SAFETY ALERT: If you are in danger, please call 911, your local hotline, or (in the U.S.) the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224. Please review these safety tips.

Safety Planning in Partnership: The Common Thread in Providing Asset-Building Services to Domestic Violence Survivors

Domestic violence is all too common in the United States. Best understood as a pattern of abusive behaviors – including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks as well as economic coercion – by one intimate partner against another, domestic violence is used to gain, maintain, or regain power and control in the relationship[1]. Research indicates that nearly 25 percent of surveyed women and nearly 8 percent of surveyed men said they were sexually and/or physically assaulted by a current or former intimate partner at some time in their lifetime[2]. While domestic violence most frequently involves a male abusing a female partner, abuse by same-sex partners and of males by female partners is also the focus of increasing concern.

Domestic Violence and Economic Dependence

Research and experience also underscore that economic coercion and control are important tactics used by abusive partners, with particular impacts on women[3], including eroding their confidence in managing financial resources and their ability to achieve long-term safety and security[4]. Almost 99% of survivors of domestic violence in one study indicated that they experienced some form of financial abuse from their partners[5]. Economic dependence is one of the main reasons that women remain in or return to an abusive relationship[6].

Economic abuse and coercion by an intimate partner takes many forms. Many survivors are faced with considerable debt, poor credit, no credit history, lack of savings, and other financial hardships— often directly due to economic abuse they have experienced.  The process of becoming financially stronger can be particularly challenging to domestic violence survivors, many of whom battle feelings of powerlessness in the process of gaining control of various aspects of their lives. 

Increasing the Financial Strength and Options of Survivors

Given these realities, domestic violence survivors could greatly benefit from collaborative asset building services that carefully account for their safety concerns. Over the past several years, domestic violence agencies and asset building organizations have begun exploring ways to boost the financial strength of domestic violence survivors.

• An increasing number of domestic violence agencies have added financial education, credit repair, debt management, access to the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to their arsenal of support services.

• A small but growing number of asset building organizations are learning about the special needs of this population as well as how best to help survivors achieve financial stability through partnerships with domestic violence programs.

• Several financial education curricula have been customized for domestic violence survivors through the addition of information on economic abuse and strategies for addressing safety concerns, including how to separate joint financial relationships with an abusive partner, how to repair credit damaged by an abuser, and where to seek help with financial and safety challenges.  Early evaluation results from two of these programs appear promising[7]. 

From these efforts and others, an expanding knowledge base is emerging on promising financial empowerment approaches to serving diverse survivors of domestic violence in different communities.

A New Federal Initiative: Building Assets for Survivors of Domestic Violence

Recognizing the benefit of helping domestic violence survivors become more economically stable, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), DHHS, has launched an initiative to promote partnerships between two of its programs – Assets for Independence and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program of the Family and Youth Services Bureau – to help domestic violence survivors safely build assets and access other financial support services. Through this new initiative, ACF will support the development of partnerships between domestic violence and asset building agencies and provide tailored training and other materials to help them better address the short- and long-term financial needs of survivors of domestic violence. 

A carefully structured partnership with a domestic violence program partner can help AFI agency staff develop the safeguards that are needed to effectively serve survivors. Similarly, an AFI partner can assist a domestic violence program strengthen the economic support they provide to families in their community.  This new federal initiative will provide the training and technical assistance to support these local partnerships in developing safety policies and protocols, inter-agency referral agreements, and program materials, including specialized financial planning resources for survivors. Promising practices will be identified and disseminated, along with other related resources.

AFI Services Fact Sheet Series

The following series of fact sheets focus on how domestic violence survivors can particularly benefit from – and how AFI and domestic violence service agencies can partner to provide -- the following core AFI services: tax assistance, financial education, credit repair, debt management,  enrollment in Individual Development (matched savings) Accounts, and help with accessing other federal benefits. The successful participation of domestic violence survivors in asset building services is more likely when AFI grantees and domestic violence programs partner to offer support to address their complex safety and economic challenges.

For Additional Information and Technical Assistance