• Places to Turn for Help in the Federal Workplace
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction

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Places to Turn for Help in the Federal Workplace

(Photocopy and Keep Handy)

• Your supervisor can help you implement a safety plan by using a variety of management tools available to Federal employees. Phone number: _______________
• Your security office can help you implement your safety plan at work and advise you about how to stay safe off-duty. Phone number: _______________
• Your Employee Assistance Program can offer you short-term counseling and referrals to community resources. Phone number: _______________
• Your union can be a source of support, advice, information, and referral. Phone number: _______________
• Your co-workers can help you by screening phone calls and notifying security and/or police if your abuser comes to the workplace. Phone number/s:_______________
• Your human resources office can explain the terms of your pay and leave benefits and other workplace flexibilities in place at your agency that you may wish to explore. Phone number: _______________
• Your health unit can treat minor injuries and can refer you to appropriate resources in your community. Phone number: _______________

{For immediate crisis intervention, information and referrals,
call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233}.

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Acknowledgments

The guidebook would not be complete without recognizing the organizations who contributed to its production.

We'd like to first thank the New York Federal Executive Board. They furnished us with a good model of information to start with by giving us the guidebook on domestic violence they produced in 1996 for Federal employees throughout New York State.

From the project's inception, we were in consultation with the staff at the Department of Justice's Violence Against Women Office, who generously shared their experience and professional resources.

The Department of Health and Human Services provided professional consultation, along with copies of their own comprehensive employee guide on domestic violence.

Two organizations offered their unwavering support throughout the production process. The Family Violence Prevention Fund and the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund each contributed many hours of professional time to the task of editing and refining earlier versions. Their knowledge and expertise were invaluable in broadening the scope of crucial information now included in the guide.

The dedication of all these highly committed experts was a constant source of inspiration for OPM staff who worked on the guidebook.

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Introduction

If you are in an abusive relationship ...

This guide is primarily for you. It contains up-to-date information about the problem of adult domestic violence. Most important, it is intended to help you in your day-to-day efforts to stay safe. As you read this guide, please remember:

You are not alone. You are not to blame. You do not deserve to be abused.

Domestic violence is a serious crime which often results in serious injury and even death. In the United States in 1996, women experienced 840,000 rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault victimizations at the hands of an intimate partner, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The percentage of female murder victims killed by intimate partners has remained at about 30% since 1976.

If you know someone who is being abused ...

This guide will tell you how you can be most helpful to people who are in abusive relationships, whether they are your co-workers or employees you supervise, friends or family, neighbors or acquaintances. If the victim is a Federal employee, this guide outlines management tools, personnel flexibilities, and entitlements that can help her cope with the situation and stay productive on the job. Unions, Employee Assistance Programs, or workplace violence teams should also find information in this guide useful in their efforts to provide empowering and supportive assistance to people in abusive relationships.

Note to readers: Adult domestic violence is one of the most serious public health and criminal justice issues facing women today. Because the vast majority of victims of adult domestic violence are women abused by their male partners, this guide will refer to victims as female and abusers as male. However, most of the information will apply to all victims, including men who are physically abused by their female partners, as well as gays and lesbians.

ARE YOU IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP?

Recognizing what behaviors are part of domestic violence is not always easy, even for victims themselves. This is in part because domestic violence is much more than physical abuse. In fact, many women who are controlled by their partners and who live in danger and fear have never been physically assaulted. In the early stages, the pattern of abuse is hard to recognize. People in abusive relationships, however, consistently report that the abuse gets worse over time. The following checklist of behaviors may help you decide if you or someone you know is being abused.

Does your partner...

Use emotional and psychological control?

• call you names, yell, put you down, make racial or other slurs, or constantly criticize or undermine you and your abilities as a wife, partner, or mother?
• behave in an overprotective way or become extremely jealous?
• prevent you from going where you want to, when you want to, and with whomever you choose as a companion?
• humiliate or embarrass you in front of other people?

Use economic control?

• deny you access to family assets like bank accounts, credit cards, or a car?
• control all the finances, force you to account for what you spend, or take your money?
• prevent or try to prevent you from getting or keeping a job or from going to school?
• limit your access to health, prescription or dental insurance?

Make threats?

• threaten to report you to the authorities (the police or child protective services) for something you didn't do?
• threaten to harm or kidnap the children?
• display weapons as a way of making you afraid or directly threaten you with weapons?
• use his anger or "loss of temper" as a threat to get you to do what he wants?

Commit acts of physical violence?

• carry out threats to hurt you, your children, pets, family members, friends, or himself?
• destroy personal property or throw things around?
• grab, push, hit, punch, slap, kick, choke, or bite you?
• force you to have sex when you don't want to or to engage in sexual acts that you don't want to do?

These are some of the most common tactics used by abusers to control their partners, but certainly not the only ones. If your partner does things that restrict your personal freedom or that make you afraid, you may be in an abusive relationship.

You are not alone. Millions of women are abused by their partners every year. The good news is that more resources are available now than ever before to help women be safe. This guide can tell you where to find these resources and how to get help from the Federal workplace.