Changing community and cultural attitudes toward excessive drinking and sexual violence on college campuses is difficult. Two interactive games try to get students to think critically about these issues through guided simulations that take users through common scenarios on college campuses and let them decide how to respond.

Families can use these games to start discussions about alcohol abuse and sexual violence before students head to college.

” Decisions That Matter” tackles the issue of sexual assault through bystander intervention, a popular violence prevention strategy that requires onlookers to step up and interrupt a potentially harmful situation.

[Learn more about bystander intervention and how to discuss it as a family.]

The program, which looks like a graphic novel, walks users through three examples of potentially unwanted sexual advances and lets users decide whether to step in and how.

Unlike many interactive sexual assault programs used by colleges, where the correct answer is obvious, “Decisions That Matter ” shows the gray areas in bystander intervention. It uses realistic scenarios with the hope of causing students to think honestly and critically about how they would respond and whether they should respond differently, says Kirsten Rispin, one of the student co -producers.

“With the story, we wanted characters that were believable, dialogue that was believable, scenarios that were believable,” she says.

“Decisions That Matter ” was created as part of a class at Carnegie Mellon University. With only 15 weeks to complete a project, the team decided to focus on common instances of sexual violence on campuses: sexual assault of female victims by acquaintances.

By the end of the experience it’s clear that at least some of the decisions that a user makes ha ve a real effect on the characters. How a user responds will determine whether one of the main characters is sexually assaulted by a friend at the end of a party .

But users won’t play the game and feel like they know everything about bystander intervention, and they shouldn’t.

The game was designed to be used as a tool by Carnegie Mellon to foster a guided discussion on sexual violence, Rispin says. The university plans to test the program this fall. Rispin encourages families who use the public version to sit down and discuss the outcomes.

Families who need more help continuing the conversation about sexual health and violence can reach out to local organizations and even colleges to learn more about sexual violence prevention strategies. National resources like the sexual assault awareness group RAINN, the federal ini tiative It’s On Us and the college-focused nonprofit One in Four can also be helpful.

Conversations about consent should take into account what healthy relationships look like. “It’s more than just saying don’t rape someone,” says Jessica Klein, coordinator of gender programs and sexual violence prevention at Carnegie Mellon University. “Part of sexual violence prevention is to talk about sexual empowerment and that includes not having sex as well.”

[Find out how to research and discuss sexual violence on college campuses as a family.]

Alcohol abuse is another huge issue on college campuses. Clarity Way, a rehab center in Pennsylvania, created the program ” What Kind of Drinker Are You?” to help students think critically about drinking.

“We wanted to give these students a realistic view of what college drinking culture encompasses and show them how their drinking decisions can affect their night but even in the long term, their college experience and their drinking habits,” says Savannah Flynn, product manager at the center.

Users enter information about their gender and weight before they go through a night of partying and drinking games. With each drink, students can see an estimate of their blood alcohol content level and get quick tips on safe drinking behavior. Students get a drinking profile score at the end of the game.

[Explore ways to talk about drug and alcohol use and abuse in college with your teen.]

A game designed to give you an idea of how much you can drink before you’re inebriated can have it s drawbacks.

“With any sort of content that you make like this, people can game it and see how much they can go before they can black out, or really push it to the extreme. But that’s not the purpose of the piece,” Flynn says. Students who get a negative result in the game are likely get one in real life, she says. The goal is to help students take an honest look at their drinking habits, Flynn says.

Parents can look up all the campus safety resources that a university offers and talk their kids about what to do if they drink too much and need a ride back to campus.

“When the student hears the parent or a professional or someone really acknowledging that these things happen and being realistic about it, they’re much more prone to listening to the messages,” says Raeann Davis, a health educator who focuses on alcohol, tobacco and drugs at the University of California–Davis. She’s working with Clarity Way to add the game to UC–Davis’ Safe Party website.

Bystander intervention applies with drinking too. Davis says parents should talk to their kids about helping other students who may be dangerously drunk to help prevent alcohol – related injuries and deaths.

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Interactive Games Help Address Drinking, Sexual Assault in College originally appeared on usnews.com