The National Center for State Courts (NCSC)’s new Protecting the Privacy of Domestic Violence Survivors course provides best practices to guide courts and providers on improving policies and procedures designed to protect survivors’ privacy and inform survivors of their rights. Available in English and Spanish, the online, self-paced course provides an overview of information that needs to be protected, discussion of a survivor-centered approach to service delivery, ways to safely communicate with survivors and institutions and defining roles and responsibilities for promoting confidentiality.

“Courts and service providers must carefully protect any information potentially useful for identifying or locating survivors,” said Felix Bajandas, an NCSC principal court management consultant and project director. “This includes, but is not limited to, a combination of characteristics such as zip code, gender and date of birth.”

Available in English and Spanish, the online, self-paced course provides an overview of information that needs to be protected, discussion of a survivor-centered approach to service delivery, ways to safely communicate with survivors and institutions and defining roles and responsibilities for promoting confidentiality. The estimated completion time is 10 minutes.

In addition to the course, the Violence Against Women (VAWA) and the Courts partnership has developed tools and resources to support survivors, including:

• Critical Conversations series
  • E-filing Domestic Violence Protection Orders – Safety, Accessibility, and Effectiveness webinar
  • Lessons Learned from the Pandemic:  Understanding and Enhancing Litigants’ Experiences in Domestic Violence Cases report
• Protection Order Repositories, Web Portals, and Beyond: Technology Solutions to Increase Access and Enforcement report

For more information, visit VAWA and the Courts.