Getting Free From Abuse
A Guide for Women with Disabilities
Getting Safe Against the Odds - A Guide for Service Providers
This guide (available in hard copy or .pdf) is for service providers in the family violence and disabilities fields. It is based on information gathered from interviewing women with disabilities about their personal experiences of surviving violence. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity with which the women shared their experiences with the hope that we as workers may develop a better understanding of how to provide support to other women.
The guide provides an insight into the experiences of women with disabilities, and practical tips for individual workers and agencies. Women with disabilities share their ideas on what workers can do to best assist their clients to become safe. The guide builds on the expertise developed through DVIRC's Violence Against Women with Disabilities Project.
Download guide as a .pdf (2.9 mb)
Contents:
- The impact of family violence
- Perpetrators may use the woman’s disability to gain control
- Escaping violence is harder for women with disabilities
- Violence-induced disability
- Preparing your agency
- Responding to disclosure
- Asking women about family violence
- Validating the experience
- Interventions that are effective
- Risk assessment and safety planning
- Intervention orders
- Exclusion orders
- Recovery
- Collaborative practice
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