Listeners

The ARI recognises the difficulty that can be felt by staff and students in reporting and dealing with harassment, bullying or victimisation. We also think that the best way to prevent bullying and harassment is to intervene early, and to tackle problems when they are hopefully more manageable.

We would thus like to propose an informal way to handle conflicts and complaints within the ARI, via a group of “listeners”. This idea is based on a scheme used successfully within the School of Physics and Astronomy in Cardiff. The role of the listeners is complementary with existing support structures within LJMU and the ARI. They will not decide on the validity of a complaint, encourage a particular course of action, nor will they represent members of staff in any formal proceedings.

The listeners work together to:

Provide advice and information to individuals or groups on the courses of action available to them if they believe themselves to be the subject of harassment and bullying.
Provide a friendly, supportive environment to individuals who are distressed by concerns about harassment and bullying, recognising the point at which it is appropriate to refer to other services.
Provide advice, information and a friendly supportive environment to individuals whose behaviour has been challenged as harassing or bullying (an individual will not be expected to advise both parties to a dispute).
Identify allegations which may be beyond remit of the role and refer these cases as appropriate

They will:

Receive concerns in good faith
Respect confidentiality of processes
Support complainants to raise concerns and seek informal resolutions

They won’t:

Investigate allegations
Make findings

In practice, if you need advice you can contact one of the listeners --- whoever in the group you feel the most comfortable talking to. This listener would (when possible) keep that conversation confidential, but in some cases might discuss the case with the rest of the group (with the agreement of the person looking for help).