CARE provides confidential services, support, advocacy, and related referrals to all survivors of interpersonal violence at UCSB, including students, staff, faculty, alumni, and connected community members. This includes graduate student survivors.
Graduate students hold a unique dual role within the University community, often simultaneously students and UCSB employees. With this dual role, graduate students may feel that the resources on campus are not fit to meet their needs. CARE frequently works with the Graduate Division to navigate students’ academic, research, employment, and financial needs resulting from an experience of interpersonal violence that either recently occurred or is continuing to cause a disturbance in their academic, personal, or work life.
Some graduate students are parents who might have concerns about child care needs that have been impacted by an experience of violence. CARE is here to support every survivor in creating a safety plan that best fits the individual and their family/ loved ones. CARE is able to advocate for needs that affect both the individual survivor and others who have been impacted by the violence.
Navigating your options
Graduate students, like all UCSB community members, deserve safe, equitable working conditions, free from harassment and gender-based discrimination. CARE can assist graduate students in understanding their reporting options and the resources available throughout their healing process. If a survivor chooses to report experiences of sexual harassment or violence that they have directly experienced or witnessed in the course of their work at UCSB, a CARE advocate can be by their side throughout the reporting process. Reporting processes on campus can include the Title IX Compliance & Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Office (Title IX/DHP Office), the Academic Senate, Academic Personnel, and/or Human Resources.
Accommodations
CARE advocates can assist graduate students and researchers in receiving reasonable accommodations for academic and campus life, including but not limited to:
- Revised deadlines or pace of work with advisors (including rescheduling a dissertation defense)
- Discreet workplace accommodations to promote safety, regardless of whether or not the student wants to formally report sexual violence or harassment
- Referrals to additional mental and behavioral health support services with expertise in the needs of graduate students
- Navigating department politics and potential social impacts if violence or harassment have been disclosed to fellow students or faculty
- Emergency funding for medical needs, transportation to services related to sexual or relationship violence, temporary safe housing, and other unexpected, one-time expenses as appropriate through CARE’s Survivor Fund
- Advocating for safe and sustainable housing for the survivor and their family
- Accompaniment during reporting processes and court appearances
Confidentiality
A CARE advocate can discuss any student’s concerns one-on-one, without sharing any information with other campus offices. Your faculty advisor, your department, and the Title IX Compliance and Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Office (”TIX/DHP Office”) will not be notified that you have visited CARE unless you explicitly request CARE’s assistance in working with them.
CARE recognizes…
CARE recognizes that each individual may hold many of the different identities that our Communities we CARE for pages address. For more information on another identity, please go back to Communities we CARE for.
We support survivors from all backgrounds, the survivors that we serve are not limited to the identities listed on our Communities we CARE for page. If you do not see your identity listed, and would like to learn how interpersonal violence impacts you, please call our 24/7 confidential phone number at 805-893-4613 or make an appointment online to be connected with a confidential advocate.
Making an Appointment
with a CARE Advocate
Schedule a non-urgent appointment with a CARE Advocate.
For urgent and immediate assistance and to speak with a confidential staff member, please call our 24/7 CARE phone line at 805-893-4613. If you have an emergency or feel that you may be in immediate danger, please call 911.
If you have experienced a sexual assault within the last five days, call CARE at 805-893-4613 or navigate to the Medical section on our Advocacy Services page on our Survivor Services page to learn about the time-sensitive option to seek a free, confidential forensic medical exam.