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Safety Planning
What can you do to stay safe in a dangerous relationship.
Safety During An Explosive Incident
- If there is an argument, try to be in a place that has an exit and stay out of the bathroom, kitchen or rooms that may contain weapons.
- Practice getting out of your home safely. Identify which doors, windows, elevator, or stairwell to use.
- Have a packed bag ready at a friend or relative's house.
- Identify one or more neighbors who will call the police if a disturbance is coming from your home.
- Devise a code word or sign (such as turning on a particular light) to use with your children, family, friends, and neighbors when you need them to call 911 for help from the police.
Safety When Leaving An Abusive Relationship
- Open a checking or savings account and a post office box in your own name.
- Leave money, a set of keys, copies of important documents, extra clothes and medicines in a safe place or with someone you trust.
- Identify a safe place where you and your children can go, or someone who can lend you money.
- Keep the Genesis Women's Shelter 24 hour hotline number and some change or a calling card with you for emergency phone calls.
Safety With A Protective Order
A protective order legally requires that the abuser stay 500 feet away from the victim's home or work and prohibits him or her from stalking, assaulting, harassing, and threatening the victim for two years. Protective Orders may also be renewed. In order to apply, the abuser must be a spouse or ex-spouse, live in or ex-live in, a family member, related through marriage or have had a child with the victim.
- Protective Orders are available at Genesis Women's Outreach, M-F, 9-5 free of charge. For more information please contact us at (214) 559-2050. All information is kept confidential.
- Keep your protective order with you and call the police if the abuser breaks a protective order.
- Inform family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers that you have a protective order in effect.
Safety In The Home
- If you stay in your home, lock your windows and change locks on your doors as soon as possible.
- Develop a safety plan with your children for when you are not with them.
- Inform neighbors and the landlord that your partner no longer lives with you, and ask them to call the police if they see him near your home.
- Never call the abuser from your home; he may find out where you live. Never tell the abuser where you live.
- Request an unlisted/unpublished phone number from the telephone company.
Safety On The Job And In Public Places
- Identify a friend at work whom you will inform of your situation. Inform the office building security. You may also want to provide them with a picture of your batterer, in the instance he/she harasses you at work.
- When at work, have someone screen your telephone calls, if possible.
- Have someone escort you to and from your car, the bus, or the train.
- Try to use a variety of routes to come and go from home.
Planning Ahead With A Safety Check List
If you are considering leaving your abusive relationship, you may need the following items. Plan ahead by storing them in a safe, accessible place, but remember that your safety should come first. It is helpful to have these items, but everything on this list can be replaced.
- Identification
Driver's license
Birth certificate (yours and your children's)
Social Security cards
- Financial
Money
Credit cards (only if they are in your name)
Checking and savings account books and information
- Legal Papers
Protective Order
Lease, rental, house deed
Car insurance and registration
Health and life insurance papers
Medical records for you and your children
School records
Work permits, green card, visa, passport
Divorce and custody papers
Marriage license
- Other
Medications
House and car keys
Valuable jewelry
Address book, pictures, keepsakes
Change of clothes for you and your children
Safety Planning.pdf
Safety Planning - Spanish.pdf |
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