The holidays can be a time of particularly acute needs for those fleeing from or living with domestic violence. “During the holidays, abuse can escalate or can intertwine with the kinds of stressors anyone may face this time of year—financial strains, family demands, travel plans, hosting duties—in ways that increase danger and instability,” explained La Casa’s Executive Director, Kathy Black. “There can also be the perception that services slow down or aren’t there for people during the holidays. At La Casa, it’s just the opposite. We’re providing all of the services we offer year-round, along with additional supports to respond to the more specific needs that can arise around the holidays.”
Let's take a deeper look at three potential holiday season triggers and tips to cope.
Social Context – Friends and Family
Family gatherings can be unsafe or challenging if presenting the possibility for contact with a former batterer or their family, or if abuse is ongoing and exacerbated by such events. Alternately, isolation from friends and family imposed by an abuser, or while seeking refuge in a confidential shelter program, can feel particularly glaring. (It's a key reason we work so hard to bring joy and support new traditions for our shelter residents and clients.) Finally, the logistics of shared custody can be difficult, like spending Christmas without her children for the first time after a survivor has left the abusive co-parent, or navigating the exchange of the children without facing continued harassment, threats, or danger from the abusive ex-partner.
Tip #1
Reach out to people you trust to let them know about your concerns. If a situation presents certain hazards, a trusted friend – or La Casa's crisis line advocate – can help you think through how you'll respond to a situation BEFORE you're in the midst of it. Don't feel like you need to go it alone. And trust your instincts: if you're concerned about a situation, talk to someone about it.
Increased Alcohol Consumption
The holiday season often leads to increased substance use, especially alcohol, due to the celebrations and gatherings that take place. While we know that alcohol consumption alone does not lead to domestic violence, the link between increased or excessive alcohol consumption and increased violence in already violent relationships is well-established.
Tip #2
As survivors look forward to the holidays, we suggest ongoing safety planning that takes substance abuse into account. Survivors can work with a trained advocate or trusted family member to plan for what to do and where to go should an abusive situation escalate due to substance use. Whether in their own home or visiting others, planning ahead for multiple possible scenarios could help reduce harm and keep families safe until more formal support is available.
Financial Stress & Holiday Spending Expectations
For survivors already experiencing financial abuse, the added stress of holiday spending presents unique challenges and intensifies an already loaded situation. Financial abuse on its own can be dangerous. It’s one of the biggest influences on whether a survivor can successfully and safely leave the relationship. Even for survivors who have managed to leave, that may be just starting out on their own or still living at an emergency shelter, support from community organizations to help provide food, shelter, and other basic necessities are vital.
Tip #3
A strategy for all of us (there's a theme here), but particularly for survivors, is to tap in to our existing support networks as much as possible - not just for any financial support that may be available, but to meet other basic needs. Like Tip 1, reach out to friends, neighbors, family members or whoever you can trust to come up with a support plan for the next few months. Support networks are key to withstanding crisis and remaining safe through it all.
La Casa is also just a call away.
The winter holidays can be a complicated time, practically and emotionally, for survivors of domestic violence. In La Casa's emergency shelter and through our community-based programs, just in the month of December, we'll help more than 300 survivors and families establish new traditions, stay grounded in the hard work they are doing to stay safe, and feel the spirit of the holidays.
We will respond to the more acute and specific needs that can arise for survivors by sustaining and intensifying our year-round continuum of services, and with supports that proactively address holiday-related needs, like our Winter Holiday Gifting Programs. For individuals and families with limited financial resources, such supports can mean more than a meal or presents—providing opportunities to share in tradition and celebration, to heal and rebuild. In individual counseling and support groups, survivors are able to explore challenges related to the season, learn tools for self-care and healing amid the holidays’ stressors, and draw support from a community and support system dedicated to their health and safety.
The cycle of violence doesn’t break for the holidays and neither do we. As a result of our community's support, La Casa is a beacon of hope, safety and support for women and children during the holiday season and year-round. Be safe. Be well. Happy Holidays.