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 workers 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.

There will be an office in the refuge where one or more members of staff work. They will help you settle in, find out about your benefits situation, 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 a worker 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, but some refuges for women without children have shared rooms. There are usually washing machines 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 the next woman who arrives.

There will be certain rules you will need to agree to while you are 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 but you can always talk to a worker if there are things you are worried about. If you choose to go back to the person who is abusing you, no-one from the refuge will judge you or try and make you stay. You can always go to a refuge again if you want or need to in the future.