What is AnyOne Can Step UP!?
Have you seen a friend (or even a stranger) in a risky situation? Felt worried, but didn’t know what to say or do?
Learn the ways you and your friends can watch out for one another. AnyOne Can Step UP! is a bystander intervention training. We can show you strategies and techniques for interrupting troubling dynamics as well as for directly and indirectly intervening when necessary. Student Support and Advocacy Center staff and certified students co-facilitate these interactive sessions.
AnyOne Can Step UP! Trainings
Open to all!
Request an AnyOne Can Step UP! training for your organization, group or class HERE.
AnyOne Can Step Up Trainers
Asra Ahmad
Dina Bicking
John Cicchetti
Courtney Diener
Myra Khan
Caitlyn Largent
Lora Learmont
Nena Rogers
History
Many people have been in a problematic situations where they could have intervened but didn’t. Later on, they can be troubled by their lack of action and may wonder, “If only I would have…. done something, said something, talked to someone….there may have been a different outcome.”
In 2007, Becky Bell, Associate Athletics Director at The University of Arizona, worked with the NCAA to implement a survey at three universities (University of Arizona, University of California, Riverside and University of Virginia) that revealed that student-athletes are encountering multiple situations where bystander intervention would be appropriate.
Although much research exists on bystander behavior in general, there was not an interdisciplinary, bystander intervention program tailored for the student-athlete experience and building on the positive aspects of team membership. Ms. Bell developed the Step UP! program to fill this gap. In 2008, the NCAA sent Step UP! training materials to all CHAMPS/Life Skills Coordinators.
The Step UP! program is designed to help students learn strategies and techniques to intervene both directly and indirectly in both emergency and non-emergency situations. The program contains support materials to address a wide-range of issues including academic integrity, alcohol abuse, anger, depression, discrimination, disordered eating, gambling, hazing, relationship abuse and sexual assault. For more information on this pioneering and widely-used program, see http://stepupprogram.org.
Since 2008, George Mason University’s Student Support and Advocacy Center had been using a bystander training called AnyOne Can. AnyOne Can was designed to be an interpersonal violence prevention intervention and was developed through a grant from Verizon. Staff used AnyOne Can to educate students about interpersonal violence and how “anyone” can be an engaged bystander.
With training and guidance from the Gordie Center for Substance Abuse Prevention at the University of Virginia, Student Support and Advocacy Center combined both training programs in 2014. AnyOne Can Step UP! is a comprehensive intervention program where staff team up with skilled student co-facilitators to provide training that addresses the many issues that may inspire a Mason Patriot to step up!