Confidentiality and Safety

Domestic and sexual violence programs work within strict confidentiality guidelines to protect survivor safety, and achieving a good working relationship with partners across systems can be complex. These materials provide information to help promote a shared understanding.

= web resource    = downloadable file

Protecting Survivor Confidentiality: Confidentiality Fundamentals and Challenges for Non-Profit Victim Services Providers

2013
Debra Dority
Robin Selig

This presentation explores why confidentiality is core to our work with survivors. Also discusses statutory privilege, VAWA-approved releases of information, informed consent, and child abuse reporting. Note: Some information Oregon-specific. Presentation date preceded successful passage of advocate privilege law in Oregon legislature in 2015.

Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness: Ensuring Housing & Educational Stability for Survivors of Domestic Violence & their Children

Michael Santos
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty

A comprehensive presentation that includes information about housing protections for survivors as well as protections for children and youth. Provides guidance toward best practices with these populations.

Exploring the Core Service Delivery Processes of an Evidence-Based Community Advocacy Program for Women with Abusive Partners

2013
Nicole E. Allen, et al.

This study examined survivors’ reflections on the Community Advocacy Project, an empirically supported intervention for women with abusive partners. The study examined the service delivery processes that survivors affirmed or identified as core components of the intervention. Qualitative analysis of interviews with 51 survivors indicated that 3 main service delivery elements contributed to positive outcomes: orientation to the whole person, unconditional validation and acceptance, and an orientation to information provision and action. These overarching themes are described and implications for domestic violence services and dissemination are discussed.

Safety Planning for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence: A Toolkit for Homeless/Housing Programs

2018
National Alliance for Safe Housing

Survivors face numerous barriers to keeping or establishing safe housing, often forcing them to devise unsafe housing arrangements, live in danger on the streets, or even to stay with or return to an abusive partner just so that they and their children have beds to sleep in. The victim services system offers lifesaving support and resources to countless survivors, but in many communities those systems lack the capacity to help all survivors with their housing needs. This toolkit is designed to boost the ability of homeless/housing programs to confidently offer housing services that are meaningful, safe, and grounded in best practices for a survivor population.