The College Parent’s Guide to Consent and Personal Safety
A short, practical guide for parents with scripts for the conversation to have before your student leaves for college.
Publications
Guides and research you can use.
PASS Worldwide publishes practical handbooks for families and educators, plus research on how people actually think and talk about consent. Every publication is free to read and share.
Handbook · New
The College Parent’s Guide to Consent and Personal Safety
A guide for parents. What to say before move-in day.
Most parents mean to have the conversation about consent and safety before their student leaves for college. Then the car gets packed and the moment passes. This guide gives you the words you need to have it.
It is short on purpose: twenty minutes of reading and one conversation. Each red box in the guide is a script. You can use it word for word, put it in your own voice, or skip it. The guide covers consent, alcohol, how to leave a situation, what to do if something goes wrong, and how to step in when it is happening to someone else.
Inside the guide
Three chapters, then the tools.
Read it once, in order. Then keep it somewhere you can find it.
00
The Twenty-Minute Conversation
Why one honest conversation before move-in day matters, the five subjects to cover, and how to start when there’s no good time.
01
What Colleges Aren’t Telling Parents
The gap between the brochure and the first weekend, and why the first six weeks on campus are the riskiest.
02
Consent, Plainly
What consent looks like in a real room, not just in a legal definition, and how alcohol affects whether someone can say yes.
Also included
- If your student tells you
- When it is happening to someone else
- The Ten-Minute Setup worksheet
- The four-step exit plan
- Who to call
From the guide · Script 1 of 6
“There’s something I want to say before you leave. It will be a little awkward. I’d rather be awkward now than wish I had said it.”
One of six scripts in the guide, for starting the conversation, responding when your student tells you something, and the hardest moments.
Library
All publications.
Research report
The Climate
of Consent
of Consent
The Climate of Consent
A national analysis of public conversations about consent in U.S. schools and communities, and what students, parents, and administrators say when no one is surveying them.
Newsletter
Beyond Awareness.
The official newsletter of PASS Worldwide: updates on our programs, research, partners, and the work ahead.
Beyond Awareness: From Plan to Practice
Sonia Ott's letter from the Livelong Seminar in New York, Alexander Ott's new College Parent's Guide to Consent, the Aegis app now live on the App Store, a first look at OPTIC, the growing Ambassador Program, and news from campus.
Beyond Awareness: introducing PASS Worldwide
Our inaugural issue as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit — Sonia Ott's letter on our mission, the launch of our new website, Alex Ott's nationally distributed whitepaper, and Father Duffy joining our Advisory Board.
If you need help now
National Sexual Assault Hotline
1-800-656-HOPE (4673) · rainn.org
Free, confidential, 24/7.