The Student Advocacy Resource Center provides sexual assault prevention trainings and direct clinical services for all students. SARC’s comprehensive free and confidential services support those who have experienced sexual assault, relationship violence, bullying, intimidation or discrimination. When students access services, advocates work with them to assess their needs, help them understand their options and support their decisions.

As an integral leader in providing trauma-informed advocacy and care, SARC removes barriers to learning by creating a safer and more empowering campus environment. SARC’s best practices are nationally recognized by the Department of Justice as the “blueprint model for advocacy.”

SARC has built strong working relationships through integration within the legal, medical and justice systems. Some examples of its leadership and innovation include:

• Creating a special victims unit within Missoula, so that trauma-informed interviewing techniques could be used by detectives and police.
• Leading a communitywide audit with different agencies to help them to collaborate on the issues of sexual assault, relationship violence and discrimination.
• Rewriting policies for the Missoula Police Department on how to respond to sexual assault and violence.
• Providing a 24-hour reporting hotline and advocates to accompany students to First Step at St. Patrick Hospital.

SARC’s in-person Bystander Intervention Training, which is a registration-binding requirement for all UM students, supports them in understanding how to intervene as a bystander and use resources in the community. In the training, SARC empowers students with the knowledge that prevention is important and gives them the tools to do the little things to help people be safe and change societal biases and violence. 

In the 2018-19 academic year, SARC’s prevention outreach reached 11,139 people from the UM campus, the Missoula community, and at state and national trainings – nearly every student, and some students more than once.