Safety Planning

Safety planning for someone involved in an abusive relationship is a necessary and important step. Planning can be used while you are still with your abuser or after the relationship has ended. While still in an abusive relationship, your safety is of primary importance.

Safety Plan Guidelines

• For a Printable Personal Safety Plan – Click Here

These safety suggestions have been compiled from safety plans distributed by state domestic violence coalitions from around the country. Following these suggestions is not a guarantee of safety, but could help to improve your safety situation.

Personal Safety with an Abuser

• Identify your partner’s use and level of force so that you can assess danger to you and your children before it occurs.
• Try to avoid an abusive situation by leaving.
• Identify safe areas of the house where there are no weapons and there are ways to escape. If arguments occur, try to move to those areas.
• Don’t run to where the children are, as your partner may hurt them as well.
• If violence is unavoidable, make yourself a small target; dive into a corner and curl up into a ball with your face protected and arms around each side of your head, fingers entwined.
• If possible, have a phone accessible at all times and know what numbers to call for help. Know where the nearest pay phone is located. Know the phone number to your local battered women’s shelter. Don’t be afraid to call the police.
• Let trusted friends and neighbors know of your situation and develop a plan and visual signal for when you need help.
• Teach your children how to get help. Instruct them not to get involved in the violence between you and your partner. Plan a code word to signal to them that they should get help or leave the house.
• Tell your children that violence is never right, even when someone they love is being violent. Tell them that neither you, nor they, are at fault or are the cause of the violence, and that when anyone is being violent, it is important to stay safe.
• Practice how to get out safely. Practice with your children.
• Plan for what you will do if your children tell your partner of your plan or if your partner otherwise finds out about your plan.
• Keep weapons like guns and knives locked away and as inaccessible as possible.
• Make a habit of backing the car into the driveway and keeping it fueled. Keep the driver’s door unlocked and others locked — for a quick escape.
• Try not to wear scarves or long jewelry that could be used to strangle you.
• Create several plausible reasons for leaving the house at different times of the day or night.
• Call a domestic violence hotline periodically to assess your options and get a supportive understanding ear.

Getting Ready to Leave

• Keep any evidence of physical abuse, such as pictures.
• Know where you can go to get help; tell someone what is happening to you.
• If you are injured, go to a doctor or an emergency room and report what happened to you. Ask that they document your visit.
• Plan with your children and identify a safe place for them, like a room with a lock or a friend’s house where they can go for help. Reassure them that their job is to stay safe, not to protect you.
• Contact your local battered women’s shelter and find out about laws and other resources available to you before you have to use them during a crisis.
• Keep a journal of all violent incidences, noting dates, events and threats made, if possible.
• Acquire job skills or take courses at a community college as you can.
• Try to set money aside or ask friends or family members to hold money for you.

General Guidelines for Leaving an Abusive Relationship

• You may request a police stand-by or escort while you leave.
• If you need to sneak away, be prepared.
• Make a plan for how and where you will escape.
• Plan for a quick escape.
• Put aside emergency money as you can.
• Hide an extra set of car keys.
• Pack an extra set of clothes for yourself and your children and store them at a trusted friend or neighbor’s house. Try to avoid using the homes of next-door neighbors, close family members and mutual friends.
• Take with you important phone numbers of friends, relatives, doctors, schools, etc., as well as other important items, including:
  • Driver’s license
  • Regularly needed medication
  • Credit cards or a list of credit cards you hold yourself or jointly
  • Pay stubs
  • Checkbooks and information about bank accounts and other assets
• If time is available, also take:
  • Citizenship documents (such as your passport, green card, etc.)
  • Titles, deeds and other property information
  • Medical records
  • Children’s school and immunization records
  • Insurance information
  • Copy of marriage license, birth certificates, will and other legal documents
  • Verification of social security numbers
  • Welfare identification
  • Valued pictures, jewelry or personal possessions

  You may also create a false trail. Call motels, real estate agencies and schools in a town at least six hours away from where you plan to relocate. Ask questions that require a call back to your house in order to leave phone numbers on record.

After Leaving the Abusive Relationship

If you are granted a Protection From Abuse order (PFA) and the offender is leaving:

• Change your locks and phone number.
• Change your work hours and route taken to work.
• Change the route taken to transport children to school.
• Keep a certified copy of your PFA with you at all times.
• Inform friends, neighbors and employers that you have a PFA in effect.
• Give copies of the PFA to employers, neighbors and schools along with a picture of the offender.
• Call law enforcement to enforce the order.

If you leave:

• Consider renting a post office box or using the address of a friend for your mail.
• Be aware that addresses are on PFAs and police reports.
• Be careful to whom you give your new address and phone number.
• Change your work hours, if possible.
• Alert school authorities of the situation.
• Consider changing your children’s schools.
• Reschedule appointments that the offender is aware of.
• Use different stores and frequent different social spots.
• Alert neighbors and request that they call the police if they feel you may be in danger.
• Talk to trusted people about the violence.
• Replace wooden doors with steel or metal doors. Install security systems if possible.
• Install a motion sensitive lighting system.
• Tell people you work with about the situation and have your calls screened by one receptionist if possible.
• Tell people who take care of your children who can pick up your children. Explain your situation to them and provide them with a copy of the PFA.
• Call the telephone company to request caller ID. Ask that your phone number be blocked so that if you call anyone, neither your partner nor anyone else will be able to get your new, unlisted phone number.

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Copyright © 1998 by the National Center for Victims of Crime. This information may be freely distributed, provided that it is distributed free of charge, in its entirety and includes this copyright notice.