Running Head: CAMPUS IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT

Narrative: Campus Implementation Project

The Bright House

Erin Thomas & Allie Doyle

KINS 4306: Internship

Dr. Kaninjing

Georgia College & State University

March 24th, 2021

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Narrative: Campus Implementation Project

Overview of Project

The Bright House, located right by Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, GA provides

a collaborative coordinated community response in an effort to reduce the incidence of child

malreatment and sexual violence through prevention, education, and intervention. One thing to

note about The Bright House is that it is for all ages, and not just children for the services

mentioned above. Besides the education, prevention, and intervention of sexual violence, this

local organization offers free counseling, crisis line, medical, and forensic interview services to

the area of middle Georgia. Since this organization is still getting off of their feet after re-

opening around 2018 and not many college aged men and women know about the resources and

services provided, we took it upon ourselves to make a campus implementation project. When

beginning the project, we came up with our mission statement that goes, “our mission of the

campus implementation project is to increase campus awareness on The Bright House and the

services that this organization can provide''. The targeted populations are all of the students on

campus. These students include early college students (still in high school), GCSU students,

greek organizations, and other campus organizations and clubs tabling around us. We also gave

information to campus staff when they walked by because the older adults can be seen at The

Bright House if it is ever needed.

Why It’s Needed

The Bright House is an organization that is an extreme need in the state of Georgia. In

2014, of the maltreatment victims within Georgia around 70.3% suffered neglect, 25.9% suffered

emotional abuse, 10.1% suffered physical abuse, 4.3% suffered medical neglect, and 3.0%

suffered sexual abuse (Georgia Division of Family and Children Services). Concerning older and
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disabled adults, abuse is one of the most unreported and undetected problems within the United

States. Most of the abuse on older and disabled adults is intentional and takes place anywhere at

any time (Department of Human Services: Division of Aging Services). Abused adults often rely

on their abuser for care, finances, food, shelter, and more. This is a reason that the abuse often

goes unreported because there is fear of losing everything given to them. For college students,

13% of all students experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or

incapacitation (among all graduate and undergraduate students). Among undergraduate students,

26.4% of females and 6.8% of males experience rape or sexual assault through physical force,

violence, or incapacitation and about 1 in 5 college aged femal survivors revieved victim

assistances from an organization like The Bright House. Overall, sexual assault on college

campuses is the most prevalant crime that takes place compared to other crimes (RAINN).

What We Did (On Campus)

For our project, we tabled on campus from 9AM-12PM March 22nd and 23rd. Our goal

was to target all students passing by our table on campus. We approached these students, handed

a flyer with campus assault statistics, pamphlets about the organization, a crisis line card,

sanitizer, pens, and koozies and briefly gave a summary of The Bright House if they did not walk

away and wanted to listen. We chose the idea of the model Elaboration Likelihood Model of

Persuasion for the project because we can use tailored messaging to get students to stick around

and listen to us about The Bright House and give out our free supplies as incentives to students.

On the first day, we handed 100 of the items mentioned previously and the second day we

handed out 50 because that is what The Bright House had left for us to give to the students.

When students accepted the items handed out, we would also try to say what we were raising

awareness for. Whenever we mentioned child abuse, campus advocay for students, and sexual
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assualt every student passing by always took our handouts, asked at least one question, or noted

how they supported what we were doing which means it was a success.

Evaluation

Students did deny us while we were tabling, but that is okay because of the rush of going

to class and how late people can be places. Most students who we went up to and gave the items

to listen to us explain the services The Bright House provides and each student loved the idea of

the organization which made us feel like we were making a difference on campus. Students also

said they would check out the organization, and one specific woman even called the office about

an internship opportunity after we told her about what we do as interns. The men we reached on

campus were more closed off than the women which was expected, but once we said “child

abuse and negected and campus assault” they wanted to know exactly what we did and they

praised having The Bright House in Milledgeville as a resource. The tabling and word of mouth

explanation went much farther than we thought along with what our supervisors thought too.

What We Could of Done Differently/Closing

The main thing we could have done differently was telling students who got our items to

write their name and email down on our sheet of paper we had so we could send out emails with

more information on The Bright House. On the first day while tabling with JoAnna, we knew

that was not a tangible thing to do though because the emails would have been ignored and many

of the students were in a rush to get to class.

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References

1. Department of Human Services: Division of Aging Services. (n.d.). Abuse, Neglect, and
Exploitation of At-Risk Adults in Georgia. Georgia.gov. https://aging.georgia.gov/report-
elder-abuse/abuse-neglect-and-exploitation-risk-adults-georgia
2. Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. (n.d.). Child Abuse and Neglect
Prevention Fact Sheet. dfcs.georgia.gov.
https://dfcs.georgia.gov/sites/dfcs.georgia.gov/files/Child%20Abuse%20and%20Neglect
%20Fact%20Sheet%20Final.pdf
3. RAINN. (n.d.). Campus Sexual Violence: Statistics. Rainn.org.
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence#:~:text=13%25%20of%20all
%20students%20experience,all%20graduate%20and%20undergraduate%20students