Sexual Assault Advocate Training Manual - Texas Association ...

SEXUAL ASSAULT ADVOCATE TRAINING MANUAL
and scenes of unmitigated injury. It is impossible to continue to be sensitive, giving and
appropriately responsive if the advocate's energy and attention flows outward and no compensatory
positive energy and attention flows in. The most precious gift an advocate can offer
a survivor is a model of a full, healthy and balanced life that gives but also knows how to
receive (but not from the survivor). This model shows the survivor powerful evidence that
there is hope for recovery, that good does prevail and that life in all its fullness does go on.
Ethical Standards
These standards for advocates can provide guidance in current and pending situations.
• The highest level of ethics is required of all advocates.
• Being an advocate for survivors of sexual assault involves trust. Any attempt to
realize personal gain through advocacy is inconsistent with the proper discharge of
the advocate’s duties with the program.
• Follow these general standards:
o Do no harm.
o Promote the good of the survivor.
o Be fair to all parties involved.
o Keep your word.
o Maintain confidentiality of survivor disclosures and records (unless disclosure
is required).
o Foster and respect the survivor’s right to information and to make decisions
based on the information (e.g., informed consent).
o Avoid conflicts of interest.
o Avoid dual roles in relation to the survivor or his/her family.
o Represent accurately your own abilities, authority and power.
• Advocates should seek the guidance and support of the supervisor volunteer
director in all areas of ethical concerns.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Although individual reactions to a sexual assault may vary widely from one survivor to
another, most survivors experience a significant degree of physical and emotional trauma
during, immediately following, and for a considerable period of time after a rape. In 1974,
two crisis counselors, Ann Wolbert Burgess and Linda Lytle Holmstrom recognized the
symptoms described by survivors were so consistent that they identified the cluster of
physical and emotional reactions to rape as Rape Trauma Syndrome. ("Rape Trauma
Syndrome," AMJ Psychiatry: 133: pp. 981-986, 1974).
Rape Trauma Syndrome is not a clinical diagnosis but is a specific form of the clinical
diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma occurs when exposure to an overwhelming
life event occurs outside the range of normal, usual or expected life experiences,
and the individual feels powerless in the face of intolerable danger or anxiety. The effects of
trauma have been recognized since the early 20th century but were originally thought to be
specific to soldiers exposed to the horrors associated with combat: watching others die or be
41