IF YOU GET A CALL...

1. If you get a call, thank God, because somebody desperate trusts you.
   
   
2. Before a victim discloses, she(2) will have survived MANY incidents of violence, and tried MANY ways to avoid the violence. Please take the report seriously.
   
   
3. Violence escalates as part of a pattern of power and control. The risk for the victim increases once she has disclosed.
   
   
4. You will want to be prepared, before you have a disclosure, by learning the local resources. Talk to the people at the transition house. Find out what the Crisis Line does. Get to know the police and the Victim Assistance volunteers. Then when you have a grieving victim on the phone or in the office you will have an up-to-date Domestic Violence file of local resources.

1. Our use of the word violence is inclusive of all misuse of power to abuse be it verbal, emotional, spiritual, etc.

2. Feminine pronouns are used throughout, since women are 8 times more likely to be victimized by a spouse than are men (Fitzgerald, 1999). When men are abused, the effects and pastoral responses are the same. We are concerned for abuse of all whether male or female, adult or children.