Safety Planning

Safety Planning is the process of evaluating the risks and benefits of different options and identifying ways to reduce risk.

If you are in an abusive relationship, you probably know more about planning for your safety and assessing your risks than you realize.  Being in a relationship with an abusive partner, and surviving, requires considerable skill and resourcefulness.  Any time you do or say something as a way to protect yourself and your children, you are assessing risk and enacting a safety plan.

This section is to serve as a guide to help reduce your risk when confronted with the threat of harm or actual harm.  Think through possible situations before they happen and develop a plan for how to respond. Remember, there are many obstacles to achieving safety or to ending a relationship with a violent partner, and the choices you confront are not risk-free.

Safety During an Explosive Incident

If possible stay in a part of the house you can get out of quickly. Not a bathroom (near hard surfaces), kitchen (knives), or near weapons.

Go to a room with a phone

Call 911, a friend or a neighbor, if possible. Inform them if there are weapons in the home.

Know your escape route                

Practice how to get out of your home safely. Visualize your escape route.

Have a packed bag ready

Keep it hidden in a handy place in order to leave quickly, or leave the bag elsewhere (a friend’s house) if your abuser searches your home.

Devise a code word or signal

Tell your child/ren or neighbors so you can communicate to them that you need the police.

Know where you’re going

Plan where you will go if you have to leave home, even if you don’t think you’ll need to.

Trust your judgment

Consider anything that you feel will keep you safe and give you time to figure out what to do next. Sometimes it is best to flee and sometimes it is best to placate the abuser.  

Remember advanced planning can prevent serious injury or even death.

Have a safe place to stay                

Make sure it is a place that can protect you and your child/ren. Call a domestic violence victim service program or the Wichita Police Department. Find out which services and shelters are available as options if you need them. Keep their address and phone number close at hand at all times.

Find someone you trust

Leave money, extra keys, copies of important documents and clothing with them in advance, so you can leave quickly, if necessary. (Checklist of items to take)

Open a savings account

Put it in your name only, to increase your independence. Consider direct deposit from your paycheck or benefit check.

Review your safety plan

Study and check your plans as often as possible in order to know the safest way to leave your abuser.  

Remember that abusive partners tend to escalate violence when their partners try to separate.  

 If you have an Order of Protection, (PFA) keep it with you at all times.

Make sure coworkers and security are aware of your situation and if possible, provide a photograph of the abuser to security.

Vary your routes to and from work. 

Obtain a free cellular phone from the YWCA (267-SAFE) to call 911.

Apply for a free ADT alarm system with the YWCA (267-SAFE).  Sponsored by ADT, City of Wichita & YWCA.

Leave the building with others. Park your vehicle in a secured area if possible.