Tips for Health Care Providers to 
Effectively Work with Battered Women 
1. Educate yourself about domestic violence. The more you 
understand about the issue, the more effective you become. 
2. Learn how your role as a health care provider can assist people who 
are battered. 
3. Begin assessing all female and male patients. Learn the appropriate assessment 
techniques for victims of domestic violence and begin. 
4. Model the behavior in your practice or agency. When new staff observes ongoing 
assessing for domestic violence occurring at all levels, they begin to model the 
behavior. 
5. Identify your own attitude and misconceptions about domestic violence. This is 
especially true for patients who are of a similar professional, educational, religious or 
cultural background. Reject stereotyped myths. 
6. Create good policies and protocols that support assessing patients for domestic 
violence and supporting their decisions. 
7. Advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence and their children. 
8. Hold perpetrators responsible for the abuse and for stopping it. 
9. Do not make cultural assumptions about domestic violence with patients because their 
background differs from yours. The cultural differences do not validate the violence. 
10. Allow clients to return to a violent relationship without becoming angry with them. 
11. Respect and believe in people’s capacity to change and grow. 
12. Listen.