Programs that provide temporary emergency shelter for individuals, primarily women, who have experienced domestic violence/abuse, and for their children. Such facilities usually provide in-house individual, group and family counseling and the full range of secondary services related to domestic violence including referral to appropriate resources. Also included are similar facilities for battered men and those that can accommodate both men and women, where they are available.

Programs that provide information and guidance and/or representation in court proceedings for individuals who have been abused in an intimate relationship and/or for people who are facing a summary conviction offence or criminal charge for perpetrating abuse. Included are domestic violence law clinics and other legal assistance programs that represent victims of domestic abuse at restraining order hearings or in other civil or criminal actions involving charges against an abuser. Most also represent the person's interests in complexities that arise as part of the legal process such as restitution, payment of debts or child support, custody and visitation and property control. Some programs may also represent victims of domestic abuse who have been charged with a crime and/or handle cases involving accusations of child abuse filed by one parent against the other, abuse of an elderly person by an adult child or abuse of an adult child by a parent.

Programs that help adults obtain an order from the police or the courts that protects them from abuse or threats of abuse from a current or former spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, someone they have a child with, someone they live with or someone they are related to through blood or marriage. Included are emergency protective orders that police can obtain from the court to provide immediate protection to an abused family member for five to seven days until an application for a temporary restraining order can be made in court; longer-term temporary restraining orders issued in civil court that forbid contact with the protected person until the propriety of granting a permanent injunction can be evaluated; permanent or after-hearing restraining orders that make a short-term injunction granted in the temporary restraining order permanent (or specify the amount of time they will remain in effect); and criminal temporary protective orders which apply in situations where an abusive individual has been arrested and faces trial.

Individuals whose ethnic background and ancestry are that of the tribal, aboriginal peoples who originated in what is now the United States. Included are Native Americans who are living on or off reservations in rural and urban areas.

Children and adolescents whose own personal, social and familial coping have been affected by the presence of domestic violence/abuse in their home.

Individuals (some with children) who are currently staying in a temporary shelter for people who are unable to return to their own homes due to domestic violence.

Adult women who have been subjected to a persistent pattern of physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse and intimidation by their husbands or intimate partners.

Adults who have been subjected to a persistent pattern of abuse which typically includes beating, hitting, shoving, choking, hair pulling, use of a weapon to hurt or threaten or other forms of physical assault that injure or endanger the individual. Physical abuse may also involve destruction of possessions, frightening outbursts of temper (throwing objects, punching walls, kicking doors), denial of medical care, abandonment of a partner in a dangerous or unfamiliar place, locking a partner out of the home, trapping a partner in the home or preventing him or her from leaving.

Individuals (including adults and children, males and females) who have been abducted, sold, recruited under fraud or pretence or otherwise brought under the control of another person, and forced, by means of threats, intimidation, violence or other forms of coercion, into unpaid or underpaid labor, servitude, prostitution or forced marriage, either domestically within their own country or internationally. Other forms of exploitation include provision of children for illegal adoption, provision of women as mail-order brides, and subjection of individuals of all ages to the forced removal of organs.