Respectful Relationships

The ANU Respectful Relationships Unit (RRU) was established in 2019 to prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment at ANU. It runs education, training and events across the University, and coordinates the ANU Ally Network.

This KNoT is about taking part in that work: attend an RRU training session or event, or complete Ally Network training, then reflect on what it changes about how you act in the communities you belong to.

If you need support rather than education, this is not the right door. Student Safety and Wellbeing has specialist case managers who provide confidential support — see Health, safety and wellbeing, or contact respect@anu.edu.au. You do not need to be enrolled in anything to reach them.

Start at the Respectful Relationships page and look at what is currently on offer. Options generally include:

• Training, events and education run by the RRU through the year
• ANU Ally Network — training to join a volunteer network committed to an inclusive environment for LGBTIQA+ people
• Restorative practices — techniques for building community, resolving disputes and managing conflict

Sessions are scheduled by the RRU, not by SoCIETIE, so book directly with them. Email respect@anu.edu.au if nothing is listed when you look.

Prevention work is not about knowing the right definitions. It is about what you do in the ordinary moments — the comment in a group chat, the friend who is uneasy and has not said why, the room where you are the one person who could speak.

You will come away with language for those moments and a clearer sense of your own thresholds: what you would step in on, what you have let pass, and what you want to do differently.

• ANU Respectful Relationships — current training, events and the Ally Network
• ANU Health, safety and wellbeing — confidential support, separate from this KNoT
• respect@anu.edu.au — the RRU directly

This material can land close to home. It is entirely reasonable to step out of a session, and it is reasonable to choose a different KNoT instead — no one will ask why.

The Ally Network is the option with the longest tail: the training is a few hours, but you carry the commitment afterwards. Take it because you mean it, not because it is the tidiest way to finish a KNoT.

In 250–400 words:

• Name the session or training you took part in, and what it set out to do.
• What did you already think you knew, and what did the session complicate? Be specific.
• Describe one situation you can imagine yourself in — in a residence, a club, a workplace, a group project — and what you would now do differently.

Write about your own thinking and your own conduct. Do not write about an identifiable person's experience, yours or anyone else's; nothing here requires you to disclose anything.