October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic Violence is also known as family violence and intimate partner violence. Any type of partner abuse or spouse abuse is family violence, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, and financial abuse. You may not realize it, but family violence affects the children in many different ways. Talk to others about child abuse and neglect within your own family, friends, community, church, or workplace. Tell them it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect our children. Create change by engaging in conversation that will encourage community dialogue and efforts to build safe environments for children. Your voice can help prevent child abuse from ever happening.
National Domestic Violence Awareness month helps raise the voices of victims and survivors across the country, and underscores the need to break the cycle of violence in our country. We want to take a moment to thank the community for all the support they have provided this year. We define domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.
If you or someone you know is being abused, please let them know they are not alone and there is help. Call 1800-33-Haven or 229-244-4477.