An “all-in-one” program to help domestic violence, sexual assault, child, and elder abuse victims connect to resources.

No one should ever “Degrade, Threaten, or Hurt you.”

HomeSafeHome bridges the gap across corporations, jurisdictions, online classrooms and education forums, and more, to the already well-designed and developed resources available for abuse victims across the world.

Our basic information sheets help victims access information about abuse from any host site. All program resources are free and adaptable to share local, internal, and/or national resources, with warnings at each stage that outside access would show up online.

Why Create HomeSafeHome?

We needed a way to quickly reach people under one banner across all online platforms.

Prior to the pandemic, studies cited on national domestic violence resource sites indicated at least 10 million intimate partner abuse victims exist annually in the United States,[1] while child abuse organizations state there are approximately 2.9 million cases of child abuse reported per year[2] Beyond reaching out to police, the avenues for reporting abuse and seeking help are more often from engaging with friends and family, an employer or colleague at work, a medical professional, or as a disclosure of abuse to someone at school.

Yet nearly overnight, with COVID-19, all these resources for safety changed in ways that eliminated in person connection.

Instead, abuse victims are home with perpetrators who may be under increased stress, with more opportunity for abuse, and it is all combined with a fear of not being able to leave their house for help. Articles, law enforcement experts, and victim organizations cited great concern at the frightening reality that the current quarantine would increase severe intimate partner violence and child abuse.

Looking at how the pipelines for information sharing have changed between families, school, and work, the new normal for communication is online. Through classrooms, meetings, family gatherings, and more. While electronic use has continued to grow exponentially each year, it has suddenly been thrown into a vacuum with little else to connect victims to the outside world. So how do we as a society quickly and effectively engage those solitary pipelines to connect potential victims to information while still helping them protect their search history? How do we connect them to local resources when they are ready?

There already exists a wide variety of excellent national resources online available for family violence, domestic violence, child abuse, and elder abuse, as well as local resources for victims in each jurisdiction across the United States. The “HomeSafeHome” program is designed to provide a standardized, recognizable source connecting people to these outlets of information and assistance, no matter what the medium or location may be.

[1] National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Domestic
Violence Fact Sheet, citing “Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith,
S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J. & Stevens, M. 2011). The
National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010 Summary Report.
Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_report2010-a.pdf

[2] Safe Horizon, “Child Abuse Facts, “ accessed March 3,
2015, as cited on www.dosomething.org accessed April 2020.

Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

Domestic violence affects women, men, children, families, and friends from all socio-economic groups, sexualities and genders, races, and cultures. About the use of power and control, abuse of an intimate or former intimate partner, or dating or former dating partner, reaches beyond the secrecy of homes and into all of society. But it is that secret existence that can prevent victims from researching and understanding help and options they can access locally. Read more about how the free HomeSafeHome program can help companies, schools, and communities offer their jurisdiction’s local victim resources across a wide-variety of platforms. For further information, please see below.

Elder Abuse

Our elders should be treated with dignity, respect, love, and kindness. But in some homes they are taken advantage of financially, ignored, left in soiled beds or clothing for hours or days at a time, and even beaten or killed, most often at the hands of their own family member. According to the National Council on Aging, two-thirds of elder abuse perpetrators are the victim’s adult children or spouses.

While our current elders are in the category of those who use electronics the least, some may only have hope of access to help or in formation through the telephone or online outreach. Calling the police is often so difficult for people who are being abused by a family member they count on or whom they have raised and loved. Getting information and resources to these lonely victims can be a significant challenge, although there are agencies across the world working to bring help into their homes.

For those who are only connected to the outside world through the Internet, the HomeSafeHome program can hep address their fears while offering local resources for assistance. Included on shopping websites or local government websites, the HomeSafeHome logo helps jurisdictions further their own programs to helping as many people as possible.