A lesson in workplace sexual assault prevention and response is not the sort of training that all employees anticipate with relish. However, two civilian Marine Corps Base Quantico employees chatting after a recent training were enthusiastic.

“It was a really good class — probably one of the better ones we’ve had on base,” said Lynn Curtis, personnel technician with the Installation Personnel Administration Center, adding that she had especially enjoyed the speaker, Cherrone Hester, Quantico’s sexual assault response coordinator and program manager.

Debra Jefferson, a personnel clerk with IPAC, said she liked the film.

Both said they thought most of the material was “common sense,” but Jefferson added, “I think it did help me so if I see somebody [acting in a sexually inappropriate way], I’d be more comfortable now to go up to them.”

And that is the main goal of the “One Team, One Fight” training being presented to civilians across the Department of the Navy.

Service members have received sexual assault prevention and response training for years, but this is the first time DOD civilians have been required to undergo such instruction.  In the wake of recent investigations uncovering high rates of sexual assault in the military, Congress wrote a mandate into the Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act obliging civilians, too, to receive the training annually.

In May, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered a sexual assault prevention stand-down for service members and civilians, and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus issued a plan that included all Navy civilians completing the “One Team, One Fight” training by Oct. 1. The stand-down was carried out in early summer, and Marine Administrative Message 392/13, released Aug. 13, kicked off the “One Team, One Fight” training for the Marine Corps.

By the time Curtis and Jefferson finished the training on Aug. 20 at the Clubs at Quantico, Hester had presented the course to about 1,800 civilians in 17 training sessions. That left another 3,200 or so Marine Corps civilians in the National Capital Region to train. The Quantico SAPR office is handling all of the region’s training, but Hester said she’s also training two of her sexual assault victim advocates to lead the course.

She said the training is similar to what service members receive, except that some of the resources it lays out for victims of sexual assault may be different. In the future, she said, the format may change or enlisted and civilian trainings may be merged.

As it is now, the course lasts about an hour, with a 30-minute video and a half hour of facilitator-led group discussion. The video features three scenarios of workplace-related sexual assault and explores the options bystanders might have had to prevent these situations.

Hester told the group of about 100 at TCAQ that officials had found that sexual assaults are often preceded by signs of trouble that others see but don’t act on.

“People know what’s going on. They just don’t know how to respond,” she said, adding that bystanders often don’t intervene simply because no one else is intervening. “We have proven over and over again that humans are more likely to take action if they are alone,” Hester said. “If you’re with others, you base your action on their actions.”

That’s the behavior the training aims to change.

The course also covers what constitutes sexual assault, versus sexual harassment, what constitutes consent, and the reporting options and resources available to victims.

Hester said attendees of the program thus far had expressed appreciation for a clear understanding of what constitutes sexual assault and how it can relate to the workplace. And, she said, “It helps them think a little more about how they could intervene in an office environment with their coworkers in a way they feel comfortable with.”