Safer Places in Essex and Hertfordshire#
Safer Places has supported adult and child victims of domestic abuse across Essex and Hertfordshire since 1977. In 2025 it supported 1,717 adults and 357 children. Its services are based in the two counties, but its accommodation is open to people from across the UK, and it supports anyone, whatever their gender identity, sexuality, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability.
Its pages are organised by who you are: women, men, LGBTQ+ people, families, children up to 16, young people over 16, people aged 60 and over, people from ethnically diverse communities, and people who want to stop abusive behaviour. It has specialist workers for people with no recourse to public funds, support for survivors who are dependent on drugs or alcohol, and Triple R, a trauma-informed recovery programme it developed.
Calling Safer Places#
Its helpline, LiveChat on weekdays from 9am to 5.30pm, and an email address are the ways in. Its page on calling makes one promise above all: nothing will happen unless you want it to. You can hear the options and take days, months or longer to think. Depending on your situation, it may suggest refuge, support in the community or another specialist service.
Its referral form can be filled in by you or by someone else with your consent, which it requires. It asks for the safest way to contact you, and whether you need refuge or community support. That community support comes from Independent Gender Violence Advisors for people in Broxbourne, East Herts, Welwyn and Hatfield; there is also a stalking service for Hertfordshire.
The EXIT button at the top of every page leaves the site and, by default, removes the last page from your browser history. Its online safety guide adds that no method guarantees complete privacy.
Getting ready for refuge#
After an assessment by its Gateway Team and an offer of a space, staff advise you on what to bring. Its preparing for refuge page says ID is what you will need most: birth certificates, passports, a driving licence and bank account details, with anything that supports your children's or your own medical or additional needs. Furniture, animals and bikes stay behind. Staff also go through devices that could be used to trace you, such as a car tracker linked to an abuser's phone or a child's device the abuser set up.
Its accommodation ranges from self-contained flats to shared buildings where most bedrooms have their own bathroom, including specialist accommodation for women with complex needs and for women whose immigration status gives them no recourse to public funds, and a specialist refuge for women from ethnically diverse communities. Addresses are kept confidential. Stays average about six months, with help on housing, school applications, healthcare and legal matters, and outreach afterwards.
Free legal guidance for residents#
Everyone staying in its accommodation can have a free appointment for initial legal guidance. If you need more, Safer Places refers you, with your consent, to a solicitor, including legal aid or free (pro bono) ones. It also points to FLOWS, Rights of Women and the British Red Cross, which gives immigration advice in Essex. Two women's centres, in Harlow and Waltham Cross, open on weekdays, offer counselling, groups and signposting on housing and legal questions.
Your name, and the papers you bring#
Safer Places publishes nothing on names. Still, the ID it asks you to bring is exactly what organisations will want to see beside a deed poll later. The deed can be home-made from GOV.UK's free template once you are 16; give it a postal address for correspondence, never the refuge itself (refuge residents); moving on later does not make the deed out of date (deed polls and moving house).
This page describes what Safer Places publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Safer Places has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
