Safety Plan

• Seek professional advice and support from local support and outreach organisations, domestic abuse services and helplines

• Consider how agencies can make contact safely, e.g., through a work number or at a friend's address

• Consider where you can quickly and easily use a telephone and who are safe people to contact - memorise a list of numbers for use in an emergency, like friends, police, and support organisations

• Consider a signal with children, family, neighbours, friends or colleagues, which will alert them to call the police when help is needed

• Think through escape routes in advance; if possible avoid rooms with no exit or with weapons in (e.g., bathroom or kitchen)

• Try to save some money for fares and other expenses

• Receive medical help for any injuries ensuring that they are recorded and if possible photographed. These may be used at a later date to support court cases or re-housing applications.

If you are planning to leave:

• Take care over whom to trust with any plans that you are making to leave

• Consider whether or not an injunction is a viable option - seek legal advice

• Make an extra set of keys for home and/or car and store them somewhere safe

• Make up a bag with spare clothes, phone numbers, keys, money and keep it safe so you can take it quickly or keep it with a trusted friend

• Have the following available in case you have to flee:

  • Important papers such as birth certificates, social security cards, driver's licence, divorce papers, lease or mortgage papers, passports, insurance information, school and medical records, welfare and immigration documents, court documents

  • Credit cards, bank account number

  • Some money

  • Extra sets of keys - for car, house and work

  • Medications and prescriptions, including those for children

  • Phone numbers and addresses for family, friends, doctors, lawyers and community agencies

  • Clothing and comfort items for you and the children

  • Photographs and other items of sentimental value such as jewellery

   

• Take identification that might help others to protect you from the abuser, such as a recent photo of the abuser and their car details;

• Talk to children about the possibility of leaving and try to take all children, whatever long-term arrangements might be.

If you are living without your abuser after separation (in your own home or after moving):

• Seek expert legal advice on child contact and residence applications, and about options for injunctions

• Change phone numbers to ex-directory and screen calls; pre-programme emergency numbers into the phone

• Change the locks and install a security system, smoke alarms and an outside lighting system

• Notify neighbours, employers and schools about any injunction, and ask them to call the police immediately if they see the abuser nearby

• Make sure that schools and those who care for any children know who has authorisation to collect them

• Employ safety measures before, during and after contact visits, if appropriate

• Consider changing children's schools, work patterns - hours and route taken - and the route taken to transport children to school

• Avoid banks, shops, and other places frequented when living with the abuser

• Make up a code word for family, colleagues, teachers, or friends, so they know when to call the police for help

• Keep copies of all relevant paperwork (including civil injunctions) and make written records of any further incidents