The following steps represent my plan for increasing my
safety and preparing in advance for the possibility for further violence.
Although I do not have control over my partner's violence, I do have a
choice about how to respond to him/her and how to best get myself and my
children to safety.
|
| Step 1: Safety during a violent incident. Women
cannot always avoid violent incidents. In order to increase safety,
battered women may use a variety of strategies. |
| I can use some or all of the following strategies: |
| A. |
If I decide to leave, I will
______________________. (Practice how to get out safely. What doors,
windows, elevators, stairwells, or fire escapes would you use?) |
| B. |
I can keep my purse and car keys ready and put
them (place) ____________________ in order to leave quickly. |
| C. |
I can tell ____________________ about the
violence and request they call the police if they hear suspicious noises
coming from my house. I can also tell ___________________________________
about the violence and request they call the police if they hear
suspicious noises coming from my house. |
| D. |
I can teach my children how to use the
telephone to contact the police and the fire department. |
| E. |
I will use __________________________ as my
code word with my children or my friends so they can call for help. |
| F. |
If I have to leave my home, I will go
___________________________. (Decide this even if you don't think there
will be a next time.) If I cannot go to the location above, then I can go
to _____________________________ or _______________________. |
| G. |
I can also teach some of these strategies to
some/all of my children. |
| H. |
When I expect we are going to have an argument,
I will try to move to a space that is lowest risk, such as
_______________________________________________. (Try to avoid arguments
in the bathroom, garage, kitchens, near weapons or in rooms without access
to an outside door.) |
| I. |
I will use my judgment and intuition. If the
situation is very serious, I can give my partner what he/she wants to calm
him/her down. I have to protect myself until I/we are out of danger.
|
Step 2: Safety when preparing to leave. Battered
women frequently leave the residence they share with the battering
partner. Leaving must be done with a careful plan in order to increase
safety. Batterers often strike back when they believe that a battered
woman is leaving a relationship.
|
| I can use some or all of the following safety
strategies: |
| A. |
I will leave money and an extra set of keys
with ____________________ so I can leave quickly. |
| B. |
I will keep copies of important documents or
keys at ___________________________. |
| C. |
I will open a savings account by
______________________ (date), to increase my independence. |
| D. |
Other things I can do to increase my
independence include:
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
|
| E. |
The domestic violence program's hotline number
is ________________________. I can seek shelter by calling this hotline.
|
| F. |
I can keep change for phone calls on me at all
times. I understand that if I use my telephone credit card, the following
month the telephone bill will tell my batterer those numbers that I called
after I left. To keep my telephone communications confidential, I must
either use coins or I might get a friend to permit me to use their
telephone credit card for a limited time when I first leave. |
| G. |
I will check with ___________________ and
___________________ to see who would be able to let me stay with them or
lend me some money. |
| H. |
I can leave extra clothes with
_____________________________________________. |
| I. |
I will sit down and review my safety plan every
____________________________ in order to plan the safest way to leave the
residence. ____________________________ (domestic violence advocate or
friend) has agreed to help me review this plan. |
| J. |
I will rehearse my escape plan and, as
appropriate, practice it with my children.
|
Step 3: Safety in my own residence. There are many
things that a woman can do to increase her safety in her own residence. It
may impossible to do everything at once, but safety measures can be added
step by step.
|
| Safety measures I can use include: |
| A. |
I can change the locks on my doors and windows
as soon as possible. |
| B. |
I can replace wooden doors with steel/metal
doors. |
| C. |
I can install security systems including
additional locks, window bars, poles to wedge against doors, an electronic
system, etc. |
| D. |
I can purchase rope ladders to be used for
escape from second floor windows. |
| E. |
I can install smoke detectors and purchase fire
extinguishers for each floor in my house/apartment. |
| F. |
I can install an outside lighting system that
lights up when a person is coming close to my house. |
| G. |
I will teach my children how to use the
telephone to make a collect call to me and to (friend/minister/other) in
the event that my partner takes the children. |
| H. |
I will tell people who take care of my children
which people have permission to pick up my children and that my partner is
not permitted to do so. The people I will inform about pick-up permission
include
___________________________________________________________
(school),
_____________________________________________________
(day care
staff),
________________________________________________________
(babysitter),
_____________________________________________
(Sunday school
teacher),
__________________________________________________________
(teacher),
_______________________________________________________
and (others). |
| I. |
I can inform
________________________________________________ (neighbor),
________________________________ (pastor), and _________________________
(friend) that my partner no longer resides with me and they should call
the police if he is observed near my residence.
|
Step 4: Safety with a protection order. Many
batterers obey protection orders, but one can never be sure which violent
partner will obey and which will violate protection orders. I recognize
that I may need to ask the police and the courts to enforce my protection
order.
|
| The following are some steps that I can take to help the
enforcement of my protection order: |
| A. |
I will keep my protection order
_________________________ (location). (Always keep it on or near your
person. If you change purses, that's the first thing that should go in.)
|
| B. |
I will give my protection order to police
departments in the community where I work, in those communities where I
usually visit family or friends, and in the community where I live. |
| C. |
There should be a county registry of protection
orders that all police departments can call to confirm a protection order.
I can check to make sure that my order is in the registry. The telephone
number for the county registry of protection orders is __________________.
|
| D. |
For further safety, if I often visit other
counties in my state, I might file my protection order with the court in
those counties. I will register my protection order in the following
counties: __________________, __________________________, and
_________________________. |
| E. |
I can call the local domestic violence program
if I am not sure about B, C, or D above or if I have some problem with my
protection order. |
| F. |
I will inform my employer, my minister, my
closest friend and ___________________ and _____________________ that I
have a protection order in effect. |
| G. |
If my partner destroys my protection order, I
can get another copy from the courthouse by going to [the office] located
at __________________________ |
| H. |
If my partner violates the protection order, I
can call the police and report a violation, contact my attorney, call my
advocate, and/or advise the court of the violation. |
| I. |
If the police do not help, I can contact my
advocate or attorney and will file a complaint with the chief of the
police department. |
| J. |
I can also file a private criminal complaint
with the district justice in the jurisdiction where the violation occurred
or with the district attorney. I can charge my battering partner with a
violation of the protection order and all the crimes that he commits in
violating the order. I can call the domestic violence advocate to help me
with this.
|
Step 5: Safety on the job and in public. Each
battered woman must decide if and when she will tell others that her
partner has battered her and that she may be at continued risk. Friends,
family and coworkers can help to protect women. Each woman should consider
carefully which people to invite to help secure her safety.
|
| I might do any or all of the following: |
| A. |
I can inform my boss, the security supervisor
and _____________________________ at work of my situation. |
| B. |
I can ask
________________________________________ to help screen my telephone calls
at work. |
| C. |
When leaving work, I can
_______________________________________________. |
| D. |
When driving home if problems occur, I can
_________________________________. |
| E. |
If I use public transit, I can
______________________________________________. |
| F. |
I can use different grocery stores and shopping
malls to conduct my business and shop at hours that are different than
those when residing with my battering partner. |
| G. |
I can use a different bank and take care of my
banking at hours different from those I used when residing with my
battering partner. |
| H. |
I can also
__________________________________________________________.
|
Step 6: Safety and drug or alcohol use. Most people
in this culture use alcohol. Many use mood-altering drugs. Much of this
use is legal and some is not. The legal outcomes of using illegal drugs
can be very hard on a battered woman, may hurt her relationship with her
children and put her at a disadvantage in other legal actions with her
battering partner. Therefore, women should carefully consider the
potential cost of the use of illegal drugs. But beyond this, the use of
any alcohol or other drugs can reduce a woman's awareness and ability to
act quickly to protect herself from her battering partner. Furthermore,
the use of alcohol or other drugs by the batterer may give him/her an
excuse to use violence. Therefore, in the context of drug or alcohol use,
a woman needs to make specific safety plans.
|
| If drug or alcohol use has occurred in my relationship with
the battering partner, I can enhance my safety by some or all of the
following: |
| A. |
If I am going to use, I can do so in a safe
place and with people who understand the risk of violence and are
committed to my safety. |
| B. |
I can also
_______________________________________________________. |
| C. |
If my partner is using, I can
_______________________________________. |
| D. |
I might also
_____________________________________________________. |
| E. |
To safeguard my children, I might
_________________________________ and _________________________.
|
Step 7: Safety and my emotional health. The
experience of being battered and verbally degraded by partners is usually
exhausting and emotionally draining. The process of building a new life
for myself takes much courage and incredible energy.
|
| To conserve my emotional energy and resources and to avoid
hard emotional times, I can do some of the following: |
| A. |
If I feel down and ready to return to a
potentially abusive situation, I can ______________________________.
|
| B. |
When I have to communicate with my partner in
person or by telephone, I can
_________________________________________________________. |
| C. |
I can try to use "I can . . ." statements with
myself and to be assertive with others. |
| D. |
I can tell myself,
"____________________________________________" whenever I feel others are
trying to control or abuse me. |
| E. |
I can read ___________________________ to help
me feel stronger. |
| F. |
I can call ______________________________,
______________________________ and _______________________________ as
other resources to be of support to me. |
| G. |
Other things I can do to help me feel stronger
are _______________________, ____________________, and
__________________________________. |
| H. |
I can attend workshops and support groups at
the domestic violence program or __________________________________,
__________________________ , or _________________________________ to gain
support and strengthen my relationships with other people.
|
Step 8: Items to take when leaving. When women leave
partners, it is important to take certain items with them. Beyond this,
women sometimes give an extra copy of papers and an extra set of clothing
to a friend just in case they have to leave quickly.
|
| Items with asterisks on the following list are the most
important to take. If there is time, the other items might be taken, or
stored outside the home. |
| These items might best be placed in one location, so that if
we have to leave in a hurry, I can grab them quickly. |
| When I leave, I should take: |
| * |
Identification for myself |
| * |
Children's birth certificates |
| * |
My birth certificate |
| * |
Social Security cards |
| * |
School and vaccination records |
| * |
Money |
| * |
Checkbook, ATM (Automatic Teller Machine)
card |
| * |
Credit cards |
| * |
Keys-house/car/office |
| * |
Driver's license and registration |
| * |
Medications |
|
*Welfare identification |
|
*Work permits |
|
*Green card |
|
*Passport(s) |
|
*Divorce papers |
|
*Medical records-for all family members |
|
*Lease/rental agreement, house deed, mortgage
payment book |
|
*Bank books |
|
*Insurance papers |
|
*Small saleable objects |
|
*Address book |
|
*Pictures |
|
*Jewelry |
|
*Children's favorite toys and/or blankets |
|
*Items of special sentimental
value |
