At the last writing session in June, I gave each woman a consent form and we talked about what the form meant. I assured the women that they were truly free to choose to not be mentioned in my paper and also explained that they could choose to be mentioned by first name, full name, or a pseudonym. I explained any terms that may have been unfamiliar and encouraged the women to ask questions. Each of the women signed a consent form. They encouraged me to share whatever I felt was helpful, and chose to be named by their first names.

I was continually amazed at the personal nature of some of the things we shared within the group, and at times I felt overwhelmed with the broad freedom the women gave me to share anything. I did not want to misuse or abuse that trust. At one point during the VALTA Project, we had discussed informed consent. The guiding principle I took from the discussion was to "do no harm." It is my hope that my writing reflects the respect and admiration I hold for this amazing group of women.

Focusing My Research

I began my project with a rather undefined question—What happens when I lead a writing group and pay attention to the effects of violence? Initially I had a number of questions. Would involvement in the writing group support other learning? How would the group work?

Was I able to effectively facilitate such a group? I was fortunate to have Judy Murphy, one of the VALTA Project coordinators, as my research project mentor. During a reflection time after a writing session, Judy asked Laurie and me how we had created the safe space she had experienced within our group. She was not satisfied with our feeling that it had just happened. I began to realize that our group was "safe space" even though there were a number of reasons why it might not be. It had not happened magically or accidentally.