Safety Plan

A safety plan identifies the steps you can take to increase your safety and helps prepare you, children, and any other affected family members to act quickly to protect yourselves in the event of future violence. We encourage you to make a plan while you’re living with your abuser at a time when the environment is calm.

If you need safe shelter or want to safety plan with an advocate, call our 24 hour hotline at (407) 330-3933 or (855) 655-SAFE (7233).

Remember, you have the right to live without fear and violence.

If you are still in the relationship:

  • Think of a safe place to go if an argument occurs – avoid rooms with no exits (bathroom), or rooms with weapons (kitchen).
  • Think about and make a list of safe people to contact.
  • Keep change with you at all times.
  • Memorize all important numbers.
  • Establish a “code word” or “sign” so that family, friends, teachers or co-workers know when to call for help.
  • Think about what you will say to your partner if he/she becomes violent.

 
If you have left the relationship:

  • Change your phone number.
  • Screen calls.
  • Save and document all contacts, messages, injuries or other incidents involving the batterer.
  • Change locks, if the batterer has a key.
  • Avoid staying alone.
  • Plan how to get away if confronted by an abusive partner.
  • If you have to meet your partner, do it in a public place.
  • Vary your routine.
  • Notify school and work contacts.
  • Call a shelter for battered women.
  • If you leave the relationship or are thinking of leaving, you should take important papers and documents with you to enable you to apply for benefits or take legal action.

Important papers you should take include social security cards and birth certificates for you and your children, your marriage license, leases or deeds in your name or both yours and your partner’s names, your checkbook, your charge cards, bank statements and charge account statements, insurance policies, proof of income for you and your spouse (pay stubs or W-2′s), and any documentation of past incidents of abuse (photos, police reports, medical records, etc.).

Emergency Evacuation Plan

Keep this with you and gather important phone numbers and information.  Check off items that have been completed to help you keep track.

Tips to Increase Safety at Home

  • Practice an emergency evacuation plan.
  • Teach children emergency evacuation action and phone use.
  • Keep pay phone monies in a safe place.
  • When violence seems close, avoid the kitchen, bathroom and any other room without an outside door.

 
Evacuation Emergency Bag

  • Identification documents for children and self (social security cards, birth certificates, passports)
  • Legal Documents
  • Personal Necessities (clothes, medication)
  • Extra keys for car, house, storage.

 
More Tips for Safety

  • Please do not try to leave without help from someone you trust.
  • Speak to an advocate about an injunction for protection.  Call 407-665-6226 for injunction assistance.
  • Keep copies of Injunction with you at all times:  work, home, shopping, school, etc.
  • Call 911 if you are in immediate danger.

If you need to talk about the violence, please call our crisis line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 407-330-3933.

Evacuation Safety Contacts/Numbers

(Attorney, Doctor, Taxi, Personal Contacts, Public Assistance, etc)

Name:_______________________________________________________

Phone:_______________________________________________________

Name:_______________________________________________________

Phone:_______________________________________________________

Name:_______________________________________________________

Phone:_______________________________________________________