Social Worker Personal Safety

Working with survivors of domestic violence can be dangerous for the social worker involved. Although most batterers focus only on their partners, some will also focus on those people whom they see as a threat to their control over their partner.

It is important to think about your risk and put in place some measures for your own personal safety prior to becoming a target of the batterer.

There are some simple steps that you can take that can help plan for your safety:

• Try to keep your last name from becoming known to the batterer. This sometimes means not telling the client your last name. It can be a safety advantage to use a different name professionally (part of a hyphenated name or a former name), for example.
  
  
• Have your phone number unlisted or unpublished.
  
  
• Never give out your home address or phone number to the survivor or allow it to be on a document or list that the batterer might see.
  
  
• Research and be aware of the ways information about you can be accessed - through the internet or otherwise. Consider details such as where your name, phone number, office location and professional licensure information is listed.