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What
is a Safety Plan?
Every individual in an abusive relationship
needs a safety plan. Shelter and crisis counselors have been urging
safety plans for years. Police departments, victim services, hospitals,
and courts have adopted this strategy. Safety plans should be
individualized; taking into account age, marital status, whether
children are involved, geographic location, and resources available;
yet still contain common elements. Leaving an abusive situation
requires strategic planning and legal intervention to avert separation
violence and to safeguard victims and their children. Law enforcement
advocates, and battered women must work in partnership to assure
that the separation process is safeguarded against batterer violence.
How
to create a safety plan:
Think about all possible escape
routes including doors, first-floor windows, basement exits, elevators,
and stairwells. Rehearse if possible. Choose a place to go. It
could be the home of a friend or relative who will offer unconditional
support, or a motel, or hotel, or a Shelter. The most important
thing is to choose somewhere you will feel safe.
Pack a survival kit. This includes
money for cab fare, a change of clothes, extra house and car keys,
birth certificates, passports, medications, and copies of prescriptions,
insurance information, checkbook credit cards, legal documents
such as separation agreements and protection orders, address books,
and valuable jewelry, and papers that show jointly owned assets.
Conceal it in the home or leave it with a trusted neighbor, friend,
or relative. Important papers can also be left in a bank deposit
box. Try to start an individual savings account. Have statements
sent to a trusted relative or friend. Avoid arguments with the
abuser in areas with potential weapons. Areas to avoid include
the kitchen, garage, or any small space without an exit door.
Know the telephone number of the domestic violence hotline. Contact
it for information on resources and legal rights.
Review the safety plan monthly.
Adapted from: "Preventing Domestic
Violence" by Laura Crites in Prevention Communique, March 1992,
Crime Prevention Division, Department of the Attorney General,
Hawaii.
If you
are still in the relationship:
- Think of a safe place to go if
an argument occurs. Avoid rooms with no exits (bathroom) or
rooms with weapons (kitchen).
- Make a list of safe people to
contact.
- Keep change with you at all times.
- Memorize all important phone
numbers.
- Establish a "code word or sign"
so that family, friends, teachers or co-workers know when to
call for help.
- Plan what you will say to your
partner if he\she becomes violent.
- Remember you have the right to
live without fear and violence.
If you
have left the relationship:
- Change your phone number.
- Screen calls.
- Save and document all contacts,
messages, injuries or other incidents involving the batterer.
- Change locks, if the batterer
has a key.
- Avoid staying alone.
- Plan how to get away if confronted
by an abusive partner.
- If you have to meet your partner,
do it in a public place.
- Vary your routine.
- Notify school and work contacts.
- Call a shelter for battered women.
If you leave the relationship or
are thinking of leaving, you should take important papers and
documents with you to enable you to apply for benefits or take
legal action. Important papers you should take include: social
security cards and birth certificates for you and your children,
your marriage license, leases or deeds in your name or both yours
and your partner’s names, your checkbook, charge cards, bank statements
and charge account statements, insurance policies, proof of income
for you and your spouse (pay stubs or W-2’s), and any documentation
of past incidents of abuse (photos, police reports, medical records,
etc.)
Many, perhaps most, people believe
that battered women will be safe once they separate from the batterer.
They also believe that women are free to leave abusers at any
time. However, leaving does not usually put an end to the violence.
Batterers may, in fact, escalate their violence to coerce a battered
woman into reconciliation or to retaliate for the battered woman's
perceived rejection or abandonment of the batterer. Men, who believe
they are entitled to relationship with battered women or that
they "own" their female partner, view the woman's departure as
an ultimate betrayal justifying retaliation.
(Saudners & Browne, 1990; Dutton,
1988; Bernard et al, 1982.)
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