- When an argument begins, try to move to a room or area that has access to an exit. Avoid a bathroom, kitchen, or anywhere near weapons.
- Practice how to get out of your home. Identify which doors, windows, elevator, or stairway would be best.
- Devise a signal or code word to use with your family, friends, and neighbors when you need the police.
- Identify a neighbor you can tell about the violence. Ask that neighbor to call the police if they hear a disturbance coming from your home or a predetermined signal.
- Decide and plan where you will go if you have to leave home (even if you don’t think you will need to). This should be a safe place from which you can call for further assistance.
- Use your own instincts and judgment. You have the right to protect yourself until you are out of danger.
- Always remember – you don’t deserve to be hit or threatened!
- Open a savings account in your own name and start to establish or increase your independence.
- Have a packed bag ready and keep it in a secret place that is easy to reach.
- Leave money, an extra set of keys, copies of important documents, and extra clothes with someone you trust.
- Determine who would be able to let you stay with them or lend you some money.
- Keep Women In Distress 24-hour Crisis Hotline phone number 954-761-1133 close at hand, or better yet, memorize it. If using a cell phone, store our phone number as a different name, so your batterer cannot find it.
- Remember to clear your call log/call history/text history.
- Review your safety plan as often as possible in order to plan the safest way to leave your batterer. Remember – leaving your batterer can be very dangerous!
- Consider obtaining a Personal Protection Order (PPO).
- Change the locks on your doors as soon as possible. Buy additional lock and safety devices to secure your windows.
- Discuss a safety plan with your children for when you are not with them.
- Inform your children’s school, daycare, etc. about who has permission to pick up your children.
- Inform neighbors and landlord that your partner no longer lives with you and that they should call the police if they see your partner near your home.
- If possible, obtain a P.O. Box and get an unlisted phone number.
- Keep your Personal Protection Order with you at all times. (If you change your purse or wallet, that should be the first thing that goes in it or else get multiple copies.)
- Call the police if your partner breaks the Personal Protection Order.
- Think of alternative ways to keep safe if the police do not respond right away.
- Inform family, friends, and neighbors that you have a Personal Protection Order in effect.
- Document calls to the police, their responses, dates, times, etc.
- Decide who at work you will inform of your situation. This should include office or building security. (Provide a picture of your batterer if possible.)
- Arrange to have someone screen your telephone calls if possible.
- Devise a safety plan for when you leave work. Have someone escort you to your car, bus, or train. Use a variety of routes to go home if possible. Think about what you would do if something happened while going home. (i.e. in your car, on the bus, etc.)
- If you are thinking of returning to a potentially abusive situation, discuss an alternative plan with someone you trust.
- If you have to communicate with your partner, determine the safest way to do so. Have positive thoughts about yourself and be assertive with others about your needs.
- Read books, articles, and poems to help you feel stronger.
- Decide whom you can talk freely and openly with to give you the support you need.
- Consider attending a domestic violence support group to gain support from others and learn more about you and the relationship.
