What does it mean to be survivor-centered?

By Christine Murray

The Source for Survivors has two main audiences: (1) Survivors of intimate partner violence and other forms of interpersonal violence who are walking the long-term healing journey and (2) Community supporters -- including both professionals and personal supporters like family members and friends -- who are interested in supporting survivors on their long-term healing journeys. 

Focusing on community supporters, our Pathway for Community Supports outlines 6 Commitments to Being Survivor-Centered. Over time, we’ll share a lot of resources for community supporters related to each of those 6 Commitments. However, as we’re just getting started, today I’ll share a working definition of what being “survivor-centered” means.

The term survivor-centered has long been used in the arena of services for domestic violence and other forms of interpersonal violence and abuse. Below is a brief list of some ways others have described this approach:

• Annika Huff, in a guest blog for the Polaris Project, which focuses on human trafficking, describes a survivor-centered approach as “putting survivors’ lived experiences at the heart of the work an organization or movement is doing.”
• USAID describes four principles that underlie a survivor-centered approach: (1) ensuring survivors’ safety; (2) protecting their confidentiality, (3) respecting their needs and wishes, and (4) honoring diversity and practicing nondiscrimination.
• Digna, a Canadian organization focusing on sexual abuse and exploitation, writes that “a survivor-centered approach seeks to empower survivors by prioritizing their rights, safety, well-being, needs and wishes.” 

As these examples illustrate, being survivor-centered means that individual and organizational helpers strive to understand and prioritize the needs of survivors in all aspects of the support they offer. 

Building on the definitions above, our Source for Survivors working definition of being survivor-centered while supporting survivors in their long-term healing journey following experiences of abuse has four parts:

1. Understanding survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives.
2. Prioritizing survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives in the ways you offer support.
3. Empowering survivors to lead the way through all phases of their healing journeys.
4. Engaging survivors by “making space at the table” for them whenever possible.

Below, I’ll share a few examples of actions that community supporters can take to bring each aspect of the survivor-centered approach to life.

Understanding survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives. There are two main ways that community supporters can gain more insight into survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives. 

First, you can learn directly from the survivor(s) you are supporting. Take time to listen to their stories, use active listening practices, ask open-ended questions, create a safe space for the survivors to share more of their experiences (while also honoring their right to choose how much to share, and how soon), and withhold judgments and assumptions that may get in your way of truly understanding the survivors’ own experiences (versus your own interpretations of those experiences). Seeking to learn directly from each survivor you encounter is extremely valuable, because every survivor has a unique story to tell and has their own personal needs and perspectives. 

Second, you can seek out credible sources of information to learn about general dynamics of abusive relationships and the process of recovering from past abuse. While it’s so important to learn directly from each survivor about their unique experiences, it also can be extremely helpful to gain more general knowledge and awareness about abusive relationships and trauma recovery. This knowledge will help you bring a baseline level of understanding to the support you’re offering. 

In an upcoming Source for Survivors blog post (coming up the week of January 15th!), I’ll share some excellent free, online educational resources about domestic violence, abuse recovery, and mental health. In the meantime, you can visit our Other Resources page for a few initial sources of additional information on these topics.

Prioritizing survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives in the ways you offer support. Understanding the lived experiences of survivors is an important first step to being survivor-centered. It’s important to build on that understanding and make an intentional commitment to make that understanding a priority in your interactions with survivors. Being intentional about this is so important that it’s the first Commitment in our Source for Survivors Pathway for Community Supports.

Below are two examples of ways that helpers can bring this priority to life:

• Asking yourself (personally or at an organizational level): 
  • Is this action based on the survivor(s)’s needs or my/our assumptions?
    
  • Have I/we taken enough time to understand the survivor(s)’ needs?
  • How can I/we seek more input from the survivor(s) before taking action?
  • What more can I/we do show genuine care and concern for the survivor(s)’ unique circumstances? 

• Keeping an eye out for blind spots and barriers that may get in the way of survivors’ needs being met. 
  • Blind spots are ways in which individual or organizational helpers can’t fully understand survivors’ experiences because they fall outside their personal experiences and knowledge. 
  • Barriers are practical or systemic roadblocks to accessing services or supports that survivors may need, such as a lack of transportation or child care to access services, or the stigma that may keep survivors from reaching out for help because they have been made to feel ashamed of their experiences. 
  • When new blind spots or barriers are identified, community supporters can (ideally, in partnership with survivors) work to brainstorm solutions and strategies to overcome them. 

Empowering survivors to lead the way through all phases of their healing journeys. For decades, an empowerment approach has been integrated into domestic violence service agencies. This approach focuses on supporting survivors to make decisions for themselves and their own well-being. An empowerment approach is a valuable framework for supporting survivors who are in abusive relationships, and also while they are breaking free from those relationships. 

The empowerment approach also is a useful way to approach supporting survivors through the long-term healing journey, especially because abusive relationships are disempowering for most survivors because of the many ways that abusers exert power and control. 

For many survivors, the long-term journey of recovering from past abuse is a “long way home to myself,” as a survivor who participated in the See the Triumph research I’ve conducted with my colleagues described it. I’ve always loved that quote because it underscores how individualized the healing journey is. 

Unless there are immediate safety risks (e.g., if a survivor is in a mental health crisis and at risk of harming themself or others) or there are legal mandates for intervening (e.g., if there is suspected child maltreatment that needs to be reported to the authorities), in general it is wise to empower and support survivors in making decisions for themselves, even if you as a helper may disagree with those decisions.

For example, if a survivor says they are not ready to seek counseling, but you think they really should do so, you should likely honor their decision and avoid pressuring them to seek that type of support. Aim to support the survivor right where they are, and continue to empower and support them in making the right decisions for themselves at any given moment.

I’ll add that it’s very important for helpers--whether professionals or friends and family members--to take good care of themselves and set healthy boundaries while using this empowerment approach. We’ll cover the topic of self-care for helpers a lot in future blog posts here, but I want to acknowledge that the empowerment approach can be very challenging at a personal and emotional level for supporters, especially if you’re personally concerned about the impact of a survivors’ decisions on their own or others’ well-being. 

Keep in mind that you can also personally use an empowerment mindset in thinking about how to care for your own well-being, while also supporting survivor(s) along their healing journey.

Engaging survivors by “making space at the table” for them whenever possible. Finally, especially at the organizational level (e.g., service agencies, healthcare providers, community systems), being survivor-centered often involves actively creating opportunities for survivors to partner with you to inform decisions and plans about how services and resources are offered to survivors. 

There are many possible ways to engage survivors in organizational decision-making, such as the following:

• Using research or evaluation strategies to seek their input, such as through feedback surveys, focus groups, and/or individual interviews.
• Including individuals with relevant lived experiences on organizational decision-making committees (e.g., Boards, Leadership Teams, Task Forces). 
• Establishing advisory committees that include survivors, such as the VOICES Committee model developed by the Family Justice Center Alliance. 
  
• Empowering survivors to share their stories, whether privately or publicly, in ways that are meaningful and comfortable to them. (Check out the See the Triumph Collection my team developed on this topic: Every Survivor Has a Story). 
  

Recognizing the uniqueness of each survivor’s healing journey, it’s also important to aim for diversity in the types of experiences and backgrounds among the survivors represented in these ways. 

Conclusion. Being survivor-centered is a continuous journey, not a one-time task to check off. Just as survivors embark on a long-term process of recovery, community supporters, too, are on a journey to build and sustain a survivor-centered approach. 

In this post, we've reviewed a four-part working definition, urging an understanding of survivors' needs and experiences, prioritizing their perspectives, and empowering them in decision-making. Stay connected to the Pathway for Community Supports Blog as we delve deeper, offering more resources and insights to carry out the survivor-centered commitment.