Best Practices: Legal Advocacy for DV Survivors

This includes staff members taking the time to consider experiences and perspectives of each client. Scholarship explains that to truly be trauma-informed, organizations need to implement policies and procedures that ensure all practices are trauma-informed. This includes interactions with clients, as well as interactions between staff members. Organization governance and leadership that leads by example and ensures that trauma-informed practices are fully implemented is additionally essential to making lasting change.

Experts find that organizations are more likely to keep up with their trauma-informed practices if they create measures that indicate whether or not the organization is on track with its trauma-informed practices.

Staying up to date on these changes and keeping staff apprised through continual training is key to implementing effective trauma-informed practices. Experts also recommend that organizations put aside funding so that ongoing trauma-informed training for advocates can occur within the organization. Trauma-informed practices are both an immediate and ongoing endeavor for practitioners, a practice that is continually employed and refined in all interactions. Experts recommend that ongoing measures are placed to ensure the organizations stay up to date on best trauma-informed practices.

For instance, organizations must work to prevent burnout so that advocates have the capacity to be trauma-informed. Experts recognize the crossover between trauma-informed practices and burnout when considering what good advocacy looks like. Namely, preventing burnout in employees goes hand-in-hand with developing advocates that have the capacity to be trauma-informed. This means advocates need to focus on themselves and take good care so that they can maintain the stamina to implement trauma-informed practices and prevent vicarious trauma in themselves. This is reflected in interviews conducted within this project, with subject matter experts identifying the confluence of burnout prevention and trauma-informed care as being critical to good advocacy.

One of the most consistent recommendations for learning cultural humility is assessing self-awareness, including defining one’s own culture, exploring identity and culture, and identifying internalized biases. Further, cultural humility training should contain a review of power, privilege, and systems of oppression. After exploring self and systems, some component of learning about cultural differences— whether it be how to learn about cultures different than one’s own or recognizing ethnocentric beliefs— is needed to understand the impact culture has and how to approach cultural differences. Other topics commonly addressed include culture and communication, the importance of cultural humility as an ongoing learning journey, and a reflection exercise. Some suggest an evaluation that measures changing beliefs pre- and post-training. This can include exploring the stages of change and developing a personal learning plan.

A review of the needs and experiences of DV survivors with disabilities illustrates the importance of ongoing and improved cultural humility training and support for DV advocates. In a 2009 study, common themes emerged pointing to the lack of access individuals with disabilities experience when seeking support for DV. First, the lack of accessible services create a major barrier for those with disabilities. This can include physical barriers in spaces providing services, chore or engagement requirements in shelters that are not possible for individuals with certain disabilities, barriers to obtaining protective orders, complex or difficult to complete forms, and the inability for the judicial system to provide accommodations quickly. Next, differing manifestations of abuse are often experienced by those with disabilities. Without additional training or support in place, advocates may not be able to identify abuses faced by those with disabilities, including when abusers weaponize an individual’s disability to assert power and control. This can include controlling mobility or speech devices, withholding medication, or denying access to support services for activities of daily living.

Another important and often referenced pillar of cultural humility is the client empowerment model, that is a theory of practice which focuses on clients’ right to self-determination and action. The empowerment model is supported by cultural humility through trusting that the client is the most knowledgeable and qualified to identify their needs and therefore should work alongside the practitioner as a team. Further, cultural humility supports the empowerment model in a mutually beneficial way. Advocates should have awareness that different cultures have different views and approaches to DV. Expressing that awareness or being open to hearing client experience with curiosity can help strengthen the advocate-client relationship.

Most subject matter experts see leadership as the place to start implementing prevention practices. Experts suggest better tangible benefits that include more paid time off and better compensation. Experts also consider wellness incentives and chances for creativity such as group exercise events as a way to reduce burnout rate. Greater intangible benefits that create a better, more supportive work environment are just as critical. For instance, one expert found that having greater support options, such as mentorship and supervision, for people working in difficult situations, such as DV advocates, can significantly reduce the risk of burnout. Moreover, another expert’s research found that across interviews with forty-five DV advocacy programs, those that include peer support increased wellness in advocates. Additionally, the organization culture should work to encourage advocates to rest and prioritize themselves when needed.

There are also steps that advocates can take to prevent burnout in their own practice such as advocates taking advantage of benefits, where they exist. Experts discuss the importance of advocates creating work-life balance by utilizing all vacation days and creating and enforcing strong boundaries so that work does not follow advocates home. This necessitates a work environment where that is not only feasible, but supported, requiring burnout prevention to be implemented throughout all levels of the organization.

Advocates can also be taught how to assess themselves for individual risk of burnout. Specifically, experts found that self-esteem, self-efficacy, internal (instead of external) locus of control, emotional stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, positive affectivity, optimism, proactivity, and personability were all found to be positive factors in preventing burnout. Advocates and organizations should try to cultivate these through self-care activities such as healthy eating, meditation, better time management, as well as through a positive work environment with ample support.

Experts suggest that lightening caseloads can significantly improve burnout rates, which can be accomplished by balancing hard cases with easy cases or shortening the work week. Additionally, as mentioned in the section on trauma-informed practices, organizations and staff should keep in mind that implementing trauma-informed practices helps prevent burnout.

Immense variation in threshold education and experience requirements exists across existing allied legal professional and community-based justice worker programs. For example, allied legal professional programs have age thresholds, education requirements spanning from associate’s degrees in paralegal studies to master of legal studies degrees, and experience with legal work supervised by an attorney spanning thousands of hours to years. With community-based justice worker programs, there is similar variation. For example — depending on the substantive area of law — asynchronous training components can be as quick as 8 hours, or can consist of over 60 hours of materials. Similar to allied legal professional programs, there are some residency, education, and employment requirements. Regardless of specific threshold requirements, subject matter experts interviewed agree that both experience and education are important for certification. As such, the precise requirements for education and experience should be based upon the scope of the particular program and what the decision-makers will tolerate. It is important that any training program not replicate the egregious barriers to entry that are prevalent in other legal education settings.

Across existing programs, the topics covered should be those that the advocates will be providing legal advice on. For example, the Domestic Violence Legal Advocate Initiative in Arizona requires completion of modules on scope of services and ethics; introduction to family law, jurisdiction, and procedure; family law: property; family law: spousal maintenance; family law: children’s issues; court preparations and filings; and court outcomes and procedural fairness. Utah’s Certified Advocate Partners Program requires completion of modules on legal advocacy, criminal and civil protective orders, writing order requests, preparing client for court, and what happens after the hearing. Allied legal professional programs may require advocates to be trained on all topics covered by the program, or they may choose to allow advocates to choose what topics they wish to be trained on and be authorized to practice only in that area. Programs may choose to train their advocates online— asynchronously or synchronously— or in-person, or a combination of both. Additionally, time spent training should be comprehensive enough for advocates to develop competency in the relevant substantive legal areas, but not so burdensome that they will not be able to complete the training within the course of their existing workload and responsibilities. Advocates who would complete this training should be involved in the decision-making and development process of the training, to the extent their capacity allows.

For example, the sandbox in Utah requires applications for new service models prior to authorization. This ensures that the entity applying for authorization meets the requisite entry requirements, and is aware of their data reporting requirements if their application is authorized. In Arizona, the Supreme Court requires Housing Stability and Domestic Violence Legal Advocates to pass a certification exam administered by the Administrative Office of the Courts. In Alaska, Community Justice Workers must be granted an individual waiver by the Alaska Bar Association. It is yet to be determined what this application and individual authorization will require. The Certified Advocate Partners Program (CAPP) in Utah requires a Final Certification Interview with the CAPP Program Coordinator prior to providing services. Similarly, allied legal professional programs require application packets that evidence that an applicant has met all requirements prior to receiving certification. Given the broad range of requirements across existing programs, consider what is realistic and feasible for advocates to complete within the course of their existing work and what threshold decision-makers will tolerate.

Continued legal education (CLE) is required for attorneys to maintain their license, and social service providers have similar continuing education unit (CEU) requirements. At this time there are no best practices recommendations for the volume and frequency at which to require continuing education, only that it should be required. Some programs provide area CLE information to community-based justice workers, and other relevant resources. At this time, continuing education is only required by Arizona’s Domestic Violence Legal Advocate Program, requiring one hour of continuing education per quarter. Many other community-based justice worker programs, while they don’t explicitly require, strongly encourage and make available CLE opportunities. It is important to note here that this aligns with what potential community-based justice workers want when considering certification. Volume and frequency of continuing education will likely be dependent on substantive area of law, available offerings, and cost to the advocate or organization.

There are no specific mandates for supervision of attorneys, leading this research to look towards other professions as models. What is known is that advocates considering legal training want supervision to support them while entering a new role, and there is room for exploration and development of best practices for supervision of advocates who are able to provide legal advice. Some jurisdictions may prefer to require supervision by attorneys, and others may feel confident in alternative supervision models that meet the needs of their communities and advocates while recognizing capacity and resources.

One argument advocates for attorney supervision due to the perceived risk of consumer harm if individuals are helped with legal advice by someone who is not an attorney. To date, few complaints have been lodged against allied legal professionals or community-based justice workers for their services. Because upskilling community-based advocates is an emerging field with few examples, program evaluation is used as a baseline for examples of how various jurisdictions are supervising and mentoring legal workers who have training but are not lawyers. The majority of states with allied legal professional programs do not mandate attorney supervision. Several reasons are cited in support of not mandating supervision including: supervision burdens already strained resources such as attorney time; attorneys may be hesitant to agree to accept legal and ethical responsibilities for allied legal professionals and further may be required to take out increased malpractice insurance to cover those being supervised; and little to no “consumer harm” reported in states that do not mandate attorney supervision for allied legal professionals.

Mentorship and/or supervision is critical for preventing burnout, implementing cultural humility approaches, providing ongoing feedback on trauma practices, and a necessary component of training/onboarding. All of these are skills and qualities have been identified as skills advocates need. Further, trauma-informed care, cultural humility, and the prevention of burnout are supported by advocate qualities such as patience, empathy, curiosity, integrity, being a problem-solver, respect, boldness, understanding, and flexibility. Overall, this supports a relationship between supervision and mentorship play a critical role in the development and expansion. Most importantly, supervision provides support, accountability, and oversight for advocates both in general and for those that are legally trained.

Training for new advocates provides a baseline knowledge; effective supervision allows an advocate to learn real-life skills on the job and is important to the training process. Supervision periods contain important and formative components for developing licensed professionals. Through supervision, allied legal professionals should be provided with structure to learn and grow in their practice. According to IAALS, “Supervised practice is an important part of the education process, and it is essential to provide guidance towards improvement.” Initial supervision should be intended to provide feedback, which serves both allied legal professionals and organizations as the structure supports improved service provision. Additionally, feedback and training while working under supervised practice supports the development of expertise and progress towards practice goals. Subject matter experts included shadowing with a mentor or supervisor as an important aspect of legally training advocates.

Two main sources come up over and over again as sources for ethical guidelines: the Model Rules of Professional Conduct created by the American Bar Association, and relevant social service guidelines. In practice, this can mean adjusting language in the rules of the given jurisdiction to ensure that they are applied to allied legal professionals and community-based justice workers, or indicating that the existing state bar rules apply to the new service provider within the authorizing documents. Alternatively, experts suggest attorney supervision as a way to ensure upskilled advocates maintain ethical and professional standards.

Experts hone in on certain skills they find most important in advocate’ ethics. First, experts emphasize that advocates must maintain client confidentiality, to the same standard that is required from lawyers to maintain attorney-client privilege. Next, subject matter experts interviewed for this project suggest that being able to establish boundaries is an essential part of professional responsibility. Part of establishing boundaries should be making clear to survivors what advocates are authorized to do within the scope of service. Limitations and scope of service can and should be included in informed consent, shared with survivors prior to any service provision and referred back to as necessary while working with the survivor. Additionally, asserting and enforcing boundaries in all aspects of the advocates work, especially direct work with survivors, will help to ensure that survivors not only trust the advocate but the advocate does not practice outside their authorized scope. A strong emphasis on scope of service boundaries will also mitigate concerns expressed by organization leadership about legal skill building for advocates in the course of this project.

Experts see ethical responsibility to be an ongoing process that requires long-term training and modifications based on the organization’s scope of service, goals, and clients served. From this projects interviews, this could look like creating standing ethical guidelines so that advocates have a tool to continually reference, and conducting refresher trainings as needed or required. Of course, these will need to be updated as the research shows new findings in the field of ethics and professional responsibility.

There is support that advocates with extensive experience are most appropriate for upskilling, and that brand new advocates benefit from gaining experience prior to considering upskilling. Experienced advocates have had time to develop the identified skills through practice, providing a strong foundation for upskilling.

It is important to acknowledge that each of the above sections addresses the importance of supervision and mentorship in the development and evolution of advocate skills and qualities. Subject matter experts identified having a client-centered empowerment approach as a critical skill for advocates to learn and practice. Strength- and empowerment-based approaches to services have been shown to improve client outcomes across a vast array of fields. A component of the empowerment approach is supporting clients experiencing a sense of loss of control by focusing on strengths, individual agency, and finding community. This is a skill set that can be taught to advocates, but must be done so in tandem with additional training on trauma-informed care, cultural humility, and appropriate supervision in order to be effective. Some advocates may have prior experience in the field, including lived experience, meaning they can begin a new position as an advocate and have some of the skills and qualities desired. However, if skill and quality development is viewed as a journey rather than a destination, ongoing supervision and mentorship will help advocates continue to grow.

Assuring that upskilled advocates are able to perform the highly specialized and ethically demanding tasks of their role is an important consideration in considering involving DV advocates in the legal empowerment and UPL reform movements. However, it is just as important to ensure that while developing tools to measure skills and qualities barriers to working as an upskilled advocate are also not increased through mandatory exams or overly demanding training or experience requirements, which would further perpetuate the elitism and exclusivity so closely tied to the legal field.