Departments | Attorney | Victim/Witness Program | Safety Planning for Victims of Domestic Violence
Safety Planning for Victims of Domestic Violence
The following information was prepared by the North Iowa Domestic and Sexual Abuse Community Coalition
You have the right to be safe!
Safety During An Explosive Incident
- If an argument seems unavoidable, try to have it in a room
or area where you have access to an exit. Try to stay away from
the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, or anywhere else where weapons
might be available.
- Practice how to get out of your home safely. Identify which
doors, windows, elevator, or stairwell would be best.
- Have a packed bag ready and keep it at a relative's or friend's
home in order to leave quickly.
- Identify one or more neighbors you can tell about the violence
and ask that they call the police if they hear a disturbance
coming from your home.
- Devise a code to use with your children, family, friends and
neighbors when you need the police.
- Decide and plan for where you will go if you have to leave
home.
- Use your own instincts and judgment. If the situation is very
dangerous, consider giving the abuser what he wants to calm
him down. You have the right to protect yourself until you are
out of danger.
- Always remember - You don't deserve
to be hit or threatened!
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Safety When Preparing to Leave
- Open a savings account and/or a credit card in your own name
to start to establish or increase your independence. Think of
other ways in which you can increase your economic independence.
- Leave money, an extra set of keys, copies of important documents,
extra medicines and clothes with someone you trust so that you
can leave quickly.
- Determine who would be able to let you stay with them or lend
you some money.
- Keep the shelter or hotline phone number close at hand and
keep some change or a calling card on you at all times for emergency
phone calls.
- Review your safety plan as often as possible in order to plan
the safest way to leave your batterer. Remember - Leaving
your batterer is the most dangerous time.
- What You
Need to Take With You - Checklist
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Safety In Your Own Home
- Change the locks on your doors as soon as possible. Buy additional
locks and safety devices to secure your windows. Consider additional
outside lighting.
- Discuss a safety plan with your children for when you are
not with them.
- Inform neighbors and/or landlord that your partner no longer
lives with you and that they should call the police if they
see him near your home.
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Safety With a Protective Order
- Keep your protective order on you at all times. Give a copy
to a trusted neighbor or family member.
- Inform your children's school, daycare, etc., about who has
permission to pick up your children. Provide them with copies
of the protection order, especially if the children are included
in the order.
- Call the police if your partner breaks the protective order
in any way.
- Think of alternative ways to keep safe if the police do not
respond right away.
- Inform family, friends, neighbors and your physician or health
care provider that you have a protective order in effect.
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Safety On The Job and In Public
- Decide who at work you will inform of your situation. This
should include office or building security. Provide a picture
of your batterer if possible.
- Arrange to have an answering machine, caller ID, co-worker,
trusted friend or relative screen your telephone calls, if possible.
- Devise a safety plan for when you leave work. Have someone
escort you to your car, bus, or train and wait with you until
you are safely enroute. Use a variety of routes to go home by,
if possible. Think about what you would do if something happened
while going home.
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Your Safety and Emotional Health
- If you are thinking of returning to a potentially abusive
situation, discuss an alternative plan with someone you trust.
- If you have to communicate with your partner, determine the
safest way to do so.
- Have positive thoughts about yourself and be assertive with
others about your needs. Read books, articles and poems to help
you feel stronger.
- Decide who you can call to talk freely and openly to give
you the support you need.
- Plan to attend a women's or victim's support group to gain
support from others and learn more about yourself and the
relationship.
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