How to Support Survivors

Survivor Centric Care provides Survivors with:

1. Acknowledgement

This can look and sound like using the script for receiving survivor disclosures. It can sound like, I believe you, I am here to listen to you, I am here to support you. It means believing them and not asking why or how or who else was there. It also means acknowledging their strength, inherent resilience and their importance.

2. Safety

Safety means confidentiality, the survivor’s story should only be kept between you two until the survivor notifies you otherwise. We will cover duty to report in the reporting section. Safety also means mirroring the survivor's chosen language, do not rephrase things or correct a survivor when they are disclosing, they are the expert in their experience. Finally, ensure you are comfortable with safety planning and checking in with the survivor around their physical and mental safety.

3. Trustworthiness

It takes a lot of strength or sometimes despair for someone to disclose or report a sexual assault or gender-based violence. Make sure you approach all people with non-judgement or bias. You have the power to work on your individual biases or beliefs, you can set boundaries around these and make sure you are honest with yourself if you need to pass the disclosure or support request off to someone else. Building trust starts with telling the truth and giving the survivor the information, they need to make an informed decision.

4. Agency

Informed Choice & Consent plays a huge role in making sure survivors feel control and agency. Often survivors are disempowered by gender-based violence and the lack of control and autonomy survivors experience. You have the power to share the power, make sure a survivor has all the information they need to make an informed decision. They should understand their legal rights, their rights as a student or staff and their options for support or justice.

5. Empowerment

This looks like many things; empowerment comes from a focus on the survivor themselves and their innate resiliency and connection to community. Moving survivors out of isolation provides greater opportunities for ongoing care, collaboration, and support. Providing the survivor with opportunities to share their voice, their needs and wants is vital.,

6. Collaboration

Means having a voice in decision-making, regaining control and power over the processes and procedures. This can be the most challenging to ensure a survivor receives, especially if they are choosing to report formally. You can still empower the survivor with information, legal supports, community supports so that they have many advocating for their voice to be heard through the processes that are often silencing for survivors who come forward to report sexual violence.

Please do NOT do the following:

  • Do not ask the survivor what she/they were wearing
  • Do not ask them if they are “sure” it happened
  • Do not say “Oh I know him! I can’t believe he would do that; he’s always been so nice to me.”
  • Do not say “I promise you will get justice”
  • Do not say “I know what you should do.”
  • Do not ask them if they had too much to drink or if they used drugs that it was their
    • fault.
  • Do not pressure the survivor to disclose to you details if they are not ready
  • Do not try to coerce the survivor into reporting to the police or any other system
    • unless they know all the facts and make the decision themselves
  • Do not share the survivor’s story with your friends or in online groups
  • Do not share personal information about the survivor
  • Do not make judgements or assumptions about a survivor due to their race, class, ability, status or any other intersection of identity
  • Do not perpetuate violence against survivors who are seeking your support
  • Do not discourage survivors from harm reduction or reducing this keeps people alive
  • Do not tell an Indigenous survivor they cannot smudge, cleanse or ground with medicines in their space or your collective space.

Important Reminder:

  • A survivor centred practice prioritizes the needs of the person who has experienced violence. It gives them a voice at every stage of the prevention and response process. It also recognizes that a person can experience violence, abuse, or harm even if the person who committed the act did it unintentionally. It recognizes that the impact of an action is more important than the intent of the person who caused abuse, harm or violence.
  • Survivor centric practices ‘flip the script’ and equalize dangerous power dynamics, especially for women and feminized folks.
  • Survivor-centered approaches should encourage the survivor to make decisions about the processes that influence and affect them, including the extent to which they want to be involved after reporting or disclosing — if at all. Justice looks different for everyone.
  • And finally, it provides empowerment and resources to the survivor, first and foremost.