Restraining Orders

In general, a court order can only bind the parties in the order. So, any prohibitions in a protection order such as “no contact” would generally only be binding upon the respondent named in the order, not others. Similarly, only the respondent in the order can generally be accused criminally of violating the terms of the order. One thing that I want to highlight, however, is that most orders include a prohibition against “third party contact” or “indirect contact.” This often comes into play when the respondent tells another person (a third party) something that the third party then repeats to the victim. So, for example, a respondent may tell a victim’s sister, “Please tell her that I love her” and the sister passes along this message. This can be a violation of the no contact order, and put the respondent at risk of going to jail. Although I cannot give you any sort of legal advice, it seems like if a counselor is counseling both parties separately and in discussing the parties’ relationship, the respondent tells the counselor things about his/her feelings towards the victim or about an incident that happened, the counselor may inadvertently share those statements with the victim. Although I cannot say whether or not that type of sharing of statements made by the respondent would count as the respondent making “third party contact,” it could walk a fine line. I do not know if the organization that you are a part of has legal counsel on staff but perhaps this is something that you may want to run by the legal counsel to be sure that you wouldn’t run a risk of implicating the respondent in any way. If you don’t have legal counsel and would like to get a legal opinion specific to your situation, we have links to free legal services here:LINK Also, the STATE Coalition Against Domestic Violence may be another good resource to get some information on this specific to STATE law. They can be reached at:
LINK

Also, as I am sure you are already aware based on your training and experience, victims of domestic violence often suffer from PTSD related to the abuse and other anxiety or trauma-related conditions. I imagine that even if you never reveal anything to the victim about what the respondent said, just knowing that you are talking to the respondent may cause the victim to feel anxious and nervous when counseling with you. And even though I am sure that your conversations with her are confidential and you would never go back to the respondent to tell him what she said, I imagine that this may be a concern of hers. I am not sure if some sort of reassurance to her (either orally or in a writing that is drawn up with her) about these points might help her or not but I just wanted to highlight that issue as something to consider.