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The Domestic Violence Division

Domestic Violence Safety Plan

Safety at Home

• Develop a safety plan and discuss it with your children. Review the plan as often as possible.
• Change the locks and install devices to secure your windows.
• Make sure your children's school, day-care center, or camp know who is authorized to pick up your children.
• Tell your neighbors and landlord that your abuser no longer lives there and ask them to call the police if they see him or her near your home.
• Before you resume a potentially abusive relationship, discuss alternatives with someone you trust.

Safety in Public or at Work

• If you have an order of protection, keep it with you at all times.
• Inform building security and coworkers you trust of your situation. If possible, provide a photograph of your abuser to building security.
• Vary your routes to and from work and arrange for someone to escort you to your car, bus, or train.
• Plan what to do in various situations if the abuser confronts you.

Safety during Volatile Domestic Violence Incident

• If an argument seems unavoidable, move to a room or area with easy access to an exit - not a bathroom, kitchen, or anywhere near weapons.
• Identify which door, window, stairwell or elevator offers the quickest way out of the home - and practice your route.
• Have a bag packed and ready. Keep it in an undisclosed but accessible place where you can retrieve it quickly.
• Find neighbors you can tell about the violence and ask that they call the police if they hear a disturbance.
• Devise a code word to use with your children, family, and friends when you need the police.
• Decide where you will go if you have to leave, even if you do not think it will come to that.
• Use your instincts and judgement. Consider giving the abuser what he or she wants to defuse a dangerous situation.
• You have a right to protect yourself when you are in danger. You do not deserve to be battered or threatened.

Checklist - What you may want to take if you have to leave

• Money, checkbook, passbook
• Identification - driver's license, Social Security card, passport, green card, public assistance ID, work permit, etc.
• Order of Protection
• Birth certificates - yours and your children's
• Clothing
• Lease, rental agreement, or house deed
• Insurance papers
• House and car keys
• Medications
• Jewelry/saleable objects
• Address book
• Divorce papers
• School records
• Toys