Keeping Survivors in the Driver’s Seat: Our Focus on Confidentiality 

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As professionals and experts in the field, advocates go to work every day helping survivors reclaim their lives. But it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day rush of the work, and sometimes we forget that we aren’t the driver of this journey - we’re just passengers along for the ride. When we get off track, we start to think a survivor should automatically give us the information we ask for, that they should trust us to collect and share their information as we see fit because we’re experts and we know what’s best. But we have to put the brakes on that thinking, and remember that survivors are the experts of their own experience. It’s our job to help educate them about their options, and the potential impacts and outcomes of their choices, so that they can make an informed decision. When we do this, we’re giving them the keys, ensuring they’re the ones who are in control and driving the bus,* and that we’re doing our job by helping them navigate!

Safety Net kept very busy over the summer and early fall of 2019, working to help organizations across the field improve their understanding and practice of confidentiality. To help agencies ensure they’re providing survivor-driven services and developing policies that support a survivor’s right to privacy, we hosted four national webinars, facilitated a listening session for state and territorial coalitions on mandated reporting, launched new materials, and held an outstanding two-day conference– Strictly Confidential: Protecting Survivor Privacy in Federally Funded Programs.  

Summer 2019 Highlights

Webinars:
For anyone who missed the webinars, and for those who’d like to revisit them, you can check them out using the links below:  

 

Resources:
Newly-created materials, which were all added to our Confidentiality Toolkit, include:

National Conference:
The 2019 Strictly Confidentiality conference was in such high demand that we had to make a wait list and get creative with seat set-up! We loved seeing everyone so interested and engaged in wanting to learn more about survivor-centered best practices. Advocates, attorneys, court officials, and others came from across the country to learn more about how they can ensure they’re providing survivor-driven services. The conference content was designed to help advocates navigate complex federal confidentiality obligations, through in-depth analysis, peer sharing, and scenario problem solving. Participants explored the many layers of privacy, confidentiality obligations, and their intersections with technology in a tangible way. Topics included:

  • Understanding and applying legal confidentiality obligations

  • Navigating the mandated reporting and confidentiality overlap

  • Building community collaborations while maintaining confidentiality

  • Upholding confidentiality in emergency situations

  • Navigating language access and confidentiality

  • Handling official third party demands for survivor information

  • Selecting and using databases

  • Implementing best practices for agency use of technology

  • Minimizing risk via intakes and data retention policies

  • Understanding data breach notification laws

  • Ensuring valid releases of information.

We hope all this new content is helpful to service providers and we look forward to hearing your feedback so we can continue to improve this work. We’re also grateful to our grant partners at Danu Center’s Confidentiality Institute, to our funders at the Office on Violence Against Women, and to the advocates who are out there doing this work every day. When we provide services based on confidentiality best practices, we’re helping survivors understand they have a right to privacy, that they remain in control of that privacy, and they can make the decisions that work best for them.

*The “survivor drives the bus” phrase was coined by our grant partner, Alicia Aiken, Director of Danu Center’s Confidentiality Institute :)

Confidentiality Conference Registration is Open!

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Advocates are saying:

“Some survivors don’t reach out because they’re worried about mandated reporting requirements. This gets in the way of us being able to help.”

“What if no one on staff speaks the survivor’s language? How do we find a translator they feel safe with? And what agreements should be in place to protect victims’ privacy?”

“We get pressure from our community partners to share victim information. When we don’t, they get frustrated and that makes collaboration difficult.”

“We don’t have a policy for how to handle confidentiality obligations if there’s an emergency at our shelter.”

Is your agency facing similar difficulties?

Mark your calendar and join us September 9th & 10th in Atlanta, GA for the 2019 National Confidentiality Conference – Strictly Confidential: Protecting Survivor Privacy in Federally Funded Programs!

This training, provided by the National Network to End Domestic Violence and The Confidentiality Institute will help you, as victim service providers, navigate complex federal confidentiality obligations, through in-depth analysis, peer sharing, and scenario problem solving. Participants will explore the many layers of privacy, confidentiality obligations, and technology in a tangible way. Learn how to implement best practices related to privacy and confidentiality while providing survivor-centered services, and how to build strategic relationships with community partners, while respecting your information sharing limitations.

The conference will cover a variety of topics including:

  • Mandated reporting

  • Community collaborations

  • Upholding confidentiality in emergency situations

  • Navigating language access and confidentiality

  • Handling official third party demands for survivor information

  • Selecting and using databases

  • Agency use of technology

  • Implementing survivor-centered best practices

Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of these issues and will be given resources and tools to better serve survivors. Click this link for a copy of the full agenda.

Can’t wait to see you there!

This conference is OVW approved.

Please contact us with any questions. 

 

Safety Net 2018: Looking Back and Moving Forward

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The Safety Net Project spent 2018 continuing to provide training, technical assistance, and advocacy to the field around the intersection of technology and intimate partner violence. In the coming year, we look forward to implementing new trainings and toolkits and continuing to work with partners and funders to address all the ways technology intersects with safety and privacy for survivors. Here’s a quick look at some of our 2018 accomplishments and some of the good work we have ahead of us in 2019.

Technical Assistance

This year we answered over 1,400 requests for technical assistance, spending 775 hours on technical assistance consultations! The most common requests were related to relocation and privacy issues for survivors, responding to technology misuse, and agency use of tech.  In need of Technical Assistance? Fill out our Technical Assistance request form.

Trainings

In 2018, we spent almost 400 hours providing trainings to victim advocates, legal services organizations, law enforcement officers, technology companies, and other community stakeholders. We had the privilege of providing training to not only U.S. based agencies but also internationally. This included agencies in the UK, Singapore, Australia, and Austria, among others. Trainings we provided covered a wide range of issues at the intersection of technology, safety, and privacy. Safety Net is already scheduling trainings throughout 2019!

Legal Systems Toolkit

In September, we launched the much anticipated Legal Systems Toolkit: Understanding & Investigating Technology Misuse. This toolkit helps legal system stakeholders, including law enforcement, attorneys, court personnel, community corrections, and others identify what technology is relevant to a case and how to use technology evidence to hold offenders accountable.

Annual Tech Summit

This year, we hosted our Technology Summit 2018 in San Francisco with our highest attendance rate to date. We had over 320 participants and a great group of technology company representatives and amazing presenters. We also hosted a closed Women of Color in Technology Reception, a closed meeting for Coalition, Territory, and Tribal Coalitions, and an opening reception with demonstrations from technology companies and stations where participants could try products and learn more about technology and privacy. 

Looking Ahead…

Cyberviolence Court Training Initiative

In Spring 2019 Safety Net, in partnership with the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges, will launch the Cyberviolence Court Training Initiative Judges Workshop. This national training will use a new training curriculum to enhance the skills of judges presiding over cases where there is technology misuse.

Smart Victim Tech Secure Communication Platform

The Smart Victim Tech: Equipping and Empowering Victims through Safe Technology Project is an innovative, multi-pronged approach to advance the use of technology to assist victims of crime. In 2019, the project will be releasing a Digital Services Toolkit, and will fund access to the newly launched ResourceConnect secure communication platform for interested local victim service providers, and will launch a new evidence collection app for survivors.

Team Transitions

Lastly, there were some big team transitions in 2018. We said goodbye to Alex Palacios who continues to do victim services work back in his home state of Arizona. We welcomed back Deputy Director, Kaofeng Lee, who worked for two years with our sister Safety Net project in Australia and Rachel Gibson who worked with the National Center on Reaching Victims. We also welcomed Elaina Roberts, who was formerly with the Stalking Resource Center. Looking ahead, we will welcome our newest and smallest Safety Netter in January with the welcomed addition of our Director, Erica Olsen’s, baby!

As the year ends, we reflect on the gratefulness we have for our supporters, tech advocates, funders, and all who work to end violence. We are also grateful to the survivors and direct service advocates who provide us with feedback to guide our work and make us better. We are looking forward to expanding our work to help enhance safety protections for programs and survivors and what #TechSafety means for all.