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Domestic violence counselor skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Susan Snyder Ph.D.,

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical domestic violence counselor skills. We ranked the top skills for domestic violence counselors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 14.2% of domestic violence counselor resumes contained crisis intervention as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a domestic violence counselor needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 domestic violence counselor skills for your resume and career

1. Crisis Intervention

Here's how domestic violence counselors use crisis intervention:

Provided domestic violence counseling and crisis intervention to abused women and their children in a confidential shelter setting.
Provided crisis intervention, counseling and support services to victims/survivors of sexual assault and/or domestic violence.

2. Domestic Violence Victims

Here's how domestic violence counselors use domestic violence victims:

Provide individual counseling to female domestic violence victims.
Court related advocacy for domestic violence victims.

3. Safety Planning

Safety рlаnnіng іѕ a рrосеѕѕ оf evaluating the rіѕkѕ and bеnеfіtѕ of various орtіоnѕ аnd identifying ways tо rеduсе the rіѕkѕ should an adverse event arise. This іnсludеѕ planning fоr a futurе crisis, rеvіеwіng оnеѕ орtіоnѕ, аnd mаkіng dесіѕіоnѕ аbоut whаt to dо nеxt.

Here's how domestic violence counselors use safety planning:

Completed safety planning and intake assessments.
Created a resource book for the agency regarding safety planning for women experiencing domestic violence and seeking help from the agency.

4. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how domestic violence counselors use mental health:

Advocated for clients with outside resources such as DCF, DSS, Law Enforcement, Court System and Mental Health Providers.
Facilitate Care Coordination with client primary care physician, outpatient mental health and substance abuse services along with other service providers.

6. Substance Abuse

Here's how domestic violence counselors use substance abuse:

Facilitated groups addressing substance abuse and/or domestic violence issues.
Facilitate structured adult domestic violence and substance abuse groups.

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7. Legal Advocacy

Here's how domestic violence counselors use legal advocacy:

Provided legal advocacy services, such as assisting clients with filling obtaining orders of protection.
Case management, legal advocacy and extensive record keeping.

8. Community Resources

Community resources are a set of resources that are used in the day to day life of people which improves their lifestyle in some way. People, sites or houses, and population assistance can come under the services offered by community resources.

Here's how domestic violence counselors use community resources:

Referred clients to appropriate community resources -With program manager participated in staff evaluations, reprimands, improvement plans and disciplinary action
Compiled and organized community resources to facilitate more effective resource provision by shelter staff.

9. Intake Assessments

Here's how domestic violence counselors use intake assessments:

Conducted intake assessments and provided counseling for drop-in consumers.
Completed intake assessments for community based and residential clients.

10. Crisis Hotline

Here's how domestic violence counselors use crisis hotline:

Answered crisis hotline and provided crisis management intervention.
Provided immediate crisis counseling, information, education, and safe house placement while answering confidential, crisis hotline telephone calls.

11. Group Therapy

Group psychotherapy or group therapy is the practice of treating a group of clients together in one sitting throughout multiple sessions. This practice allows people to receive encouragement and support from their peers who are taking the same group therapy.

Here's how domestic violence counselors use group therapy:

Provide individual and group therapy to residential and non-residential survivors of domestic violence.
Co-facilitated group therapy for perpetrators of domestic violence.

12. Child Protective

Here's how domestic violence counselors use child protective:

Familiarized with mandated report procedures for Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services.
Served as a child protective investigator and assessed if the child could remain in the home.

13. Sexual Assault Victims

Here's how domestic violence counselors use sexual assault victims:

Provide advocacy to domestic abuse and sexual assault victims and support services to individuals associated with military personnel.
Provided immediate, in-person immediate crisis counseling for sexual assault victims during their forensic exams.

14. Support Services

Support services are services that support the organization internally and are usually non-revenue generating. Examples include, IT, admin, HR, etc.

Here's how domestic violence counselors use support services:

Facilitated an eight-week Alternative Offender's Program for clients referred by Family Relations Counselors in the Court Support Services Division.
Provided education to volunteers and interns on the abuse cycle, support services available and ways to access these services.

15. Community Outreach

Here's how domestic violence counselors use community outreach:

Facilitated individual counseling sessions, as well as community outreach support groups.
Participated in speakers bureau and community outreach.

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What skills help Domestic Violence Counselors find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on domestic violence counselor resumes?

Dr. Susan Snyder Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Georgia State University

Being able to clearly demonstrate experience is helpful. Students should not include passive activities, like attending meetings, or menial tasks, like making copies, but skills that show what they are qualified to do. Good activities could be community organizing, event planning, grant writing, program evaluation, or facilitating groups. Additionally, students who demonstrate strong written and verbal communication skills, including social media skills, tend to do well. Working collaboratively, including across organizations, is important for a lot of different positions our students seek. If students' resumes show that they can also analyze data, they can have even more options.

What soft skills should all domestic violence counselors possess?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills are important, including openness to work with people with varying religious views. The ability to easily connect with others and put people at ease in your presence is valuable in working with clients and collaborating with a treatment team. As more and more agencies interact with the medical field, spiritual leaders, and other holistic approaches to health, counselors need to see their role in an interdisciplinary approach to healing and work effectively with other departments. With teletherapy/virtual therapy, just the simple difficulty of creating eye contact when one's camera is not directly aligned with their viewscreen can complicate important connections in the therapeutic relationship. Learning to effectively connect through screens is essential.

What hard/technical skills are most important for domestic violence counselors?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

Hard or technical skills are most likely to occur in the stages of assessing, planning, intervening, and evaluating change theory. Social workers are trained to gather lots of information and then analyze strengths and needs. Social workers present their assessments to clients and work together to create goals and the steps that reach goals when executed. The process involves using the client's vision of what "better" looks like. Social workers then use evidence-based techniques to move the client toward the goal and define measures to know when the goal is met. The technical skills used in this process include analyzing many types of information repeatedly, knowing what resources exist and how to refer, knowing how to design effective goals and steps to achieve goals, researching current evidence-based practices, defining and measuring progress, and setting limits and timeframes.

What domestic violence counselor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Lillian Wichinsky Ph.D.

Associate Dean, University of Nevada - Reno

The need for social workers with expertise in mental health care, school-based social work, health and substance misuse are particularly important. Sixty percent of mental health care in the US is provided by social workers and the need is growing.

What type of skills will young domestic violence counselors need?

Chris Hennington Ph.D.

School Counseling Program Coordinator, Lubbock Christian University

School counselors will be tasked with the usual school counseling responsibilities while also encountering trauma that students experience outside of school and in school. Being well versed in trauma response is going to be a vital aspect of being a school counselor. Kids are experiencing more trauma, but we are getting better at recognizing and treating trauma as well.

Do you want to know more?

List of domestic violence counselor skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a domestic violence counselor resume and required skills for a domestic violence counselor to have include:

Crisis Intervention
Domestic Violence Victims
Safety Planning
Mental Health
Social Work
Substance Abuse
Legal Advocacy
Community Resources
Intake Assessments
Crisis Hotline
Group Therapy
Child Protective
Sexual Assault Victims
Support Services
Community Outreach
Legal Assistance
Emergency Shelter

Hotline Calls
Law Enforcement
Crisis Calls
Group Sessions
Sexual Abuse
Community Agencies
Crisis Line
Anger Management
Child Abuse
Crisis Management
Individual Therapy
CPS
Domestic Violence Issues
Direct Services
Emotional Support
Community Education
Intake Interviews

Child Care
Advocacy Services
Domestic Abuse
Art Therapy
DCF
Protective Orders
Referral Services
Court System
Community Organizations
Community Services
Community Events
Shelter Residents
Parent Support
Court Proceedings
Criminal Court
Court Hearings

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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