Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Guttentag, Karen S." <>]

Laura, can you share more about how you are able to designate advisors to respondents confidential and not subject them to the same reporting obligations as other non-confidential resources? In Vermont, the only way we are able to provide confidential advocates on campus to victims is under the state statute designating this privilege to rape crisis counselors. Very interested to understand how this works elsewhere.

 

Best wishes,

 

Karen

 

Karen S. Guttentag

Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs and Student Life

Middlebury College

Middlebury, VT 05753

802-443-2024

 

 

 

From: Laura Haave [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 6:53 AM
To: Torres-Zickler, Alina M.
Cc:
Subject: Re: Support for Accused

 

Because of the small size of our campus, we do not have a victim services office. We do have a pool of volunteer advisers trained and supervised by our Title IX Lead Team (coordinator, deputies and director of the counseling center) that are available to both respondents and complainants and provide the same services to them. You can read a bit more about the advisers here: https://apps.carleton.edu/dos/sexual_misconduct/get_help/support/on-campus_resources/sms_advisers/. Advisers are not confidential in their ordinary role on campus, but are considered confidential by the college when they begin advising a student and that confidentiality pertains to matters related to the complaint and investigation.

 

As a previous poster stated, I believe that we are required to provide equitable services to both parties during a complaint process, and the advisers are part of that. I've also found that when the respondent has an informed adviser who is able to provide support, answer questions about our process accurately, and is connected to the complainant's adviser and the TItle IX Lead Team, the process tends to go much more smoothly for the complainant/survivor. It may seem counterintuitive, but well-trained advisers for respondents are a benefit for complainants/survivors. 

 

Laura

Sent from my iPad

On Aug 18, 2016, at 2:45 PM, Torres-Zickler, Alina M. <> wrote:

Good afternoon -

There are several administrators on my campus that are requesting that our office (which oversee Title IX and houses the Title IX Coordinator and Title IX deputy) create support positions for accused students. We currently have three staff on our campus who are considered confidential as part of our sexual misconduct support. These three confidential supports are not full time devoted to support work, it is about 20% of their jobs. Those three staff members support survivors of sexual misconduct. These staff members do not include the support and counseling provided by our counseling center which is available to all students and of course, confidential.

 

My questions are: Do your campuses have specific support people for accused students? If so, are they confidential? What type of support do they provide.

Does anyone have cases or references you can point me towards that suggest/require that we have support services for the accused?

Any insight would be appreciated!

-Alina

 

 

Alina Torres-Zickler

Assistant Director

Office of Social Equity

West Chester University

Ph. 610.436.2838

Email:

 

Pronouns: She, her, hers

 

Be kind, for everyone is fighting their own quiet battle. - Cicero