The MyStand mentor program has grown from 20 mentors to over 200 mentors on campus within the last two years.  It is a program for student leaders who are interested in being more connected with the CARE office.  Many MyStand mentors are student leaders within other campus groups who have seen students in distress and are looking to help.

The main goal of MyStand is to help student leaders in organizations on campus be able to have the tools and education to help prevent violence here at UNCW or anywhere they go.

The training for the program helps breakdown a lot of the violence students are exposed to in everyday life and culture. This includes sexual violence, domestic violence, stalking, harassment, and bullying. The training takes that knowledge of violence and breaks it down into a college setting so that student leaders can learn to help other students in their organizations that may be encountering these kinds of violence.

Hannah Braun is a current MyStand mentor and recalls a situation where her training kicked in.

“I was working as an Orientation Leader and was having and very difficult time with a couple of the men in my small group. It got to a point where I had to address the situation and stand up for myself, as well as for the other students in my group to show them that it wasn’t acceptable for people to be treating others in that way. This happened about a week after my first training as a My Stand Mentor, and I don’t think I would have been able to stand up for myself in the way that I did had I not gone through the program,” said Braun

Adam Hall and Jen Adler are the co-founders of the MyStand mentor program. They are passionate about the program and the effects it is having on students around campus.

“The idea is to have a student led movement on campus to reduce violence. It gives students the opportunity to lead their own organizations. We have a ton of sorority members, student club athletes, and others who are the mentors for their groups. They are leading their groups as mentors and trying to get them to the right resources if something has happened,” said Hall.

A lot of the mentors are associated with housing, sororities, fraternities, and peer educators in CARE. It’s a very behind-the scenes program. The mentors let students know they can come to them if they need anything without scaring them off.

“It’s easier for a student to go to another student they know within a group rather than a stranger. It can be intimidating. It’s more reassuring for them to be able to know who they can trust in these kinds of situations,” said Hall.

The program is growing rapidly. There are about 10-15 new mentors at every training session, which is a great sign for the program. Most of the recruitment for new mentors is based on recommendations from students to other students.

When we created the My Stand Mentor Program, we really intended for it to be a way to connect CARE with different groups around campus and to publicize anti-violence messages.  However, we have discovered that the trained mentors are doing a huge amount to combat interpersonal violence in their lives and when we have our monthly meetings, all of our mentors have stories about ways in which they have used intervention skills to help friends or stop assaults or abuse when they see red flags of violence,” said Adler.

MyStand’s steady growth and the optimism of students and faculty shows that UNCW is on the right path to making violence prevention a social movement on campus. It isn’t just an idea to prevent violence, but a stand against it