Texas After Violence Project Code of Conduct

Additional expectations apply for those conducting or videographing interviews

1. Confidentiality. Do not ever, ever, discuss or reveal any information about a person we are interviewing or have interviewed, outside of the project office or with anyone other than your colleagues, unless and until the person granting the interview has made the interview public, and unless and until you have received specific and explicit permission from the director, associate director, or a project coordinator to discuss the interview.

No one, regardless of the person's relationship to an interview (interviewer, videographer, transcriber) may quote from or paraphrase or describe ANY interview outside of the office, until and unless the interview is public. This prohibition applies to all communications, written and and oral: speaking to a friend, writing a paper for a class, talking in class, publishing a paper, speaking at an academic or professional conference, submitting a document online, or anything else. The interviews are private and confidential. That is our commitment to the people who trust us with their stories. Violation of this trust could end the project; indeed, if we violate this trust we should not be doing this work at all.

2. Against Certain Forms of Invidious Discrimination. The Texas After Violence Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, citizenship, disability,* age of persons who are over eighteen (18) or emancipated minors, body size or shape, or physical appearance.

Non-discrimination? Easy to say, right? For this statement to be true, each person associated with the project must actively examine her or his own attitudes, worldview, and assumptions about other people, actively attempt to acknowledge biases, actively attempt to educate herself or himself about other peoples, and be open to criticism and change. Rooting out and eradicating deep prejudices and internalized oppression is not easy and it's impossible in an atmosphere of distrust and judgment. Be gentle with yourself and others as we make mistakes; be attentive, honest, and compassionate at the same time.

*There is an exception to the non-discrimination rule about disability. The project will not interview any person who is not legally able to consent. For the same reason, the project will not interview anyone who is under eighteen (18) years old, unless that person is an emancipated minor. (In Texas, teenagers may ask a court to be regarded as adults in certain circumstances: to be "emancipated" or "released from the disability of minority.")

3. Limits on interviews. No one from the Texas After Violence Project will participate (as an interviewer, videographer, or observer) in more than two (2) interviews in any seven-day period.

If you are conducting interviews for some other organization or for school or personal reasons, you are to disclose this information to your colleagues and the director; together we will make a judgment call about what to do. Probably, you should not conduct more than two interviews anyway in the seven-day period, but we'll decide together based on the nature, topic, and intensity of the non-TAVP interview.

4. No use of legally prohibited drugs, limited use of prescription drugs with certain effects, and no use alcohol on the job.

No one may drink alcohol, or be under the influence of alcohol, while representing the Texas After Violence Project, including during an interview, in a private meeting, or in a public forum or presentation.

Use no drugs other than those necessary for your health (prescription or non-prescription) while you are in the office or anywhere else on behalf of the project. Do not use any drug or narcotic prohibited by Texas or U.S. federal law in the office, any time you are representing the project in any way, or any time you are traveling related to project business, even if you are not working right then.

Use medication only as directed by its label, a pharmacist, or a physician, and pay attention to any restrictions. For instance, if you are taking a painkiller that would affect your driving, don’t drive.

If you are taking any medication that would impair your judgment or level of alertness, please do not drive, conduct or record an interview, or represent the project in any private meeting or public event.

If you are taking a medicine for the first time and do not know how it will affect you, please do not drive, conduct or record an interview, or represent the project outside of the office in any private meeting or public event. Depending on the situation, it may or may not be fine to work in the office.

5. No weapons ever. No one will bring weapons when working at our office or elsewhere for the project. The rule applies when conducting or recording an interview, attending a conference or training, or otherwise representing the project, and also during travel to or from any of these activities.

6. Work in pairs. No one will go into any private space, as an interviewer or other representative of the project, by herself or himself. No one will conduct any interview by herself or himself.

7. Interviewers and videographers (and observers, if any) must be attentive, empathetic, and non-judgmental to and with any interview narrator before, during, and after an interview. No one will judge, criticize, argue with, show disagreement with, chastise, insult or act disrespectfully to any person that the Texas After Violence Project seeks to interview, is interviewing, or has interviewed, or to anyone else. People who are not able to maintain this respectful and non-judgmental stance, including with people with whom they disagree, must not participate in interviews.

8. No removal of any kind of property from the office. No one will take anything out of the office that does not belong to her or him without the specific and explicit permission of the director, associate director, or a project coordinator, or unless the thing you want to borrow is a personal possession of one of your colleagues, and she or he gives specific and explicit permission to borrow it.

Violation of any of the above rules (1-8) will be grounds for immediate termination of a person's relationship with the project.

9. Growth through deliberate reflection.Every member of the Texas After Violence Project team must be willing to participate in regular, collective, respectful and constructive criticism of our work.

10. Take care of yourself!

Adapted from Texas After Violence Project bylaws and board-adopted policies (September 27, 2007), and interview protocols (revisions, November 2008, circulated 20 April 2009, submitted online 14 June 2009 and updated 1 July 2009. Additional revisions on 12 February 2010). - vmr