A refuge is a safe place where you can stay temporarily if you need to escape a violent or abusive relationship. It maybe somewhere near where you live, so your children can stay at the same school, or a long way from home if that would be safer.

You will need to pay rent during your stay in a refuge, but staff will help you sort housing benefits or other ways to pay if you don't have much money. You should never be refused space in a refuge just because you are worried about how you will pay, but increasingly this is a problem especially for women with no recourse to public funds or uncertain immigration status.

There may be an office in the refuge where one or more members of staff work. They will help you settle in, find out about your welfare benefits, tell you about other organisations that can help you, and help you to find long term accommodation. You will have access to a payphone so that during the evenings and weekends when the refuge is not staffed you can contact staff in an emergency.

The majority of refuges are like any shared house in that you have your own bedroom but share the sitting room, dining area, kitchen and bathroom with the other women and children that live there. In most refuges you and your children will have your own room.   Washing machines are available and all the normal kitchen facilities. Each person in the house buys and cooks her own food. While you are in a refuge you will be expected to take part in looking after the house and making sure it is clean and comfortable for everyone. Before you leave we ask you to prepare your room so that it is pleasant for the next person.

There are certain rules you will be asked to observe while you are living in the refuge; for example no drugs on the premises, no visitors, and you can not tell anyone where you are living. These rules are to make sure that every woman who comes to stay in the refuge can feel safe, and that the confidentiality of the refuge is not compromised.

All the other women in the refuge will understand the mixture of terror, confusion, worry and relief you might be feeling when you arrive. You can live quite independently once you are settled in the refuge and  you can talk to a member of staff if there are things you are worried about. If you choose to go back to the person who was abusing you, no-one from the refuge will judge you or try to make you stay. You may choose to  go to a refuge again if you want or need to in the future.