	Domestic Violence Services

Introduction

Administration and Management

Service Delivery Administration Standards

Service Standards

DV 13: Shelter and Safe Home Facilities

The shelter or safe home provides a safe, clean, non-institutional setting that meets residents’ immediate needs.

NA The organization does not provide shelter or safe home services.

DV 13.01

Shelters and safe homes meet the basic needs of survivors in a safe, minimally intrusive environment.

Interpretation: Shelters and safe homes should provide: safety from the street and the elements, sleeping accomodations, food, clothing, personal hygiene supplies, and safe, private bathroom and shower facilities. These bathroom and shower facilities may be separate lockable rooms, or lockable stalls.

DV 13.02

Accommodations for residents include:

single rooms, or rooms for two to four residents, or accommodations for larger groups, if appropriate;
adequately and attractively furnished rooms with a separate bed for each resident, including a clean, comfortable, covered mattress, pillow, sufficient linens, and blankets; and
a safe place such as a locker to keep personal belongings and valuables.

DV 13.03

Shelters and safe homes provide:

sufficient supplies and equipment to meet residents’ needs;
rooms for on-site services, if applicable;
at least one room suitably furnished for the use of on-duty personnel, if applicable; and
private sleeping accommodations for personnel who sleep at the facility, if applicable.

DV 13.04

The shelter or safe home accommodates informal gatherings of residents.

DV 13.05

The shelter or safe home has adequate facilities for housekeeping, laundry, maintenance, storage, and administrative support functions.

DV 13.06

The shelter or safe home considers the number, age, special needs, and gender of residents when grouping people.

DV 13.07

Shelters and safe homes maintain families as a unit and keep sibling or family groups together.

NA The shelter or safe home does not serve families, or housing families as a unit is not possible or prohibited by law.

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	PURPOSE: Individuals who receive Domestic Violence Services gain a sense of empowerment, improve their well-being, and increase their ability to live safely and independently.

RELATED FILES


	SERVICE One or more organization-operated programs or activities that have a common general objective and deploy the organization's material and human resources in a planned and systematic manner. An organization that publicly promotes or identifies itself in writing as offering a service, is licensed to deliver a service, assigns personnel and/or space to a service, or allocates financial resources to a service is considered to offer that service.


	EMPOWERMENT The process of helping individuals, families, groups, or communities to increase their personal, interpersonal, political, social, and/or economic strength or position and to develop influence that may impact their circumstances.


	PERSONNEL The body of employees and/or volunteers that carries out the organization's tasks under the organization's administration and/or supervision. This definition does not include foster parents who are specifically referenced in relevant standards


	SPECIAL NEEDS A designation used in reference to conditions or characteristics of a person that reflect a need for special care, services, or treatment. When the term is used in the context of adoption services, special needs refers to conditions that make a child harder to place for adoption. This includes children who are members of sibling groups, older children, children with disabilities, children of certain racial /ethnic backgrounds, etc. When the term is used in the context of foster care it refers to the need for a higher degree of specialized case services and attention due to mental and physical disabilities. When the term is used in the context of out-of-school time services, a child or youth may have special physical, behavioral, medical, emotional, or cognitive needs that should be addressed or accommodated. The term is also used in other contexts. See also DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES.


	FAMILY Two or more people who consider themselves family and who assume obligations, functions, and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socialization, income support, long-term care, and other caregiving are among the functions of family life. The definition of "family" will rest with an individual's indication of who plays a family member role, including current or former foster family, adoptive family, extended family members, fictive kin, or significant others. Organizations that believe family is the central constellation in a child's life, and that family attachments are of primary importance for human development, will strive to work with professional staff to develop a common understanding of "family."