Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Kris Wright | Soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team take time out of their training to...... read more read more
ZAGAN, Poland - Soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division took time out of their training to attend a two-week advanced Sexual Harassment Assault Response and Prevention Foundation course during Atlantic Resolve in Zagan, Poland, April 11, 2019.
The course was taught by United States Army Forces Command SHARP Trainer Jeffrey Freeborn, who is a trainer for 1st ID and assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas. His objective was to train and create new victim advocates, teaching them how to best understand and communicate with a Soldier who may have an issue.
“The SHARP Foundation course is what all victim advocates and SARCS (Sexual Assault Response Coordinators) have to take before they can get credentialed to work with victims, particularly victims of sexual assault,” said Freeborn. “Once credentialled, these Soldiers will be stepping into victim advocate roles within their battalions.”
After graduating the course, the students, all of whom must be the rank of Staff Sergeant or higher, will be expected to handle quite a work load, delving deep into the complex components of sexual harassment and assault.
“It’s a lot deeper than any other training they’ve received within the SHARP program,” said Freeborn. “As victim advocates, they will have to know how to explain the resources that are available to victims. They’ll have to talk about what the victim can get out of the Chaplain program, what their options are in terms of behavioral health, legal and medical. So, they learn how they can get the victim to those programs.”
The course heavily relies upon scenario-based training. The scenarios help students recognize the appropriate times to intervene in order to stymie a potential incident before it becomes a harassment or assault incident.
“These Soldiers will learn to recognize those things,” said Freeborn. “At this rank, at this stage in their career, these Soldiers may have either seen or experienced much harassment over the course of their career, but they may not have known how to intervene in those situations and how to keep things from escalating. This course will enable them to understand those situations better and interpret how they should react.”
In addition to knowing the basic skills required to assist somebody who has a SHARP concern, the students of this course will walk away with a skill that’s just as important to helping victims.
“I want my students to understand that they need to have a different mindset they may not have used in any of their leadership roles; empathy,” said Freeborn. “NCOs learn to be direct when addressing and dealing with other Soldiers, that’s their job as leaders. But for them to be effective victim advocates, they need to take that leaders hat off and understand that as an advocate, you need to close your mouth and listen, obtaining the information the victim wants to convey to you.”
| Date Taken: | 04.11.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 04.16.2019 00:29 |
| Story ID: | 318097 |
| Location: | PL |
| Web Views: | 62 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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