Creating
a Safety Plan
Specific Safety Planning
If your abuser is prone to physical abuse, or if you feel your emotional
abuser may escalate to physical violence, it is important to have an
escape plan. It is important that you assemble what you may need without
your abuser’s knowledge. There is potential for immediate violence
if your abuser detects any indication that you may be trying to leave.
Pack a survival
kit.
In case you have to leave your house quickly, keep your car keys or
money for bus fare with you. Pack a bag with
• Extra house and car keys
• Cash, checkbook, credit cards, valuable jewelry, and papers that
show jointly owned assets
• Important paperwork, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance
cards, marriage license, separation agreements and protection orders
• Medications and copies of prescriptions
• Address and appointment books
• A limited number of small keepsakes (photos, etc.)
• One or two comfort items for each child
• A limited amount of clothing for you and each child.
Gather these items discretely and
conceal this bag in the home or leave it with a trusted neighbor, friend,
or relative. Important papers can also be left in a bank deposit box.
If your abuser checks your car, don’t leave any items there.
If possible, plan your leaving very
carefully. Give yourself a window of at least 30 minutes. Let a trustworthy
person know where you are going. If you find yourself with nowhere to
go, call the police or our 24-hour crisis line at 303-772-4422. It may
feel awful to leave your belongings, but most items can be replaced,
unlike your life and the lives of your children.
Creating
a Personalized Safety Plan
The following steps represent my plan for increasing my safety and preparing
in advance for the possibility of 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.
Safety During
a Violent Incident
I will use some or all of the following strategies:
1. I will get out of the house safely and quickly by ___________________________
2. I will place my keys and purse for easy access ____________________________
3. I will tell __________________ about the abuse and ask them to call
the police if they hear suspicious noises coming from my house.
4. I will choose a safe place where I can go if I leave my home _________________
5. Which room is the safest in my home for me and/or my children to
go to in case of an argument? _________________________________________________
6. I will teach my children how to contact the police or fire department
7. The code I will use to alert my children or friends to call for help
is ____________
When Preparing
to Leave
1. I will keep copies of important documents___________________________________
2. I will open up a savings account by __________________________________________
3. I will stay with ______________________________________where I know
I will be safe
4. I will leave extra clothes for myself (and my children) ____________________________
5. I will keep change on myself at all times for phone calls
6. I will keep a 9-1-1 phone with me wherever I go.
7. I will review my safety plan regularly, and rehearse it with my children.
. . . It is not easy for a
woman to leave her home, even when it has isolated her in hurt and humiliation.
It is still her home, built on love, shared with a belief in permanence,
endured through her tears with hope. “I thought taking my husband’s
abuse was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” Lucy told me once,
adding, “but I didn’t know what hard was until I decided to
leave.” It is frightening to face an unknown future; it is risky
to face what might be murderous consequences. Yet if she stays, she
tells her man it is all right to batter her, and to inflict abuse on
her children as well. The consequences of staying are just as frightening,
just as life-threatening to the soul and possibly the body.
–
Mary Susan Miller, Ph.D., No Visible Wounds, 1995
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Domestic
Violence
