5.4 Areas to Explore

A good way to start safety planning with the survivor is to ask them about their safety concerns, and what they need to keep themselves safe.

You can then explore options with them so that they can determine what works best for their situation.

It can help to give an overview of the different areas of safety planning and then ask the survivor about which ones they want to talk.

The sample questions below will not be appropriate for all survivors and are intended as a guide only.

There will be elements of safety planning that are not included here, so use your judgement to create additional questions that may be more appropriate to the survivor’s needs.

Use these questions as a discussion guide, rather than a checklist.

Try to avoid asking questions that are not relevant to the survivor’s context.