If you are experiencing domestic violence, reaching out for help can be intimidating. It can be hard to talk about what we’re going through out loud. Or, making a call could be a safety risk. If talking online is safer or easier, we are here for you. Our trained advocates are available to chat online to offer information, advocacy, and support. Just read through the important safety considerations, and then scroll down to find the chat box.

Merryman House Domestic Violence Center uses ResourceConnect Web Chat to offer confidential hotline chat as a means of assistance to survivors. Our platform uses end-to-end encryption which means that only you and the person you’re chatting with can read the contents of the messages being sent. Even our own staff outside the chat are not able to read the contents of your messages, and thus would be unable to hand over any readable content in the event of a court order.

The contents of the messages do not get saved anywhere on your device. Unless you take screenshots of your conversation, once you close your browser window or a message has hit its message expiration date, that message will be completely gone. Also, once your message has hit its message expiration date, or one of our crisis response team members deletes it or the conversation it was used in, that message will be permanently removed from the ResourceConnect servers.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: there are still some important safety risks to be aware of.

First, there is no technology anywhere, and never will be, that can prevent information from being read on a device that has a virus, malware, spyware, etc installed on it. If a spyware or virus program is able to record keystrokes or take screenshots every X number of seconds, there’s nothing that can be done to make this device safe.

If you believe your device even has the potential to have been compromised, it is safer for you to use another device to communicate with us on ResourceConnect or give us a call from an unmonitored phone.

Second, you should be aware that an eavesdropper who listening to the internet traffic of a ResourceConnect chatter will be able to see that the person is communicating with someone on ResourceConnect. They won’t be able to see which provider they’re talking to, but they will likely be able to put two-and-two together if they saw that you were on our organization’s webpage, and then you were suddenly using ResourceConnect.

Again, because ResourceConnect is end-to-end encrypted, anyone listening in on the internet traffic won’t be able to see what is being said. They will only be able to see that something is being said. In certain situations, this could pose a risk.

If you are worried your internet connection could be monitored, you should also be concerned their device has also been compromised. Thus, you should not use ResourceConnect unless they can do so from another location.

All of our services are free and confidential.​