Healthy relationships
We are excited to host Consent Hearts: a campaign to help build a culture of #uwconsent on campus. Join us in celebrating and setting boundaries in relationships across the spectrums of friendship, dating, work, roommates, and more! Campaign inspired by and with help from NYU’s #NYUHeartsConsent.
UW has several agencies that work to create a culture of consent on campus, including the offices below. Check out their work to learn more, get supported, and get connected:
Don’t miss our consent heart pins and stickers boxes all across campus! Pick up materials at the following offices and more:
- GSCC
- Multicultural Student Center (MSC)
- McBurney Disability Resource Center
- Center for Leadership and Involvement (CfLI)
- Center for the First Year Experience (CFYE)
- Violence Prevention Survivor Services (VPSS)
UHS Violence Prevention works to prevent sexual assault, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, and stalking before they occur by providing primary prevention programs, training and technical assistance for and with students, staff, and faculty.
Incoming undergraduate students are required to complete two online violence prevention programs: U Got This! and GetWIse. Supplemental online violence prevention education is also available to all undergraduate students through GetWIse. Read about UHS’ online violent prevention programs.
UHS offers a variety of other workshops including ActWIse (bystander intervention), DatingWIse (healthy relationships and dating violence), ListenWIse (how to support survivors) and SexWIse (healthy sexuality and sexual assault).
For more information contact violenceprevention@wisc.edu.
UHS Survivor Services (a division under Mental Health) provides confidential supportive services for UW-Madison student survivors who have experienced sexual assault, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, and stalking. Students can utilize services whether they have experienced victimization prior to coming to college or while they are enrolled as a student.
Services offered under Survivor Services:
- Information and referrals about campus and community services
- Information about and/or assistance with campus and legal reporting options
- Support in requesting academic accommodations
- Support in requesting protective measures or safety planning
- Ongoing individual or group counseling (no diagnosis or session limit)
- Information about victim rights and campus policies and procedures
- Accompaniment to appointments (medical, legal, campus disciplinary hearings)
- Campus trainings and advocacy support
Students can get connected to services by emailing the general account survivorservices@wisc.edu or coming into our Open Access hours (drop-in no appointment needed) to meet with a confidential victim advocate.
For more information visit the Survivor Services website.
Affirmative consent is a knowing, voluntary, mutual, and retractable decision among all participants.
Consent resource handouts
- Digital consent: Ensuring consent in digital interactions from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC).
- I ask for consent: Basics of asking for consent in relationships from the NSVRC.
- Consentimiento 101: El consentimiento puede ser revocado en cualquier momento sin que esto de lugar a castigos o reprimendas. (Consent may be revoked at any time without resulting in punishment or reprimand.) Spanish language version.
- Power dynamics in consent: Interrogate power dynamics in your relationships to ensure wellness and consent from the NSVRC.
Working together to integrate consent in our everyday lives can feel exciting and liberating. From some students at the GSCC:
I feel safe and relaxed around my close friends and family in a way I rarely do around strangers because we’ve talked explicitly about our boundaries and how we want to be treated.
We think of consent as a thing you get, a tangible thing you hold on to. Consent in all things asks us to imagine a community of care that celebrates the freedom to say no and the joy in saying yes.
Love means: a green flags campaign
What does love mean to you?
What do healthy relationships look like to you?
You’ve heard of “red flags” in relationships – indicators that the relationship might be unhealthy – but what about GREEN flags?
At the GSCC we often see relationship curricula and messaging around a crisis lens, and while addressing trauma is so important, we wanted to think more transformatively about relationships and the possibilities for accountability and joy in our communities. We developed the Love Means campaign and the image above to provide some alternative messaging around what our relationships often are and could be.
Check out the resources on this page for structuring healthy relationships based on respect, honesty, and communication.
Inspired by and with permission from TOD@S’ #QTPOCLove campaign.
Have a conversation with your floor, group, or staff!
Perspectives on how to ‘do’ relationships
We believe in consent in all things, a politic and practice of the skill and joy of setting and honoring boundaries in all parts of our lives.
Boundaries in friend, work, roommate, and dating relationships are all part of a culture of consent!
Check out these resources for expansive perspectives on how to ‘do’ relationships, communication, and more.
Love is respect
loveisrespect’s purpose is to engage, educate and empower young people to prevent and end abusive relationships, and support healthy ones.
Sexuality and disability
A resource site with sections on sex, relationships, conflict, breaking up, and body affirmation and self care.
Scarleteen
Inclusive identity and sexuality info for teens and emerging adults; check out their relationships section.
Relationship resources
These are some resources we think can be a good starting point for thinking critically and lovingly about your relationships across the spectrum of family, work, friendship, and sexual and romantic connections.
Please let us know what other documents or tools resonate for you or have helped you think about relationships.
Constructive conflict: Develop some constructive ways of communicating through conflict.
Dating bill of rights: This “bill of rights” outlines some of your potential rights and responsibilities in a healthy relationship.
LGBTQ power and control wheel: Recognize the signs of power and control– this model maps out intimate partner violence in queer relationships. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please see crisis resources under Support.
Non-monogamous relationships 101: Learn more about different models of relationships, including polyamory and open relationships. Includes glossary, resource list, and FAQ.
Relationship checklist: This list of questions is a starting point to help you determine what you want and need in your close relationships.
The revolution starts at home: This powerful 110-page zine is about confronting intimate violence in activist communities. It is compiled by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.
Model orgs
These organizations are doing work around relationships and community health that we think is very important. They help us think transformatively about relationships and taking care of each other in community. Check them out!
The NW Network of Bi, Trans, Lesbian and Gay Survivors of Abuse
TOD@S: Transforming Ourselves Through Dialogue, Organizing and Services
INCITE! Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans people of Color Against Violence
0% attached by a Zombie; 30% attacked by a Lover (that means you too, gay people) (NW Network campaign)
