Advocacy Confidential – May 2025

By Carol Schrader
Senior Attorney, National Training and Consultation, Victim Rights Law Center

This post is dedicated to Charissa, Katelyn, and Shara.

Dear Fierce Survivors, Advocates, and Allies,

Welcome back to my blog series – Advocacy Confidential. Where we sip tea_¹ and muse together about confidentiality’s role with our violence-abolition movement.

I hope you, my most esteemed reader, are not shocked to learn that I have favorite programs. Surely you are affiliated with one of them! Let me introduce you to one – the Confidentiality Warriors at Montana’s Haven.²

Haven has supported survivors of domestic violence in Gallatin County in Western Montana for more than 40 years. Haven is in Bozeman and serves people throughout the county, including in remote and rural areas, and in small towns.

Why do I love them so? Let me count (some of) the ways:

1. Haven fiercely values survivor confidentiality. Privacy is one of their self-framed “bedrocks.” Their Program Director, Warrior K, who prioritizes survivor empowerment and autonomy, has said that if advocates at Haven protect survivors’ safety and confidentiality, she can get behind almost anything else they do to provide support. She knows that privacy empowers survivors and can help protect their lives.
2. Haven has a routine confidentiality practice. They have quarterly meetings that focus on issues related to confidentiality. At these meetings, the advocacy team debriefs and strategizes about how they might better protect confidentiality. (Be still my heart.)
3. Haven keeps confidentiality real. They know that in smaller communities like those they serve in Gallatin County, word often spreads like wildfire and everyone can be in each other’s business. Therefore, Haven works especially hard to keep the confidences of people who come to them for services. They think about concrete privacy issues like how they use security cameras and footage, when pseudonyms may be helpful, and how to protect privacy when conflicts of interest arise. VAWA³-compliant releases of information help survivors appreciate how seriously Haven takes protecting privacy.

So, Fierce Reader, in this tumultuous time⁴ when you may think some people do not value how well you protect the privacy of survivors of gender-based violence, know that more of us think that being Confidentiality Warriors, like those at Haven, is fundamental, relevant, and sparkly.

If you want to share information about one of your confidentiality favorites or how you elevate privacy with your own work, please reach out to me at  [email protected]. And, as usual, VRLC’s TA Team is here to support you with your advocacy on behalf of survivors – not just confidentiality.

Please join the conversation. And when you write in or reach out, feel free to use a pseudonym that’s powerful or fun or whatever you want it to be.

Yours,

Carol Confidential

¹ Iced tea yet? Lemonade? Margaritas?

² Here is Haven’s website. They provide a robust menu of confidential services, which we all know is the most important thing, but doesn’t their building design just take your breath away?!

³ VAWA – the Violence Against Women Act. VAWA’s laws include confidentiality protections for survivors of gender-based violence receiving victim services from programs that receive funding from the Office on Violence Against Women.

⁴ Fierce Reader, “tumultuous time” does not well-enough capture the peril and impact of this moment. Nor does it capture your vitality, resilience, and resolve (some/enough days). You, too, are among my favorites.

Carol Confidential (nee Schrader) (she/her) is a Senior Attorney on Victim Rights Law Center’s national training and consultation team. She helps attorneys and other victim service providers across the country provide legal advocacy for and protect the confidentiality of survivors of sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and stalking. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. She enjoys her hiking and book groups, culinary adventures, yoga, and quiet evenings at home.