Safety Planning

If you’ve experienced any form of gender or power-based violence, such as abuse, sexual, assault, or stalking, you may want to use the following steps to begin planning for your personal safety.   

After experiencing an abusive, traumatizing, or stalking event,  it can be important to find a place where you feel comfortable and safe from harm. This location could be: 

  • Home
  • Friend’s room
  • Local hospital
  • Police station 

If you think someone is following you, trust your instincts. Do not go home or to your residence hall alone. Use nearby stores, emergency departments, and other publicly visible areas, including Public Safety. 

Find a Safe Haven location near the Morningside, Manhattanville, and Medical Center campuses to seek help with contacting Public Safety or the police. 

If you would like to have a survivor advocate meet or accompany you to a local hospital or New York City police precinct, call (212) 854-4357 (available 24/7, 365 days a year). 

If you have immediate concerns about your safety, are being stalked, or threatened, you can reach out for assistance. Some of the options include: 

  • Calling 911 for immediate police protection and assistance 

  • Calling Columbia Public Safety at (212) 854-5555 for assistance on the Morningside campus. They also provide a Walking Safety Escort Service.  

  • Calling a confidential Survivor Advocate or Peer Advocate from Sexual Violence Response, (212) 854-4357 (available 24/7/365). 

You have the option of working with a staff Survivor Advocate or, when available, a Peer Advocate. Both are confidential and certified by the New York City Department of Health to address issues of violence. They can provide crisis intervention and will discuss options for reporting and seeking medical help. They help survivors make informed decisions about their medical, legal, and disciplinary options. Advocates can accompany students to on- and off-campus resources such as hospital emergency departments, the police, the district attorney's office, and Columbia Public Safety. 

If you’re not located on the Morningside campus, you can reach out to your campuses public safety team: 

Depending on your experience, you may want to seek medical care. Some of the reasons for this may include: 

  • Checking for injuries; you may have injuries that you can't see or feel.
  • Take pictures of any visible injuries.
  • Preventing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and obtain prophylaxis medication
  • Preventing pregnancy
  • Collecting evidence. Note: evidence collection does not require you to place a report with the police. This process preserves evidence for the future, and it may vary by state. 

Medical Resources at or near Columbia 

For the purposes of evidence collection after an abuse or assault, if possible, avoid: 

  • Drinking
  • Eating
  • Showering
  • Brushing your teeth
  • Combing your hair
  • Changing or washing your clothes 

If you’ve done any of these things, evidence can still be collected. If you have changed your clothes, take the clothes you were wearing at the time of the assault to the hospital in a paper bag (not a plastic bag). If you have not changed your clothes, it may be a good idea to bring a change of clothes to the hospital. If needed, a survivor advocate from Sexual Violence Response can provide you with needed clothing or other items from the Survivor Care Package. 

For the purposes of evidence collection of stalking: 

  • Keep a log with all stalking incidents including date, time, location, what happened, and any witnesses who may have been present. 
  • Be sure to save anything the stalker sends you, including packages and letters, as well as electronic documentation, such as emails, social media messages and text messages.
  • If possible, preserve unwanted digital contact in its original form rather than as recordings or screenshots. However, screenshots are at times the only option.  
  • Photograph evidence of trespassing, property damage or unwanted gifts. 

A safety plan includes personalized, concrete steps you can take to reduce the possibility of being harmed, whether physically or emotionally, by an abusive partner.  

Call a professional Survivor Advocate or Peer Advocate from SVR to assist you in creating a personalized safety plan at (212) 854-4357 (available 24/7, 365 days a year). 

You can also consult this safety plan for college students. 

An example of a safety plan for survivors who are escaping from an abusive partner: 

  • Stop all contact with the abusive partner.
  • Change your locks and install security devices.
  • Plan what you’ll do and where you’ll stay if your abusive partner shows up at your home, your class, or your job. Vary your routine if possible.   
  • Alert friends, roommates, classmates, family, and other trustworthy people in your life so that the abuser cannot elicit information from them.
  • Instruct your school or place of work not to disclose your contact information.
  • Change passwords for cell phones, email accounts, and social networking sites. Make your social media profiles private and do not post your location.  
  • Take any threats seriously. 

Always have access to your safety plan. If you cannot keep it, you can memorize the most important details on it. You can also give a copy to someone you trust. 

Counseling is often helpful for survivors because it provides a safe place to talk about your experience and your feelings. 

Counseling Resources: 

Survivors and co-survivors (friends, family, classmates) may choose to speak with an advocate confidentially about: 

  • Legal information and options:
  • Information about your rights in NY state and legal options available to you (both on- and off- campus)
  • Enlisting the aid of law enforcement
  • Filing a complaint with University Life and Gender-Based Misconduct Office
  • Court advocacy or assistance obtaining legal representation
  • NY Crime Victims Legal Help
  • Assistance drafting a victim impact statement
  • On-campus accommodations (housing, academic, financial)
  • On- and off-campus referrals (mental health, follow up care, healing support)
  • Understanding the sexual assault forensic examination
  • Remembering it's not your fault
  • Identifying a friend or other support person to be by your side
  • Learning how to discuss the incident with family members 

Intimate partner or relationship violence occurs in many forms and it exists on a spectrum. Abuse can be physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, financial and academic, and is usually a combination of several of these factors. 

Trust your instincts: if something feels wrong, it probably is. 

Need help figuring it out? 

  1. Find out if you might be in an abusive or unhealthy relationship via the National Domestic Violence Hotline. 
  2. Refer to a list of warning signs of an abusive relationship via the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV). 
  3. Explore dating fundamentals for healthy relationships via LoveIsRespect.org. 
  4. Learn about your rights via WomensLaw.org.