Harassment Contact Person

The student union wants to prevent harassment in university. By having harassment contact persons, we try to lower the threshold for reporting harassment that might happen in our university community.

Harassment may include, for example, mental or physical bullying, threatening, unequal treatment, discrimination, distressing messages, inappropriate remarks, untruthful gossip, or any other activity that the target of harassment feels uncomfortable or offensive. Defining harassment is difficult, because it is always related with the person’s feelings of the experience. Something that is normal to you, might be inappropriate for someone else. Harassment is any kind of action or behavior, which continues, even after the target has told it’s out of line.

A harassment contact person is a support person, who you can turn to, if you feel like you’ve been treated unequally by another student or staff. Harassment contact person supports and guides you through harassment cases. A harassment contact person helps if you can not find the right person to tell about distress and guides you where to find more help, if needed. They advise and support students who have encountered harassment, assault, discrimination, bullying or other unequal treatment.

Harassment contact persons are not official authorities (e.g. police), but they are LTKY staff or board members, who are trained for their job. You can also be in contact with them, even if you are not the subject of harassment, but have seen harassment or want to talk about harassment prevention.

Harassment contact persons will not take any further action without the consent of the person concerned and the discussions are strictly confidential as the harassment contact persons are bound by the confidentiality obligation.

LTKY’s Safer Space policy.

A student or other notifier can contact the harassment contact person by email or telephone. The harassment contact person will discuss with the notifier what happened and how the notifier would like the situation to be handled. If the notifier only wants to bring the incident to the attention of the Student Union and a discussion is sufficient, the process ends. If necessary, the harassment contact person can guide the notifier to the appropriate help.

If the notifier wishes the matter to be handled with the doer, the harassment contact person can, with the notifier’s consent, transfer the case to a mediator. The mediator will contact all parties involved and the parties will be invited to mediation.

Mediation is a discussion or series of discussions in which the parties share their views on what happened, they are heard, and they try to find a solution to the situation themselves. The mediator supports the discussion and ensures that the discussion is equal and respectful between the parties, but the mediator does not give solutions or punishments.

The solution agreed upon by the parties includes a monitoring period during which the implementation of the agreement is reviewed.

Harassment contact persons and mediators do not take further action without the consent of the parties, and all discussions are completely confidential, as they are bound by a duty of confidentiality.

If any of the parties to the harassment case is a member of the university staff, the case is always reported to the LUT contact person. Depending on the case, in addition to the contact person, the staff member, their superior, or another relevant person may be invited to the mediation to clarify the case.

What to expect if the mediator contacts you
You do not need to be scared, we just want to discuss what happened with respect for everyone. The mediator will suggest a meeting time, and they will coordinate the meeting so that all parties can attend the meeting. We want to hear and understand the perspectives of all parties – including yours. In mediation, the mediator supports the discussion and ensures that the discussion is equal and respectful between the parties, but the mediator does not give solutions or punishments.

Harrassment contact persons

For associations 
LTKY offers anti-harassment and equality training, mainly at the beginning of the calendar year and, if necessary, at the beginning of the autumn semester. If you are interested, please contact [email protected] 

The associations under LTKY and the guilds of LUT are committed to complying with the Declaration of Equality.

If you are the harassment contact person of a guild or association, and you have a case to handle that seems particularly challenging or requires more extensive processing, you can ask the parties involved for consent to transfer the case to the Student Union mediator. The mediator offers support and assistance in resolving the situation impartially and confidentially.

LTKY can also be asked for assistance in resolving internal situations within the association, for example conflicts between the board. In such a situation, the LTKY mediator will help resolve the case instead of the harassment contact person. The student can contact the LTKY mediator directly by email or phone.