What other services
are available?

Depending on your needs, communities across the state offer many services that can help you develop support systems, increase your financial independence, and build educational, work-related and/or daily living skills. Domestic violence programs are generally well informed about the services available to help you, so ask them for information and referrals. Referrals are frequently available to:

• Educational opportunities including GED or college degree programs, English as a second language classes, trade schools, and scholarship, grant, and stipend programs
  
• Programs that assist with job training and placement, professional development, resume writing, interviewing skills, and job searches
  
• Culturally specific services and groups, including services and information regarding immigrants rights
  
• Health-related services including primary care, family planning, pre-natal care, breast exams, pediatric care, and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS and HIV
  
• Low-income housing programs, relocation assistance
  
• Alcohol/other drug recovery programs, mental health services, children’s counseling services, parenting programs, support groups through women’s centers, grief groups, and Parents Without Partners
  
• Child protective and preventive services

Learn from the experience of other battered women
For every battered woman who has received accurate information about domestic violence or a helpful response from a mental health counselor, self-help group member or chemical dependency counselor, there’s another woman who has received inaccurate information and sometimes even a harmful response. However well-intentioned, many counselors and helpers are uninformed or misinformed about domestic violence and respond in ways that aren’t helpful to victims.

What to look for in a counselor
If counseling is a service you want, call your workplace EAP or community domestic violence program for suggestions. They may provide the service you are looking for. If not, they are likely to know of counselors who have been helpful to other battered women. If payment is a concern, ask for referrals to counselors who use a sliding scale fee. Of course, even the most reliable referral doesn’t guarantee that you will feel comfortable or satisfied with a particular counselor. In deciding on the right counselor for you, look for a counselor who:

• makes your safety the priority (rather than the relationship), is willing to help you develop a safety plan that meets your needs, and supports your right to make your own decisions
  
• believes what you say, takes you seriously, takes the violence seriously, and doesn’t judge you or make you feel ashamed about past physical or sexual abuse
  
• doesn’t in any way hold you responsible for your partner’s violence, and doesn’t encourage you to change as a way to get your partner to change
  
• if you wish, is willing to involve a battered woman’s advocate
  
• understands that domestic violence is about control, not about anger, stress, or alcohol/other drug use
  
• explores the effects of all of your partner’s forms of controlling behavior on you—physical, sexual, economic, emotional and psychological abuse
  
• demonstrates sensitivity to your cultural or religious beliefs
  
• doesn’t assume that you are a batterer if you “hit your partner, too,” but understands that many battered women use violence as a way to fight back or defend themselves

Keep asking for help until you get what you need
No matter who you decide to reach out to—a domestic violence advocate, employee assistance professional, counselor, friend, or self-help group member—if you are uncomfortable with the response that you get, don’t give up. With any service provider or helper, you may have to ask more than once, or in a different way, in order for them to understand what you need. If that doesn’t work, find someone else to tell. Then keep telling until you get the help that you need and deserve.
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