Change Begins with Us: Peer-led approach to violence prevention wins award

Change Begins with Us, a comprehensive interpersonal violence prevention program for new students, received a Silver 2025 NASPA Excellence Award in the category of Campus Security, Crisis Management, Student Conduct and Community Standards, Violence Prevention and Related.

“I am so proud of this program, our peer educators and the incoming students at Binghamton,” said Dara Raboy, interpersonal violence prevention coordinator. “Our dedicated peer educators train 4,000 students over a four-day period during move-in. It really shows how the peer educators and the incoming student body strive to change culture and make Binghamton safer and healthier for all students.”

New students attend two mandated sessions – an online training taken by all incoming new first-year, transfer and graduate students prior to arriving on campus and an in-person session held during Move-in Weekend. Students receive information and resources addressing affirmative consent, healthy and unhealthy relationships, rape culture and victim blaming, bystander intervention and how to help a friend.

The program is implemented by the peer-based 20:1 Interpersonal Violence Prevention Program. 20:1, named to represent the approximately 20 women per hour that experience sexual violence, was established by Raboy in 2004. It is now a credit-bearing year-long internship for students who are passionate about interpersonal violence prevention.

The in-person education portion of Change Begins with Us is conducted by trained peer educators using an interactive, evidence-based model. The material is offered in more than 100 small groups of 30-40 students, encouraging meaningful dialogue on all areas of interpersonal violence. Each section is designed to maximize interactive discussion through activities, scenarios and videos.

“Being part of this program has been a phenomenal opportunity to facilitate peer education and foster meaningful conversations,” said Fitzgerald Alcindor, a senior majoring in integrative neuroscience and a 20:1 intern who helped facilitate the program last fall. “Through each presentation, I witnessed tangible change, as students engaged with the material and took steps toward creating a safer, more informed campus community.”