Emergency shelter

We also run an emergency shelter for women, teen girls and children who have been forced to deal with threats and violence. At our emergency shelter, we have room for four women with children.

You can come to our emergency shelter by:

• Contacting Social Services in the municipality/district where you live. After talking to you about your situation, Social Services may provide you financial assistance if you need to stay at an emergency shelter. Read more about Social Service’s obligations in relation to intimate partner violence here. On nights and weekends, you should instead contact the Social Services emergency number in the municipality where you live, since the Social Services Office will normally be closed then.
• Calling us directly. You will then pay for your housing yourself at a low cost. If you have a limited amount of money right now, we will try to find a way to work something out.

The housing we offer is collective self-catering, which means that you buy and cook your own food, clean, wash clothes, and handle everything just like in a normal home. Each family has its own bedroom and then shares the rest of the space with the other women and children who live there. The accommodation has a shared kitchen, TV room, toilet, shower, laundry room, and playroom for the children. The accommodation has surveillance cameras and panic alarms that send alerts to the Securitas security company and the police when triggered. To be able to stay at Ada Women’s Shelter and Young Women’s Empowerment Centre’s emergency shelter, you must be able to live with others and be considerate. While staying with us, you must not be using any alcohol or drugs.

Ada is not able to take in animals, but we work in partnership with VOOV, which can help find a safe temporary home for your pet while you are staying at the emergency shelter. Are you worried that your animal will be harmed? Read more here.

All women and children staying with us are assigned one or two contact persons who can provide help with practical matters and accompany the woman on visits to the police and other authorities. You will also meet with your contact person regularly for counselling and follow-up. For children, we offer counselling that follows the “Trappan model” or other age-appropriate tools that make the child feel comfortable enough to talk about what happened. We also do different activities with the children. Mothers and children are also offered counselling with a psychologist from Psykologenheten Hisingen.

We are trained in the SARA (spousal assault risk assessment) and the PATRIARK (honour-based violence risk assessment) tools, and we perform a threat and risk assessment when new residents move in with us. The staff of the Ada Women’s Shelter and Young Women’s Empowerment Centre has extensive experience in working with women, teen girls and children who have experienced threats and violence. We not only have degrees from relevant university programmes, but also have basic training in women’s shelter operations and the empowerment of women and teen girls. On top of this, we have further training in different areas related to our work.

Everyone working at the Ada Women’s Shelter and Young Women’s Empowerment Centre has taken a vow of secrecy and confidentiality. If Social Services is helping you financially, then we are obliged to follow the Social Services Act (socialtjänstlagen). Among other things, this means that we follow confidentiality rules and report what is being done in accordance with Chapter 14 § 3 of the Social Services Act. If you are staying at Ada’s emergency shelter without financial assistance from Social Services, we are not obliged to maintain documentation. However, we are always legally required to make a report if we suspect a child has been abused.