After going through the danger assessment with the caller, she acknowledged that she was in a very dangerous situation and agreed that her husband displayed many of the controlling and manipulating behaviors described. She also appreciated the safety planning… she said that when she had planned to leave before calling us, she had not thought about everything she would need to take, and had not planned sufficiently for her best interests and safety. She voiced feeling more informed to make those decisions going forward.
Peer counselor
Thank you. I left an abusive relationship two years ago. My restraining order was denied. When you’re in crisis, it’s so hard to identify/express your fears, and my lawyer wasn’t helpful. I didn’t know about the danger assessment tool then, but I answered it now based on my situation two years ago, and it was extremely dangerous. This tool could have really helped me. Thankfully, I had enough people around me who believed me and protected me when the courts didn’t.
Neet Kaur
The Danger Assessment is a risk evaluation tool, originally developed by Jacquelyn Campbell (1986), that is designed to determine the likelihood of severe or lethal harm in intimate partner relationships.
Sikh Family Center adapted the Danger Assessment tool for Sikh Women to reflect the community’s nuances and lived realities. It is not just a literal translation of the original assessment.
We have retained the statistically significant factors the peer counselors on our Helpline have been trained to identify by John Hopkins School of Nursing, the pioneers of the DV Danger Assessment.
But we have also incorporated our community-specific dynamics, especially to ease the more individualistic elements (for example, absence of in-law abuse, or community intervention possibilities) of the existing tools.
As a people, we must do better identifying and strengthening every high-risk survivor, facing interlocking vulnerabilities.
Factors on the Danger Assessment are not all equally weighted: that is, of many factors that contribute to heightened danger and lethality, research shows that some are especially dangerous.
Of these especially dangerous factors, some are more obvious to the general public (for example, the existence of a firearm) while others (for example, unemployment, past non-fatal strangulation, marital rape, or the absence of children from the home) are not as intuitive. Similarly, post-separation violence – that is, violence that follows and even exacerbates after the victim completes the already daunting task of separating from the abusive partner – is often dangerously underestimated.
The Danger Assessment is only one step towards safety planning and survivor empowerment. There is no one formula.
Each survivor must be connected with trained, private, reliable advocates with whom they can privately discuss their safety concerns, priorities, and strategies. Sometimes the advocates are within their own community, sometimes far outside it – the survivor should be able to choose.
We encourage anyone who has concerns or questions to reach out to our Helpline. You can complete the questionnaire at your own pace and discuss the results with a trained advocate later.
You are not alone. You have the right to safety. You have options.