Help yourself stay safe

By Davina James-Hanman

Safety Planning

Prepare A Safety Plan For Leaving

Sometimes women have to leave in a hurry. This might be when, for them, the relationship is over. It might be to escape a particular assault, or to take a break for safety and for sanity. It gives time to plan and think. Making a crisis plan is a way of feeling more in control and giving you more confidence. This is just a suggested plan of action which you can add to or change to suit you.

• Find some where you can quickly and easily use a phone. (Neighbour? Relative? Other contacts?)
• Make and always carry with you a list of numbers for an emergency. Include friends, relatives, local police, Women's Aid, (even well known numbers can be forgotten in a panic).
• Try to save some money for bus, train, cab fares.
• Have an extra set of keys for house, flat, car.
• Keep the keys, money and a set of clothes for you and the children packed ready in a bag that you can quickly get and take or leave it with a friend you can trust.
• Explain to your children who are old enough to understand that you might have to leave in a hurry and will take them with you or will arrange for them to join you. Discuss the escape drill

If you have more time to plan, do as much as possible of the following:

• Leave when he is not around
• Take all of your children with you
• Take your legal and financial papers, marriage and birth certificates, Court orders, national health cards, passports, driving licence, child credit books, address book, bank books, cheque books, credit cards etc.
• Take any of your personal possessions which have sentimental value - photographs or jewellery for example
• Take favourite toys for the children
• Take clothing for at least several days
• Take any medicine you or your children might need

If you do leave and later discover you have forgotten something, you can always arrange for the protection of a police escort to return home to collect it.