Ways to get support:

Women can call The Freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge on 0808 2000 247 for free at any time, day or night. The staff will offer confidential, non-judgemental information and support

Talk to a doctor, health visitor or midwife

Men can call Men’s Advice Line on 0808 8010 327 (Monday to Friday 10am to 8pm), or visit the webchat at Men’s Advice Line (Wednesday 10am to 11.30am and 2.30pm to 4pm) for non-judgemental information and support

Men can also call ManKind on 0182 3334 244 (Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm)

IF you identify as LGBT+ you can call Galop on 0800 999 5428 for emotional and practical support

Anyone can call Karma Nirvana on 0800 5999 247 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm) for forced marriage and honour crimes. You can also call 020 7008 0151 to speak to the GOV.UK Forced Marriage Unit

In an emergency, call 999

You can also email for support. It is important that you specify when and if it is safe to respond and to which email address:

Women can email helpline@womensaid.org.uk. Staff will respond to your email within 5 working days

Men can email info@mensadviceline.org.uk

LGBT+ people can email help@galop.org.uk

The Survivor’s Handbook from the charity Women’s Aid is free and provides information for women on a wide range of issues, such as housing, money, helping your children, and your legal rights.

If you are worried that you are abusive, you can contact the free Respect helpline on 0808 802 4040.

The Learning Disability Helpline, run by Mencap, provides free help and advice for people with a learning disability, their family and carers. They are not a domestic abuse service but they can help give advice about lots of topics, including social care, benefits, housing and bullying. Their phone number is 0808 808 1111, or you can email them at helpline@mencap.org.uk.  

Respond supports people with learning disabilities and autism who have experienced trauma in their lives. You can get in touch with them here. 

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) works to support blind people living in the UK. If you are blind or have vision loss, you may find it useful to call their helpline on 0303 123 9999, or email helpline@rnib.org.uk. They have access to interpreters. 

Scope is a national charity which supports and advocates for disabled people and their families. Their free helpline is available if you need free, impartial advice on a wide range of topics, including accessible housing, benefits and work. The phone number is 0808 800 3333, or email helpline@scope.org.uk. You can call using a BSL interpreter or multilingual interpreter.  

SignHealth provides domestic abuse support and advocacy to Deaf people across the UK. You can find videos in BSL relating to domestic abuse on their website. You can contact SignHealth by texting 07800 003421, or by emailing da@signhealth.co.uk.  

Deaf Blind UK can provide information and advice line for people who have combined sight and hearing loss, their carers and professionals. The helpline is able to provide advice and information on equipment, communication methods and local services. They are available on 0800 132 320 (voice), 0790 3572 885 (text).  

Disability Rights UK are led by, run by, and working for disabled people. They work with disabled people’s organisations and government across the UK to influence regional and national change for better rights, benefits, quality of life and economic opportunities for disabled people.   

The emergency SMS service lets deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people in the UK send an SMS text message to the UK 999 service where it will be passed to the police, ambulance, fire rescue, or coastguard. This is also useful for a woman experiencing domestic violence but unable to make a phone call. Simply by sending an SMS message to 999 you can call for help and the emergency services will be able to reply to you. You will need to register your mobile phone before using the emergency SMS service. 

999 BSL allows deaf people to make emergency calls using an app or website, connecting callers with a BSL interpreter. It is free to use and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The new sign language-based service does not require registration, meaning callers can use it as long as the app or webpage is open. To make a call with 999 BSL, users need to open the app or webpage, then press a red button that will connect them to an interpreter.