METKA’s anti-harassment contact persons offer help, support and advice for students who have experienced harassment or want to talk about inappropriate treatment targeted towards themself or towards others. You can contact either one of METKA’s anti-harassment contact persons.
How can you contact anti-harassment contact persons?
- by mail hairinta@metkaweb.fi
- by filling the form “Contact in harassment situations”
- by contacting anti-harassment contact persons directly (contact information below)
METKA’s anti-harassment contact persons?
METKA has two anti-harassment contact persons. Their job is to be a support in harassment situations.
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What is harassment?
Harassment includes all inappropriate behavior,from name calling and excluding from groups, to discrimination and sexual harassment. Harassment is always a individual experience. Harassment is unwanted behavior: for example touching, commenting, implying, joking or otherwise inappropriate behavior towards the one being harassed.
If you are unsure if there was harassment in the situation you experienced or noticed, please be in touch so we can figure it out together.
Harassment is never the fault of the one who has experienced harassment. Harassment that has been going on for a long while can lead to depression, social isolation and make studying harder. Harassment is one form of discrimination and goes against equality laws. If harassment happens in higher education, the institute of higher education has the responsibility to intervene.
One’s own behavior is often hard to examine from the point of view of someone else, so a person might not realise that they are behaving in a disturbing way. Often just commenting on the inappropriate behavior is a sufficient solution to fixing the situation, but sometimes just speaking isn’t enough.
What does an anti-harassment contact person do?
An anti-harassment contact person is a person trained to their role, who can be contacted by anyone who has experienced or witnessed harassment. The anti-harassment contact person’s job is to help, support and advice. An anti-harassment contact person is not a judge, but can help move forward with the situation. They never act without the permission of the one the situation is concerning.
A contact person is impartial and considers what happened and how the situation can be handled together with the person who got in touch. The contact person knows where the best help, even for urgent situations, is available, and can when needed guide the student towards help and support.
It is worth to get in touch even if only discussion about the situation is needed. The anti-harassment contact person supports the one who got in touch as long as the situation requires, and if necessary, guides towards Metropolia’s student wellbeing services or other support services.
All discussions with an anti-harassment contact person are always confidential.
This post is also available in Suomi.