This study of domestic violence shelters in eight states was designed to help fill a gap in current knowledge about the range of services provided, the needs and experiences of survivors who have turned to shelters for help, and the types of help they received. Research goals included obtaining a large and diverse sample of survivors and shelter programs, so that meaningful comparisons of services, immediate outcomes, and experiences could be conducted by presence of children, age, education, race/ethnicity and other characteristics of survivors, while also taking shelter program capacity into account.
