Helping Rural Battered Women and Their Children: A Guide for Faith Leaders and Religious Communities by Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence(2002)

This document is one in a series of 3 guides designed to help battered women and their children in rural communities. The booklet contains information for faith leaders on how to talk and offer support to someone who is being abused by providing: 1) an explanation about domestic violence in general, 2) information about services available to battered women and their children through local programs, 3) tips to help keep victims safe and 4) a promise that battered women and their children don't have to struggle alone with violence in their lives.

Contents include:

• Principles for Addressing Domestic Violence
• Battered Women Often Confide in Faith Leaders
• A Framework for Working Against Domestic Violence
• Your Local Domestic Violence Program is a Link to Safety
• What You Should Know About Domestic Violence
• What You Can Do
• Guidelines for Crisis Intervention
• Strategies for Involvement of Faith Leaders
• Strategies for Involvement of Religious Communities
• Questions Battered Women Often Ask Faith Leaders
• Resources on Domestic Violence

• Helping Rural Battered Women and Their Children: A Guide for Faith Leaders and Religious Communities

• Sexual Assault in Rural Communities by Susan H. Lewis (September 2003)
• Based & Community Initiative Websites
• Confidentiality and Mandatory Reporting: A Clergy Dilemma? by Rev. Marie M. Fortune (Fall 1985)
• Violence Against Women and the Role of Religion by Rev.Dr. Marie Fortune and Rabbi Cindy Enger (March 2005)