The Electric City Culture Council (EC3) has partnered with the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre (KSAC) and the Peterborough Community Legal Centre to offer Respectful Arts Workplaces, an arts-community focused series of Professional Development Workshops that address the problem and impact of sexual harassment and sexual assault in arts organizations.

The Respectful Arts Workplaces series of Professional Development Workshops are intended for staff, employers, board members, parents, volunteers, and independent artists who want to build and maintain safe and respectful environments for everyone involved in their organizations and all the activities they undertake. Whether it’s in the office, the gallery, backstage, at rehearsals, auditions, the editing room, sound booth, or the closing night party, everyone deserves a safe and respectful environment in which to create and enjoy the arts.

Recent media reports on local circumstances and the call of the ME TOO! movement, which has been heard loud and clear, have highlighted that people working or volunteering in the arts and culture sector may be vulnerable to damaging power relationships, sexualized work contexts, and outright sexual assault in arts organizations, in any discipline, at any age, no matter what their experience, position, sexual preference, or gender identity. The Respectful Arts Workplaces Project is, at least in part, a response to recent incidents in arts organizations in Peterborough and the surrounding region. We all need to take responsibility for our organizations, to listen and to learn.

The Respectful Arts Workplaces series of Professional Development Workshops willcover the following topics over the course of three weeks in June to help community members identify, report and prevent sexual harassment in arts work and presentation spaces:

• The nuances of sexual violence and harassment in arts work and presentation spaces
• Sexual harassment tied to unequal power relations in arts workplaces, especially for minors, BIPOC, and LGBTQ2+ artists and cultural workers
• Identify the signs of sexual harassment
• Practical approaches and resources to prevent sexual harassment
• Community and legal resources for reporting sexual harassment as both a bystander and a victim
• How to provide trauma informed care for victims of sexual harassment and community resources for support

A KSAC staff member will be available before and after each workshop to answer questions or further discuss topics, and participants will have access to KSAC’s free and confidential text/online 24/7 Crisis Web Chat and Phone and Text Crisis Support Servicefor those who need additional support:

24/7 Crisis Web Chat: http://kawarthasexualassaultcentre.com/web-chat/

24/7 Phone Support: 1-866-298-7778

24/7 Text Support: 705-710-5234

Respectful Arts Workplaces Workshop Schedule

Tuesday, June 8: Workplace Sexual Harassment (4:30 to 6pm)
This workshop serves as a foundation for the workshop series and has been recorded for its participants and those unable to attend and interested in attending the following two workshops. The recording is available upon request.

Thursday, June 17: Stopping Sexual Harassment (4:30 to 6pm) - Register in advance for this session

Thursday, June 24: Reporting Sexual Harassment (4:30 to 6pm) - Register in advance for this session

**After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the session.