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What it's really like to teach adland about sexual harassment

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Bryony Beynon is a senior trainer at timeTo, an initiative set up by NABS, The AA and WACL to tackle sexual harassment in advertising that offers ground breaking interactive training for companies and individuals on how to recognise and tackle sexual harassment.

timeTo endorsers will be given access to 2-hour sessions that give practical guidance on sexual harassment in an effort to increase understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace. 

timeTo trainers come up against some challenging stories and views during these training sessions, but they are passionate individuals who focus on educating people and helping to eradicate sexual harassment in our industry for good. 

Today, Bryony spoke to us to give our readers a unique insight into what it is like being on the other side of these intense training sessions.

Why did you take up the role of training around sexual harassment?

I am a professional gender-based violence prevention educator and was commissioned to develop and deliver this programme as Lead Trainer in 2019. It is a natural development in my career, I come from a background of doing community activism around street-based harassment and then working on Rape Crisis helplines and eventually setting up my own organisation to deal with this issue in nightlife.

Good Night Out Campaign - goodnightoutcampaign.org These days I also deliver training across lots of industries including healthcare transport and nightlife.

What are the challenges of the training sessions?

There are many challenges to doing attitude-change based education in relation to sexual harassment, as the most common sources of information for most people are unfortunately largely inaccurate or reflect existing biases, from social media to peers.

This very complex nuanced topic and we want to address everyone's concerns and questions, whether that be during a session or after. However the interactive nature of the training does allow us to cover a lot of ground and queries as the training progresses. It’s all about taking in the information and applying it to real life situations so people can feel more informed after they have completed it.

How do you deal with these challenges?

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From a sexual violence facilitator perspective, you have to train yourself be ready to hear some pretty unvarnished opinions that might have been more informed by the media or just straight up sexism… and not cry or scream or swear.

This really takes hard work and hardcore self care! In the advertising and marketing industry, I would generally say people are more informed than the average person, but there are occasionally some trainees who think, for example, that this is a brand new or even exaggerated problem because of MeToo or ‘political correctness gone mad.’

Dealing with these kinds of comments properly means engaging with the feeling underneath them, which is very often fear. Fear of being asked to change their behaviour, or being less entitled to behave however they like. Some people fear that the discourse around this stuff has changed and they are ‘out of touch’ when in fact, of course, it’s never been acceptable to sexual harass, it just was less likely to be ever be challenged in the past.

You have to appeal to people’s humanity and empathy to try and build that up, activate them to make them realise they can be part of a positive change, and make them realise this is a much sharper tool than cynicism and suspicion ever will be. This isn’t easy to achieve in a short workshop but if I can change one person’s mind or perspective, it’s more than enough.

How much research goes into the training sessions? And how do you update them?

We used specially commissioned Nabs Research. This was updated during covid by commissioning more to demonstrate how the pandemic had not stopped harassment, just shifted it.

Our training team includes two clinical psychotherapists who have a depth of knowledge which helps ensure all research on the impact of sexual harassment is appropriate.

I’m sure it can be emotionally draining hearing so many harrowing stories, how do you deal with this?

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The work of facilitating space to discuss sexual harassment in workplaces can result in some frustration and even vicarious trauma from hearing just how common these experiences are.

We practice self-care, regularly debrief and work closely to pass anything that has been raised in a session as a possible safeguarding concern back to the client.

When something/someone's views are offensive/controversial during a session that crosses the line what action do you take?

The aims of the session are to create a safe environment to hear what people believe currently and shift these views if necessary, so all trainers work hard to meet people where they are at.

We use a model I have developed over the last decade to counter myths and misinformation ‘The VERA Model’ (Validate, Explain, Reframe, Affirm) which helps to ensure we listen to their opinions and try to offer alternative perspectives.

How do you value a successful session?

I find every session valuable personally, but we formally measure feedback on increase in knowledge, skills and confidence. The testimonials we have from this year so far speak for themselves. 

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“This is a must attend training course for anyone working in the advertising and marketing industry. The issue of sexual harassment at work is something which requires commitment from everyone within the organisation to ensure a healthy and safe workplace for everyone.”  - anon

“We’ve come away with a better understanding of what sits behind the scary phrase ‘sexual harassment’, confidence to encourage open dialogue, ask “are you okay with this?” at the point and make a positive intervention before it becomes a problem” - Camilla Kemp, CEO M&C Saatchi London

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