By Randy Mootooveran - October 27, 2025

Domestic violence cases occur throughout the world at staggering rates, but as culture shifts, so does the form it takes.

Ever since 1989, October has been set aside as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It’s become a rallying point for various organizations and individuals to come forward and work together to address mounting cases of child, spousal, and animal abuse across America. Congress declared that DVAM 2025’s theme is With Survivors, Always, a campaign to give survivors a wider platform to share their stories and build deep connections across survivors and advocates of domestic violence.

The goal of the campaign is to provide all survivors with safety, support, and solidarity. Cassey Keene, the Director of Prevention for DVAM, stated that through stressing the importance of standing with survivors, more will find the courage to report their case. That may appear simple on the surface, but for individuals dealing with physical abuse or strained living conditions, remaining silent seems like the better alternative. It’s a psychological quagmire that makes victims rationalize their terrible treatment, which often drives the abuser to double down. Once a behavior’s been affirmed, it’s only natural for it to be pushed further.

Every person in the world wants to feel safe, but it’s a broad prospect that’s difficult to define.

Domestic violence can vary between physical, verbal, or sexual abuse, each of which can instill victims with vastly different ideas of what safety is. What DVAM aims to provide is the guarantee that survivors will have access to basic human rights and a supportive network that won’t abandon them.

In extreme cases, this can extend to getting survivors in touch with nearby shelters, rehabilitation centers, or care services in their general vicinity. While there may be no broad answer towards fulfilling everyone’s idea of safety, it ensures that brave survivors will always be given a violence-free environment, whether it’s a home or a workplace.

Through DVAM, survivors will always have access to a reliable and compassionate support network.

Few scars can be as painful as ones left by a former loved one. One of the largest contributors to domestic violence cases going unreported is the denial associated with it. Even though society has evolved exponentially in the last 100 years alone, it hasn’t changed the biological desire of every man or woman to build long-lasting relationships with each other. Therefore, once something so ingrained in human nature gets tarnished, it’s enough to shatter the mental stability and worldview of even the strongest-willed people.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, between 1 in 3 women and 1 in 7 men have been physically or sexually abused by their partners, leading to long-term struggles with depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, self-harm, and attempted suicide. A sad but all too common byproduct of domestic abuse is feelings of shame, inadequacy, and self-loathing. Many of them view being a survivor as an admission of weakness and bad judgment on their part. Once someone has lost faith in themselves to such a degree, it’s easy to go down a self-destructive path and lose the confidence to rise out of it.

That, however, is the helping hand #WithSurvivorsAlways offers, through open forums, spiritual rehabilitation webinars, and easy access to sponsors for those struggling with long-term ailments. There may be no foolproof cure to every condition, but DVAM has been working tirelessly to reassure all survivors that they are never alone and that there are still people who believe in them. In some cases, that’s all a person needs to summon the strength to persevere.

DVAM stands for solidarity with survivors and advocates alike.

Cassey Keene, along with many other participants in With Survivors, Always, aim to make 2025 their most aggressive push for change yet. In addition to securing more funding for aid programs and treatment facilities, they’re also looking to encourage local communities to take more active roles in curtailing domestic violence. Through With Survivors, Always, anyone can become a part of the National Resource Center for Domestic Violence just by sharing their social media posts or setting aside time to talk to enrolled survivors. All it asks in return is spreading the word that compassionate people like Keene are out there and growing in number with each passing day.

Domestic violence won’t be solved overnight, but that’s no reason to give up the fight.

Solving a deep-rooted social issue like domestic violence demands a great deal of time investment. There will be times when even the most devoted advocates become disenfranchised with the assumed lack of progress. However, nothing worth fighting for comes without cost or sacrifice.

None of history’s greatest figures would have accomplished anything if they fell victim to the kind of negativity and despair that runs rampant in modern discourse. As troubling as modern times are, there’s no question that they had to endure far worse in their time. Despite that, they stressed the importance of staying strong during those dark times, because perseverance in the face of adversity is how they brought about change and became legends in the first place.

That philosophy has proven true time and time again throughout the ages, and it’s a lesson nobody should ever forget.

Source:

Domestic Violence Awareness Month - The Hotline. (2025, October 15). The Hotline.

https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-awareness-month

Peterson, S. (2025, October 1). National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

https://www.nctsn.org/resources/public-awareness/national-domestic-violence-awareness-month

Domestic Violence Statistics - The Hotline. (2023, July 4). The Hotline.

https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics

Images Provided by Unsplash Stock Images and DVAM Campaign Webpage.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2025: How Knowing Is the First Step Towards Helping the Cause

Headquarters

Contact