Sexual assault occurs at a high rate among college students. Recent policy reforms at the federal, state, and local levels have aimed to improve university responses to sexual violence. These reforms include increased requirements for campus employees to report incidents of sexual assault, including some campus providers of victim services (i.e., advocacy, mental health, and medical services). Campus-based victim services may therefore be more affected by policy reforms than community-based victim services. The current study explored challenges and benefits of providing campus- and community-based victim services for college survivors through the lens of the current US policy context. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with national experts on responses to campus sexual assault. Participants characterized campus-based services as easily accessible to college survivors, but noted these services operate within a university context of competing interests that can lead to a lack of confidentiality for survivors. Participants saw community-based services as independent of university interests and having robust confidentiality protections, but difficult for college students to access. Strong coordination between campus- and community services was seen as an ideal model for addressing the limitations of each service context. Implications of these findings include the potential utility of coordinated campus sexual assault response models, the need to consider unintended negative consequences of university reporting policies, and areas for future research on help-seeking and service provision for college sexual assault survivors.
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