Personal Safety Measures[i]

If you are living with a person who is abusing you, here are some things you can do to ensure your safety and the safety of your children.

1. Have important phone numbers memorized – friends and relatives whom you can call in an emergency. Discuss safety planning with your children. If your children are old enough, teach them important phone numbers, including when and how to use 911.

2. Keep important information in a safe place, where your abuser will not find it, but where you can get it when you need to review it.

3. Keep change for pay phones, a pre-paid calling card, or charged cell phone with you at all times.

4. If you can, open your own bank account.

5. Stay in touch with friends. Get to know your neighbors. Resist any temptation to cut yourself off from people – even if you feel that they don’t understand you or you just want to be left alone.

6. Rehearse your escape plan until you know it by heart.

7. Leave a set of car keys, extra money, a change of clothes and copies of certain documents in a safe place, or with a trusted friend or relative.

· Yours and your children’s birth certificates

· Your social security card

· Your children’s school and medical records

· Bank books

· Welfare identification

· Passports or green cards

· Lease agreements or mortgage payment books

· Insurance papers

· Important addresses and telephone numbers

· Extra prescription medication

· Any other important documents

· Evidence of the abuse (photos, journals, medical records, police reports)

Where to get help:

National Domestic Violence Hotline

1(800)799-SAFE (7233)

1(800)787-3224 (For the hearing-impaired)

Also, for further assistance, see other related topics. If you would like to speak with someone from the EAP, call our toll free 24-hour hotline at:

1(866) 443-3277

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[i] It Shouldn’t Hurt to Go Home, The Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, May 1999