Often in our roles as staff, we encounter challenges to confidentiality. Some of these occur because of our job requirements, some of these occur based on our duty as mandated reporters under the Cleary Act and Title IX for some crimes. While you may not be bound by confidentiality, it is important to keep the privacy of the victim foremost when responding to the concerns of students.
It is important to let a victim know the limits of confidentiality when s/he begins to disclose an incident but this must be done in a sensitive way.
An example of what you might say is:
“Thank you for coming to talk with me. Before you tell me anything more, I need to let you know that I am not a confidential resource. This means I may be required to inform others (ex. Director, Police, Compliance Office) that a student has disclosed a crime to me. I will not tell anyone that I am not required to and you are not required to speak with anyone else, unless you want to.”
