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Safety Planning
A safety plan is a personalized, practical plan to improve your safety while experiencing abuse, preparing to leave an abusive situation, or after you leave
Safety with an Abuser
No one deserves to be abused. Our hope is that if you are being abused, you will be able to find a way to safely get out of the abusive relationship. The Tribe Circle Critical Response & Extraction team may be able to assist with your escape. Some victims are not able to leave an abusive relationship once the abuse begins. If you’re in a physically abusive relationship, please consider the following tips to help try to keep you and your children safe until the time comes when you are able to leave.
Following these suggestions (often known as a safety plan) can’t guarantee your safety, but it could help make you safer. However, it is important that you create a safety plan that is right for you. Not all of these suggestions will work for everyone, and some could even place you in greater danger. You have to do what you think is best to keep yourself and your children safe.
Ways to get help
- – If you need help in a public place, yell “Fire!” People respond more quickly to someone yelling “fire” than to any other cry for help.
- – If you can, always have a phone where you know you can get to it. Know the numbers to call for help such as 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or The Tribe Circle 800-520-7311. Know where the nearest pay phone is in case you have to run out of the home without your cell phone. Know your local battered women’s shelter number.
- – Let friends and neighbors who you trust know what is going on in your home. Make a plan with them so that they know when you need help and so they know what to do (such as calling the police or banging on your door). Make up a signal with a trusted neighbor, like flashing the lights on and off or hanging something out the window, which will alert him/her that you need help.
- – Make a habit of backing the car into the driveway (so you can quickly pull out) and having a full tank of gas. Keep your car keys in the same place so you can easily grab them. If you would be leaving by yourself (if you don’t have children), you might want to even keep the driver’s door unlocked (and the other car doors locked) so that you are prepared to make a quick escape if you have to.
- – Keep a copy of important papers with you or in your car, such as your and your children’s birth certificates, passports, immigration papers, and Social Security cards, in case you have to leave in a hurry.
- – If you can, call a domestic violence hotline from time to time to discuss your options and to talk to someone who understands you, even if you feel that you are not ready to leave. One number you can call is the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
- – Think of several reasons for leaving the house at different times of the day or night that the abuser will believe, in case you feel that the violence is about to erupt and you need an excuse to get out.