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0:00:14.1: Welcome to Resource on The Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. I'm Laura Palumbo and a CRC's communications director. And on today's episode we're marking that it's been five years since we launched Resource on the Go. And to celebrate we're going to listen to some clips from our most listened to episodes. And I am joined by some special guests today, including Halle Nelson, communication specialist at NSVRC. Halle, thank you for joining us and for making your Resource on the Go debut.

0:00:48.9: Happy to be here.

0:00:50.8: And we've got another special guest today, Courtland Murray, Respect Together's multimedia specialist, who is actually behind the scenes of each and every podcast episode. And Courtland, how does it feel to be in the room and when we're recording?

0:01:08.2: I'm just excited. I got to tell you, at first I was so nervous. I was like, oh man, what did I get myself into with recording this? But I'm so excited and like I said, I respect both of you for getting on camera and making this a first time thing for our organization and I'm excited to see where it goes.

0:01:29.8: Yeah. No, it was great. I wouldn't have had this idea. But it's cool to do something new, to try something new and to be able to have you involved as well. So before we start rolling with episode clips, let's talk about some of the numbers that help to put this five year milestone in context. So far there have been 70 episodes of our podcast which first aired on June 24th of 2020. And Courtland, can you tell us a little bit more about who listens to Resource on the Go?

0:01:59.8: Absolutely. So Resource on the Go has listeners from all around the globe, reaching 100 countries. 85% of our listeners are from the United states, covering every US state and territory. With 66,664 downloads, our podcast has reached so many of our listeners across platforms. Resource on the Go has had almost 50,000 downloads via Podbean and almost 18,000 via YouTube. 2021 was our most prolific year.

0:02:32.5: And those 18,000 folks that are tuning in on YouTube is part of why we're going in of the camera today. Because we know we have some listeners who actually are finding us there. And so here we are in front of the cameras. Halle, do you want to get us talking about our first episode?

0:02:50.0: So all of our downloads we've been able to share a wide variety of topics, but we also have a few series that we're especially proud of. A few collection of episodes that discuss a certain topic. This includes Talking about Sex Ed, which was our series that was focused on sex, healthy sexuality, consent, and comprehensive sexual education. And Anti Blackness in the Movement, which was our content focused on equity and anti oppression. The Anti Blackness in the movement series performed 25% to 72% better compared to the average episode downloads. So we were really excited to see the enthusiasm for those episodes and we welcome any feedback for any new series on topics you think would be a great fit for our podcast. But with all that being said, let's get started on our conversation for this podcast.

0:03:45.6: Yes. What is the first episode we're discussing?

0:03:49.3: So first up is Sex Ed, Teaching Porn Literacy, which aired on October 13, 2020. In this episode, NSVRC's Jen Grove talked with Boston University School of public health professor Dr. Emily Rothman about what it means to be porn literate and how we can help young people critically about what the research says about pornography. Listen as they discuss the connection between porn literacy and preventing sexual and dating violence.

0:04:18.0: Are you working on some kind of study that had to do with pornography? Like she was thinking of that research I was just telling you about. And so the minute that Jess said the word pornography, the kids all of a sudden were very interested in what I had to say. And they had lots of opinions that they wanted to express about what they did and didn't want to see in pornography. And so after that session, we looked at each other, me and the two adults who facilitate that Boston Public Health Commission after school program, and we thought, wow, we could really leverage the kids' obvious interest in talking about pornography by engaging them around that topic and using that as a vehicle for making sure that we do talk with them about other issues that we want to talk with them about, anyway, like consent and the health of relationships, and also add into that what you're seeing in pornography is usually not very realistic or what we know from science about ways in which pornography can influence some people's behavior, all of that. So we sort of set off on that point on this journey of developing a porn literacy curriculum and pilot testing it with different cohorts of youth from that after school program.: And so that was in about 2015. So in 2016, we were really finalizing the first version of our curriculum.

0:05:49.6: That's so great. I can definitely identify with being an educator, going in front of a group of students or young people and having them look at me like, what are you talking about? You lost me here. I'm bored. And needing to have something that makes them sit up in their seats. And I can imagine saying the word pornography was definitely something that caused them to become quite a lot more alert, right?

0:06:18.1: I really enjoyed re-listening to this episode, Halle. I think it's great for anyone who's doing any educational programming, especially folks working with youth. But I also feel like I learned a lot from it this time around listening as a parent, even though my kids are extremely young. I think the way that the guest is talking about the actual approach of the curriculum and that they focus so much on critical thinking and not telling teens what to think, it really resonated with me because even though I don't have a ton of parenting experience, I can say that because I said so is not the most effective way to communicate with young people.

0:07:01.9: And even in the podcast, they do discuss the parent feedback that they'd received and how thrilled they were that they had this opportunity presented to them to really open the discussion and how it empowered their children in their own daily lives to establish boundaries in the home and really build trust between children and parents. So, yeah. I think that this episode, it was just such a good foundational place for so many of our listeners to understand ways to introduce this topic to their children.

0:07:40.1: We've had some really amazing moments on our podcast. What's next on our list?

0:07:46.4: So the next clip that we're discussing is from our Anti Blackness in the Movement series in which Michelle Osborne was interviewed on May 31, 2022. This series involved Darrin Dorsey speaking with five Black movement leaders about their experiences of anti-Blackness in the movement and gender-based violence and ways to create a movement that is inclusive of Black workers and survivors. For organizations striving to serve as allies and accomplices to Black communities, these five podcasts are a tool to better understand how they can fulfill their commitments and create a movement that addresses gender-based violence against all people while following the lead of the most marginalized among us.

0:08:30.5: It is incredible. And I do think, Darrin, thank you for the by any means necessary, which is what we've always had to do, because that is part of survival. And part of one Black woman's survival is the survival of the community, is the survival of all of us. And we know too that when we survive, then other people are surviving. Other people are doing better because we are surviving. It's interesting. Other people are doing better when we're just surviving. They're thriving. But when we thrive, which goes back to your question of what would the movement have looked like if we had listened to basically what Black women and women of color were saying, what would the movement have looked like? Then we would all have been thriving and beyond. So that is both a loss. This is always the loss that a lot of people don't understand. There's a loss when you suppress and oppress and use violence against communities like Black communities. You lose brilliance. You lose wisdom. You lose the ability for everyone's lives to improve. But the thing about the Black community, just as the Native American and Indigenous communities keep proving, is that we're not going anywhere. We are still here. And we are continuing to make sure that we are still here and that our voices are uplifted. And people are hearing those voices. The next issue, what are you going to do when you hear the voice of the person who's been marginalized? And that is the issue that the movement continues to struggle with.

0:10:03.2: Can I just say I would listen to Michelle Osborne for... The episode is an hour, which is a little bit longer than our usual episodes. But it is such an engaging listen. And she is such a great speaker and brings so much history and personal experience into the conversation. I think that it is an hour very well spent. And we know that our listeners really are liking the series. We have our top series of talking about sex ed. And this anti-Blackness in the movement series hosted by Darrin Dorsey was really another one of our top series as well.

0:10:53.9: And I think that what listeners like a lot about this series is just how evergreen the topic is. Our Black leaders in the movement have dated back to Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells, and they continue well into today. And it's so important to prioritize their voices because when they're set aside, it really stalls our movement from going forward and from progressing to being truly equitable to all our communities in our prevention, education, and care efforts.

0:11:31.6: Yes. And one thing that I noticed with this episode, as well as so many others that I re-listened to, is that even though it is a few years old, it is absolutely so, so timely still. So timely, so relevant. I think that this five-year milestone, it actually made me, because I re-listened to this episode, want to re-listen to that whole anti-Blackness in the movement series, as well as so many of the other older episodes, because I feel like you bring new insights to them when you're re-listening, and also it's incredible how much relevance they still have and how much we're still grappling with these same issues and topics.

0:12:14.2: That's why these conversations should never be a once and done. We should always cycle back if we can.

0:12:20.0: Great point. All right. Which episode is next?

0:12:24.1: So our third clip is from Prevention Gets Visual, which aired on July 5th, 2023. On this podcast, Sally Laskey, who's the NSVRC Evaluation Coordinator, talks to collaborative partners from Photovoice Worldwide and local preventionists in Ohio that worked with the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence in creating a culturally responsive and anti-violence-centric toolkit on how to use Photovoice in sexual violence prevention work.

0:12:55.5: Before I pass the baton over to Lisa, I want to say, for me, as the coordinator of all of this, the most amazing conversations happened the night of the show, when we opened the show. We really did a proper show opening. It was fun. We had fake champagne and crackers and cheese and all kinds of what you would expect to see at a proper gallery opening, and the kids loved it. Many of them had never framed a piece of their artwork before, so to be in a show was kind of monumental. And there were tears, and there was a lot of emotion and a lot of conversation. But I had three different parents come up to me and say, I don't know what you guys were doing when it came to consent, because I know this was all about belonging and the conversation was about belonging, but my child said to me the other day, I wish you had asked me for consent, Mom. Or they said, I would like to talk, they were at the table, and another one said, we were at the dinner table, and my son said, I really feel like we need to talk more about consent and when you guys come into my bedroom, because I feel like no one really respects the boundary that I tried to put into place about knocking before you enter my bedroom. So for me, these conversations were so unexpected and so beautiful and so important.

0:14:17.9: This is a really cool episode and a really cool project to learn about. I had heard folks talking about Photovoice, but bringing in the perspective of the actual program facilitators and some of the folks behind the toolkit was really super insightful. And it's also just really great to have an example that we're highlighting that's talking about approaching prevention in a way that's bringing in arts, that's bringing in people's stories, that's letting people guide the conversation and the process, especially young people. I really enjoyed hearing about that as well.

0:14:55.7: And art is also just such a wonderful vehicle to help not only the students discussed in this episode, but people of all walks of life who want to discuss this issue. It's a really great way to both channel your emotions or really gather your thoughts about the issue that was being discussed. So I was really happy to see that there was such positive feedback from the Photovoice program that they made.

0:15:24.8: Yes. And like so many of the episodes that we re-listened to, I need to go back to the show notes so I can check out this toolkit now because I feel like it definitely had me very curious. And again, even though this was from 2023, I think it still has so much to offer us today. I can't believe it. We are approaching the end of today's episode. Halle, what's the final episode that we're going to be looking back on?

0:15:52.0: So our final clip is from our episode Creating Climates for Innovation, which aired on August 8th, 2023. On this podcast, we have Sally Laskey again, talking with researchers Dr. Nicole Allen and Aggie Rieger about how to better support those working to prevent sexual violence.

0:16:12.2: So in the same way that we want preventionists to expand to outer layers of the socio-ecological model to address sexual violence, the irony is that we must also attend to the ecology of preventionists. There's often a danger that we become hyper-focused on the individuals who we want to engage the change. So we focus on their knowledge and we focus on their skills and we build that up, their competence and confidence. But if we haven't created an organizational climate for innovation to use a phrase from Catherine Klein, who does organizational change work, that change is really not likely to occur.

0:16:48.9: I really enjoyed this episode a lot too. I feel like the researchers, Dr. Nicole Allen and Aggie Rieger, were just so... They did a really good job of talking about their work and their research in a way that was friendly to people who are not researchers because I am not a researcher. I felt like they talked about it in a way that was accessible and engaging. It was cool to hear them talking about how often even when folks are trying to do that community-level prevention work, there are just these kind of habits that get us stuck in doing individual-level prevention work. And I thought that the episode really helped me to think about ways that we could be approaching prevention in more innovative ways.

0:17:44.8: Yeah. I mean, as somebody who does not have the role of a preventionist, hearing about this position was really interesting because it's kind of 10 jobs in one. They're covering so much ground, working with so many different communities, and it was really fascinating to get sort of an inside look on what they do and what sort of systemic changes that they're looking for to help make this job more approachable to their audience and more manageable to their fellow colleagues in the field. So I thought it was a really interesting podcast and a great one to end our discussion on.

0:18:27.8: Yes. I'm remembering what I was going to say before, which is that I nerded out a little because it was hosted by Sally Laskey, who's NSERC's evaluation coordinator, and Sally mentions about how her experience, she reflects on her experience working in the movement as a preventionist before NSVRC. And I was like, whoa, that's pretty full circle to be able to hear how NSVRC's work is supporting preventionists in reaching those outer layers now and then to know that this work has so much history and has made so much progress and that there's still so much opportunity to innovate. So, before we wrap up the episode, I thought of a question that I wanted to ask you and Courtland just totally unscripted off the cuff, which is, what are your favorite ways to listen to a podcast episode? Are you someone that listens when you go for a walk, while you're doing tours around the house? How do you listen on the go?

0:19:36.4: I mean, on the go. I like to have a point A to point B, so either while I'm walking or while I'm driving, I love listening to a podcast. So yeah, that would be it for me.

0:19:50.1: Yeah. And one of my main go to's would probably be when I'm in the car and traffic, that's pretty much a long drive. That's been my go to with podcasts or if I'm just around the house and doing some kind of busy work that I don't really necessarily need to use my brain for.

0:20:10.8: It's so great for that. It really is. Yeah. I mean, I hope you know we're glad to be in front of the camera today trying something new out with video, but there's this really cool thing about podcasts that there's so many activities that we do in day-to-day life that take a lot of time and kind of involve a lot of drudgery. And this gives our brains something cool to experience at the same time. So, thank you both for being good sports about that on the fly question. And thank you both for joining me today for this trip down memory lane talking about these podcast episodes. We highlighted some of the top episodes from our past five years of podcasting. Now, the episodes we talked about today, since those are top episodes from the past five years, those are a lot of older episodes because they've had more opportunities to gain lessons. But folks should definitely be keeping an eye on our more recent episodes because we have some great recent ones too. And I think that, even though we're not putting out a podcast every single week, there's still a lot of great content that folks can check out and revisit on the Resource on the Go podcast.

0:21:22.3: Thank you, Laura. I can't wait to see what the next five years bring to us for this podcast. So for our listeners at home, if you're interested in NSVRC talking about any particular topics, please feel free to reach out to us with any of your ideas.

0:21:36.9: And thank you for bringing me out in front of the podcast, and the cameras and everything. This was so great looking back on some of these episodes and I already started thinking about some great ideas for future episodes. So, thank you.

0:21:50.7: And Courtland, thank you for making us always sound like we are competent experts and hopefully making us look like we know what we're doing today. Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go. For more resources and information about preventing sexual assault, visit our website at www.nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing Resources@nsvrc-respecttogether.org. 

0:22:25.0: Excellent.

0:22:25.2: We're good?

0:22:25.7: We're good. 

0:22:27.0: We're good.

0:22:29.6: All right. We did it, and it's not even 11. I thought for certain we were going to go over 11, just 'cause...

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