May 23, 2008

Phyllis Adams
Executive Director
Women Aware, Inc.
250 Livingston Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Dear Ms. Adams,

Per your request, I am outlining in this correspondence the NJ Coalition for Battered Women’s (NJCBW) Best Practices for the structure and operation of Domestic Violence Response Teams (DVRT). Please also refer to the NJCBW’s Standards for Domestic Violence Crisis Intervention Teams attached, which was first distributed in 1996. Although the attached is in need of updating, the essential elements of Response Teams remain the same as delineated in this document.

As you know, victim-counselor privilege, or confidentiality of victim-counselor communications, is the keystone of the work of domestic violence advocates. For this reason, in 1996, when the NJ Attorney General’s Office was promoting the creation of response teams, the Coalition strongly advocated for DVRT’s to be structured in such a fashion as to fulfill the requirements of the victim-counselor privilege statute (N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-22.13 et seq.). In so doing, the teams would be in the best possible position to assert the privilege if any party sought to obtain information disclosed by victims to team volunteers. The Coalition considers this to be an important responsibility of DVRT’s so they are not forced to disclose sensitive victim information, and thereby also protecting the integrity of the DVRT’s. Fulfilling the requirements of the victim-counselor privilege confers other benefits for victims as well. It requires that volunteers have 40 hours of domestic violence training, and be under the control of a direct services supervisor of a victim counseling center. This insures a strong measure of quality control in that volunteers working directly with victims are trained and supervised by experts in the field. Coming under the auspices of a domestic violence program also has a practical advantage in that team volunteers can be included under the program’s malpractice/professional liability insurance, which police departments do not carry but which is an important feature for teams.

Another unstated but critical aspect of best insuring coverage under the privilege statute is that the duties of the team volunteers are clearly delineated from those of the police. There is no confidentiality between a victim and a law enforcement officer, or between a victim and an agent of law enforcement. This is underscored in the privilege statute where it states that ’nothing in this act shall be deemed to prevent the disclosure to a defendant in a criminal action of statements or information given by a victim to a county victim-witness coordinator, where the disclosure of the statements or information is required by the Constitution of this State or of the United States’ (2A:84A-22.16).

Although victim witness coordinators work to assist victims, they are also agents of law enforcement and therefore are not covered under the statute. For this reason, the Coalition also encouraged teams to be very careful not to blend law enforcement and team member duties lest a court one day determine that team members are agents of law enforcement and therefore not able to claim privileged communications.

In 1996 the Attorney General’s Office, in an unofficial opinion, allowed that teams who fulfilled the requirements of the privilege statute might be considered covered under that statute. However, the AG did not require that all teams fashion themselves as such. Beginning in about 2001, however, when teams were proliferating, the Office of Victim-Witness Advocacy did require that police departments who receive Violence Against Women Act funds work collaborately with their local domestic violence program and jointly create teams in the manner recommended by the Coalition. Hence, most, but not all teams today abide by the Best Practices developed by the Coalition.

As such, most teams are a joint venture of the county domestic violence program and their local police department(s). The program provides the 40 hour training and participates in the screening of volunteers in terms of their general appropriateness, while the police department runs background checks on each volunteer. The program provides on-going supervision to the team members. Team members do not participate in any activity that is the official and traditional responsibility of law enforcement and do not share any information with the police unless it involves child abuse or imminent risk of harm to the victim or by the victim. The program also provides malpractice/professional liability insurance while the department provides accident insurance. I hope this letter is useful for clarifying and delineating NJCBW’s Best Practice Standards for DVRT’s.

Sincerely,

Sandy Clark
Associate Director