Last reviewed: September 15, 2026
You deserve support that respects your circumstances. You do not have to determine whether your experience is “serious enough” before speaking with a confidential advocate.
If you need help right now
Immediate or life-threatening danger
Call 911 in the United States when it is safe to do so.
MARA cannot contact emergency services, monitor messages, or respond to emergencies on your behalf.
Domestic violence, coercive control, stalking, or relationship safety
National Domestic Violence Hotline
• Call 800-799-SAFE (7233)
• Text START to 88788
• Chat at thehotline.org
The Hotline offers free, confidential support and can help you consider a personalized safety plan and locate services.
Emotional distress or suicide crisis
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
• Call or text 988
• Chat at 988lifeline.org
988 provides free, confidential crisis support in the United States and its territories.
Local essentials and community support
Call 211 or visit 211.org to look for local help with housing, food, utilities, transportation, healthcare, and other community needs.
Device and internet safety
Phones, computers, email, accounts, vehicles, location services, and browsing activity may be monitored without your knowledge. Private or incognito browsing does not completely erase activity.
If monitoring is a concern:
• Consider using a safer device that the other person cannot access;
• Contact a confidential advocate before changing passwords, account settings, shared plans, location permissions, or devices;
• Avoid saving this page, downloading resources, or changing settings if doing so could be noticed and increase risk;
• Remember that clearing history may itself be noticeable; and
• Use MARA’s Quick Exit control when available, understanding that it cannot erase browser or device history.
What MARA can and cannot do
MARA can
• Provide educational and organizational tools;
• Display public crisis and support resources without requiring an account, email, or payment;
• Help you organize questions for a qualified professional;
• Offer private, user-controlled planning and documentation tools; and
• Adjust the order and prominence of resources when an answer suggests that immediate support may be relevant.
MARA cannot
• Determine whether you or someone else is safe;
• Diagnose abuse, coercive control, stalking, trauma, or a mental-health condition;
• Monitor entries or messages in real time;
• Contact police, advocates, attorneys, family members, schools, courts, or emergency services for you;
• Guarantee confidentiality on a shared or monitored device;
• Provide legal, medical, mental-health, financial, custody, or emergency advice; or
• Guarantee that a suggested communication, boundary, password change, financial step, move, or documentation practice is safe for your circumstances.
When ordinary advice may not be appropriate
General recommendations such as setting a boundary, announcing a decision, blocking contact, changing passwords, moving money, leaving or returning home, changing locks, recording conversations, relocating, confronting someone, or altering parenting arrangements can create legal or safety consequences.
If fear, threats, surveillance, retaliation, stalking, weapons, strangulation, escalating behavior, blocked access to money or transportation, child-safety concerns, or coercive control may be present, consider confidential advocacy and qualified legal guidance before taking an action that could be noticed.
MARA does not advise you to stay, leave, confront, report, or delay. A personalized safety plan is specific to your circumstances.
Children and immediate concerns
MARA does not determine parenting fitness, custody, abuse, neglect, or child safety. If a child is in immediate danger, call 911 in the United States when safe to do so. For non-immediate concerns, seek guidance from an appropriate qualified attorney, child or family professional, healthcare professional, advocate, or relevant state agency.
Do not use MARA’s general content as a substitute for a court order, mandatory-reporting obligation, professional recommendation, or emergency instruction.
Legal information and official notices
If you receive court papers, a hearing notice, government correspondence, an eviction or foreclosure notice, an insurance notice, or another official document:
• Keep the complete original and delivery information;
• Note when and how it was received;
• Do not calculate the deadline from MARA;
• Confirm dates with the issuing court or agency and a qualified professional; and
• Look for free or low-cost legal help through USA.gov’s legal-aid directory.
Financial access and identity concerns
MARA does not access bank accounts and should never ask for an online-banking password. Do not use MARA to obtain or store credentials belonging to another person.
Before closing accounts, moving or hiding funds, changing beneficiaries, canceling insurance, disposing of property, or making another consequential financial change, seek qualified legal and financial guidance for your circumstances.
For general identity-theft and online-security information, visit:
Privacy inside MARA
• Public safety resources are available without an account, email, or payment.
• Anonymous assessment safety-routing answers remain in temporary session memory and are not intentionally retained in the MARA database.
• Safety information does not change a RISE stage or functional-priority score.
• Detailed safety-answer history is not retained by default.
• Safety-routing information must not be sent to advertising pixels, email marketing, session replay, heatmaps, URLs, notification previews, or ordinary analytics.
• MARA does not automatically send messages or files to another person.
• Downloading, printing, emailing, or saving a resource may create a visible record on a device or account.
Read the full MARA Privacy Policy for additional details.
A gentle next step
If you are not in immediate danger but feel overwhelmed, you may choose one small action:
• Contact one trustworthy person;
• Write down the question you need answered;
• Move to a safer device before searching for help;
• Contact a confidential advocate;
• Ask a qualified professional to clarify a notice or deadline; or
• Pause and care for an immediate physical need such as water, food, medication, rest, or transportation.
You are not behind. Safety and clarity can begin with one supported next step.
Resource directory
Important
MARA provides general educational and organizational information. It does not provide legal, financial, tax, medical, mental-health, custody, housing, safety-planning, or emergency advice. Resources and contact methods may change. Verify information directly with the organization.
Safety-page contact: To be confirmed
MARA — A clearer next step, at a pace that respects your life.