of view, we give this example in our resources of having clean drinking water. And many of us don't have to think about is the water we're drinking safe or is it treated or if it's even there for us. So just as we rely on those community systems to provide that clean drinking water for us, preventing sexual violence should be a collective priority.


PreventConnect (14:20.876)
to ensure safer communities for everyone.


PreventConnect (14:26.764)
Thank you so much. And I mentioned a term that I have a hard time with sometimes. You mentioned community level prevention. So for folks who do work in a sexual violence prevention program, you all will know that we have what's considered individual level work and community level work. Don't work in the movement.


I feel like that would just go right over my head. So individual level work is that education piece, right? So Mo and I have a conversation. We're working together for quite some time and Mo changes my perspective. Mo makes me feel differently about how gender norms impact my life and other people's lives. And I am like, okay, I have shifted. I'm gonna go into the world.


Mo has impacted one person, community level is very different. And so what does community level prevention mean and how does that go beyond work with? I like talking about this a lot because I feel like community level prevention is so cool and it's something that people have been doing for such a long time and it goes really well with.


the type of individual and relationship level prevention that we've all been doing, right? So the idea behind community level prevention is that it means making changes to these larger level factors and conditions to reduce the likelihood that people will perpetrate sexual violence. And so we're getting back to like those broader conditions about communities, right? There's conditions that can impact an entire community. And those are things like,


community attitudes that are the norms, standard systems, even the physical environment and the surroundings, the policies, the characteristics of a community. And so when you impact those things, the thing that shapes how everybody goes through the community, the thing that's really cool about it is that everybody benefits, even if they had no idea that the prevention stuff was happening.


PreventConnect (16:48.812)
And yeah, that's really different than the things that you're talking about where we interact with people on an individual basis to help them change their attitudes and skills. I think of community level prevention as like this layer that we can add to it. And like you were saying, it's not new. I mean, this is in a lot of ways, it's getting back to kind of the basics and the root of the problem. Yeah, community organizers have been doing this kind of thing forever and we can really learn a lot from them. The idea is that...


really at its core, everybody should have the opportunity to make the choices that allow us to live a long, healthy life in whatever way that looks for us, regardless of our income, our education, our ethnic background. And yeah, because our communities impact us in so many ways, it really makes sense to focus a lot of our prevention there.


That makes so much sense. Thank you for that point. I also really liked the idea of community life prevention because I consider myself a very tired human being existing. Just trying to live and pay my bills. And if I had to shift every single person's ideas and the way that they approach life, I think I would self -combust and never do anything. And I think something that you mentioned that I had mental


me is that the best community level prevention impacts people without them even knowing, which is incredible because it supersedes this barrier that I think a lot of us who are passionate about ending sexual violence face where every single person we interact with, we have to like get them on our side, see why it matters and then start real work. And I do see some questions popping up in the chat. Thank you all for


I will make sure that we ask those in just a few minutes We're gonna be talking about how to get involved in the campaign and Sam this year But I'd love to hear we've never named community level prevention is what does it look like in practice? Oh? Lots of things so many things I mean, it's that kind of thing where it could be invisible like you're saying right but for us who are doing the prevention work and for people who are like Oh, what could this be?


PreventConnect (18:59.5)
Okay, here's an example that's one of my favorites. It's revising policies and practices. And that doesn't sound like super exciting, but think about it this way. If you put together a youth adult partnership and you all worked together and revised a school district's dress code, that's cool, right? That's great. Students are gonna benefit. But then if you also incorporate regular training on...


how staff and teachers should enforce those dress codes. If you work to eliminate bias in enforcement, there's a lot of bias in terms of enforcing dress codes, like based on race, based on gender presentation, based on body size, all those things. That could lead to real change. That is the kind of stuff that like you were saying, Janaye, like all the students who go to that school or are in that school district are gonna benefit for years after, and they might not have any idea that anybody was doing that prevention.


There's lots of other ways it looks like. So greening efforts, greening, that's about changing the environment. A good example of this is like creating more parks in urban areas. There's fewer green spaces in urban areas. And a lot of this is rooted in laws and policies that are connected to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic segregation. And so green spaces aren't just like this extra thing that's like nice to have. They're really important. And there's research that points to the connection between


access to green spaces and the impact on community members' mental and physical health and lower rates of violence in communities. So like even working to put in parks is a thing you can do. So those are just two examples, but it can also look like working towards pay equity, having paid parental leave, equitable access to good schools and childcare. And all of that really is and should be tied into the knowledge of like,


what the community wants and what the community needs and what they know about themselves. And there's also this like aspect of civic engagement with this. One of my coworkers was talking to me about this and I really like this idea that it's people being like, hey, this is my community. This is where we live. We can make things better. We can like kind of take charge of this. And so I feel like that ties into the theme so well because you have to have a connected community in order to


PreventConnect (21:24.236)
feel like you can make those changes and do that kind of work. So yeah, those are some examples. We have a lot more examples in our resources and I know in your resources as well. But yeah, what the community wants is like what you can work on. It's pretty fun. Yeah, it honestly is fun. Whenever I talk about my job, they're like, oh my gosh, are you OK? I swear, this is fun. Well, on the now.


and it's hard, but this ability that we have, this opportunity that we have to tap into imagination and creativity is incredibly powerful. And I see a question in the chat that kind of falls along this line of examples. So a question, there is such powerful opportunities and challenges within sporting communities. How can we best tap into and challenge cultural norms that increase or decrease likelihood?


I think for me, and I am someone with a sporting background, I totally hear that. I think some of the best opportunities is that, like I said, the community is there. The business that teammates feel for each other and with their coach already presents so many opportunities.


Another one of those protective factors that we talk about that decrease the likelihood of sexual violence happening is the connection through a caring adult. And teachers and mentors are an incredible resource. The accountability that can exist within teams is an incredible resource. On the flip side, the challenges to that is that there are already a lot of existing cultural and gender norms.


within sports that we have to challenge. I don't know, Mo or Jayla, do you have anything that you would like to add to that? Yeah, there's a curriculum that I really like for students who are involved in sports and it's called Athletes as Leaders. And if you look up Athletes as Leaders, you will find it. It is more based on that individual and relationship level, but it gets into the community level because...


PreventConnect (23:40.108)
the groups talk about what are our team norms and what are our team beliefs and what do we want to create as a team. And so if you think about it, a sports team as its own little micro community, that can be a really great way of, you know, deciding together, like what do we want this team to be like? What do we want our experiences to be like? What do we want our teammates experience to be with each other? And so I think that's a really great.


a really great resource. And I also think about, this is where I get a little soapboxy because I really love the idea of policies and procedures. In my life, I'm not a real like policies kind of person. I'm not like, oh, what does the policy tell me? But here's the thing that I know is that people really do shape their behavior based on policies. Policies can shape a whole lot of things. And a lot of times it's kind of that punitive way of like, well, we can't do that because...


there's a policy against it. But I think that there could be some great ways of getting involved in looking at and maybe updating policies related to student athletes. So that could be like student level of rec, it could be codes of conduct, it could be even stuff about like traveling and how that goes. This is just kind of like ideas. But I do think that policies and procedures and trainings around that,


And those are things that can help change those norms and can live on after maybe you've graduated or something. So that could be a thing to think about. For sure. Jla, is anything coming up for you? No, I think you guys made some really good points. How low I was thinking about it when I was in school and being a part of sports teams back when I thought I was like athletic.


But it was just still, even though I wasn't the best player, it was still that sense of community. And I knew that I could rely on my team members and also my coaches outside of the sport that we were all playing together. Even to this day, one of my middle school coaches, he was a teacher, but he is still a mentor to me. And...


PreventConnect (26:02.476)
still reaches out and you know, makes sure like, are you okay? Do you have something like you want to talk about? So those long lasting relationships that you make within those small communities or small parts of your life. And yeah, so I'm very grateful for that. So you made some great points. Thank you for, oh sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I see someone in the comments that athletes,


in that prevention program could do something like advocate for trans inclusive policies to stretch the community level too, which is absolutely a great one. We want to think about like, who's included, who is allowed to play, what are the policies that lift that up or squash that down, right? Absolutely. I love that. And again, I will just plug that NSVRC and PreventConnect, both things.


as resources, if you're hearing any of this that is striking a chord for you, you can just go to our website, search in our search bars and you'll find web conferences, podcasts. And I know Ashley put in the chat, Reliance is also a really great resource. That's a project that we partner on. So, you know, we have talked about a lot of really awesome things and I feel like I could just keep talking to you both forever. But I know that, you know, we don't have a ton of time left. So,


I want to talk about equity. So something that I really appreciate about the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and campaigns, this is now my third Sam working with you all, is the incredible focus that you have on equity. In the past, y 'all have focused explicitly on equity that's been in the title of your Sam campaign. But, you know, I know that's different.


or campaign here. Where does equity come in? And how are you centering equity with this campaign? Yeah, so equity itself, you know, recognizes that people and communities have varying needs due to their different experiences of oppression and or privilege, and that those different needs require varied amounts and types of resources and access.


PreventConnect (28:24.684)
So the campaign, Building Connected Communities, brings us closer to the goal of health equity, which means that everyone, regardless of their situation, has a chance to achieve their greatest possible health, creating fair, and just opportunity for all to reach their highest level of health and well -being. Yeah. Oh, I had something to add to that. Here's something nice. I appreciate that. I really like the.


It's like very affirming to talk to you, I have to say. I hope I can say the same for you. Like, good job, Janaye. I really like that point. The thing that I was going to bring up is that we have this guide that was created in partnership with the Prevention Institute. It's called a Health Equity Approach to Preventing Sexual Violence. And that's something that maybe, I don't know, I don't know how to like put a little comment in here.


I had to go change all the settings on my Instagram before this started because my Instagram was like, oh no, you don't have permission for your microphone and your camera. But we can share this resource somewhere. You can also just look it up, a health equity approach to preventing sexual violence. This is a really good job of kind of making that connection and showing why it's so important. So we know that communities that are at a higher risk for sexual violence, they also face a higher rate.


of health inequity. So if we want to prevent sexual violence, it really means that we need to eradicate the roots of violence in our society. And so I want to quote our website here. This is from the little blurb. So it says, disbalanced relationships of power, which create outcomes like racism, transphobia, sexism, and classism, are historically rooted in our society.


meaning that they are built deep into the institutions like healthcare, housing practices, and laws. So I just feel like that says so much about the stuff we've already been talking about, that this is deep, it is historically rooted, it's something that we have to dig up. And I know that the sexual violence prevention movement is kind of late in that. Sometimes people are like, why are we doing this? I have to say,


PreventConnect (30:43.66)
It's a lot of white people in this movement who are like, how is this related? And that is an area where we really need to do our work and we really need to be able to say, this is at the root of things and we are late coming to this. And there has been prevention happening since this country started because sexual violence has been happening since this country started and has been one of the ways that this country was created, right? So.


getting back to community level prevention, when we do that, equity has to be at the center of it. If we don't have equity at the center, we're actually not going to make a difference. It won't work otherwise. And when we put equity at the center, it raises the bar for everybody. It lifts everybody up. It affects all of those things related to health equity, social determinants of health. It's built right in there in our public health.


frameworks and theories. I always feel like our public health frameworks and theories are right there for us to connect to and we can use those to justify doing the work that we know is important. So yeah, this is definitely a part of our work. I have like another thing that I want to read, but I don't know if we have time. I was just going to cover like what the guide says. I think the guide is good. This is what I'll say. I think the guide is good for people who are doing prevention in your organization.


If you are like a prevention person, if you're a manager or a director and you're like, yeah, I want to get deeper into this, the guide has really good information and it covers a lot of different program examples so you can learn from what other people are doing. And it has these focus areas that you can use to kind of think more deeply about this and how you can make those changes within like your organizational work. Thank you so much, Mel. And.


As you were sharing that, a question popped up in the chat about what our organizations are doing to address that intersectionality. It was really great that pop up and you speak at the same time. And I want to add that, you know, what we do is weave that into everything that we do. You know, we know that people working at those local programs and state programs are looking to us to onboard their new staff.


PreventConnect (33:05.9)
to learn what it takes to do prevention. So that's why it's incredibly important, vital and non -negotiable that we center antidepressant and health equity in all that we do. So if you go to nsvrc .org or preventconnect .org, go to any of our e -learnings, look at our web conference podcast, that is very much at the center, is that we cannot do this work in a silo. And so I have...


Two questions left for you all. I know we're going a few minutes over, but we will bring it together soon. And I also see appreciation coming in in the chat. So thank you for that. Oh, you talked about a resource. You are a policy person. I'm a resource person. I don't know if it's because I'm a Virgo. I don't know if it's because capitalism, but I love a resource. I love pride and I love NSVRC because y 'all put out so many


resources for the field and for people for the movement, I think often talk about what we should be doing and you all take it a step further and really give people the tools of how to do it. So, EverySAM, you come out with new resources for the movement to take forward. Can you tell me a little bit about what you're releasing this year? Yeah, before I talk about our two resources, a comment in the chat about


intersectionality and how we approach this. Our last year campaign, which focused on equity, we created making connections pages where we break down making connection between transphobia, racism, and sexual violence, and that's its own resource. We have another resource for language access, sexual violence, and racism, and so forth. And we will also be sharing those out as well.


in relation to this year's campaign because those things go hand in hand like Janay mentioned. So for the resources we have this year, we want to have one resource called Together We Can Build Connected Communities. And this publication highlights the importance of making systemic changes to physical environments, just community attitudes, the norms, policies, to creating lasting impacts.


PreventConnect (35:27.82)
And it also differentiates between individual level prevention and community focused prevention efforts. And it shares those long -term benefits of community level prevention. Our other resource that is called Building Blocks of a Connected Community, it highlights what a connected community can look like. So we created a graphic that is


that looks like voting blocks. And at the top, what we want everyone, I should say, to feel like in their community or to achieve is, do I feel like I can rely on people in my community? Do I feel like I can make an impact? And do I feel like I belong? And then some of the things in the middle could be, is there effective leadership?


Is there trust? Is there community gatherings happening? Can we all come together? And at, not at the bottom, but to get to that higher point, is there safe transportation? Are we meeting those basic needs of people in our community? And we also share a few questions that you can ask yourself about your own community. Like, how do I know if my community,


Communities connected. So if you're those questions could be, are there supportive, culturally relevant community services? Is there trust amongst our community member members? And are there public spaces that are safe, accessible and free? So overall, both resources puts a big emphasis on creating inclusive, equitable and connected communities.


Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Because we talked about it. I think it is a tough concept to grasp. And I really love the interactivity of all of your resources. I think it really helps to bring people along. A question came up earlier in this chat that I think really sums us up really well. Are there any programs or projects or?


PreventConnect (37:45.804)
social media challenges that people can participate in starting this month? Yes, so we have our 30 days of Sam Instagram challenge. If you visit our Instagram page at NSVRC, we have a post that shows all of the prompts for the 30 days of April. And you can also find that calendar on our website. So.


We choose a winner for the prompt each day and you win a $25 Etsy gift card. And at the end of the month, we have a grand prize winner with an even more higher Etsy gift card. So we love seeing what folks are sharing, how folks are participating. We share some on our Instagram stories and.


We're really looking forward to how creative everyone decides to get for this month. I love that. I didn't know it was an Etsy gift card. I'm going to do it, you know, because I care about it. I think I'm actually pretty keen on a gift card, but that's some good prizes. And I also add, you know, if anyone is wanting to take this even further,


This is not a plug to buy anything, but I know that you all came out with some brand new swag that's available at nsvrc .org as well. And all of that goes to support the amazing work that you all do. Mo, Jayla, thank you so much for being here and contributing all your time. I've had the honor of knowing you both and working with you for a few years now. And I have learned so much.


so much from you. Same is always such an energizing time for people and a large part of that is because of the work that you do. I appreciate you so much. Is there anything that I have to ask that you want to ask?


PreventConnect (39:50.892)
I don't think so. I think we covered a lot. If, yeah, there's any other, I think we covered all questions in the chat. And thank you all for those questions. It's very helpful in the conversation. And thank you, Janee, for having us. Yeah, my second year doing this live with you all, and it was fun. We're doing it. We're really.


I will talk behind the scenes and we're like, okay, are you ready? I don't know. Are you ready? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I feel like we've covered so much. I would really encourage people to go to the NSVRC website and look up Sam. It'll get you to the page and that will show you the resources and it will also show you how you can access the challenge. So the challenge is someone just asked a question about that. It's on Instagram. So if you follow NSVRC on Instagram.
you can get there. Oh yeah, my coworker Sally is saying that there's links right on the NSVRC homepage. Thanks Sally, it's a team effort. Thank you and on the note of links and resources, we will also leave this Instagram live up on our Instagram page. I'll post links in the chat and both NSVRC and PreventConnect have podcasts. So we are going to be turning this interview into a bonus podcast.
at preventconnect .org and on Spotify and Apple Music and wherever you get podcasts. So you can access it there along with all of our other podcasts and all the links will be available in that episode on Spotify, Apple Music and at preventconnect .org. So thank you all so much for your time. We are so excited for Sam. Can't wait to see you all at the 30 Days of Sam Challenge and happy.
Thank you everyone. Great. I'm going to go live now. So bye Sam. Bye Sam.