Building Opportunities for Battered Women's Safety and Self-Sufficiency

This practice paper provides background information about domestic violence and describes options battered women need available to them in order to be safe and more economically independent. Specifically, it discusses key Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA, 1996) implementation issues regarding Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(TANF) and Child Support Enforcement. The paper's sections focus on: general domestic violence issues regarding battered women's risk safety plans; what battered women need to be safe and self-sufficient; universal notification of options or program requirements, and, screening for voluntary disclosure of domestic violence plans; staffing approaches; whether the pursuit of safety options should be a program requirement for battered women; safety issues in the child support enforcement context; and, how agencies can balance access to help with fraud protection. The paper's Appendix includes "Safety Planning" by Jill Davies, Greater Hartford Legal Assistance (1997). This paper is produced by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence as one of a series of complementary welfare policy and practice papers for the Welfare and Domestic Violence Technical Assistance Initiative.