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Our services
Everything Maxine’s Arms provides is survivor-centered, culturally responsive, and offered at no cost.
Services include 24/7 crisis response, safety planning, case management, legal advocacy, support groups, and connections to medical, mental health, housing, and financial resources. Residents receive assistance with transportation, basic needs, and, when applicable, age-appropriate services and emotional support for children affected by violence.
Looking for prevention, gang reformation, or Partner Abuse Intervention? Those are community programs and live on a separate page — see community programs.
Category 1 of 5
Emergency & Crisis Support
What is available right now, at any hour, whether or not you have decided anything.
Emergency Shelter
Maxine's Arms provides secure shelter accommodations for survivors of domestic violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking, and other forms of abuse. The location is confidential, and it stays that way.
From the moment you arrive, you have access to food, clothing, hygiene supplies, and a safe place to sleep. You do not need money, a police report, or a plan to come inside.
What this includes
- 24-hour intake
- Confidential location
- Food, clothing and hygiene supplies at intake
- Families welcome
- No cost, ever
24/7 Crisis Response & Intervention
Crisis intervention and emotional support are provided to every resident during intake and throughout their stay. You do not have to know what you need before you reach out.
Advocates listen first. Then, at your pace, they help you weigh options, understand what is available, and take the next step that is right for you.
What this includes
- Around-the-clock response
- Trauma-informed advocates
- No pressure to make decisions immediately
Safety Planning
A safety plan is a set of specific, realistic steps built around your actual life: your home, your work, your children, your transportation, your phone.
Advocates build the plan with you. There is no single right answer, and no plan requires you to leave before you are ready.
What this includes
- Personalized to your situation
- Covers home, work, children, pets and technology
- Revisited as circumstances change
Category 2 of 5
Healing & Emotional Wellness
Care for the mind and the heart — for adults, and for the children who came with them.
Counseling & Support Groups
Maxine's Arms offers individual counseling, support groups, and mental health referrals designed to help survivors process trauma and develop healthy coping skills.
Support groups connect you with people who understand what you are carrying, without having to explain it from the beginning.
What this includes
- Individual counseling
- Peer support groups
- Mental health referrals
Children's Services
Children who witness abuse carry it too. Maxine's Arms provides age-appropriate therapeutic support and trauma-informed activities for children living at the shelter.
Parents are supported as parents — not just as survivors.
What this includes
- Trauma-informed activities
- Age-appropriate emotional support
- Support for parenting through crisis
Category 3 of 5
Who We Support Specifically
Abuse takes different shapes at different ages and in different relationships. These services are built for those differences.
Teen & Youth Services
Young people experience abuse too — from a partner, from someone at school, from someone online, or from an adult at home. It is often dismissed as drama. It is not drama.
Maxine's Arms works with teens and young adults on dating violence, stalking, bullying and harassment, and provides age-appropriate therapeutic support and trauma-informed activities for children and youth exposed to violence or abuse.
What this includes
- Teen dating violence support
- Stalking and online harassment
- Bullying and peer violence
- Trauma-informed support for youth exposed to violence at home
- School and community education
Dating Violence & Unhealthy Relationships
Dating violence looks different from what people picture. It is often jealousy framed as love, monitoring framed as caring, and pressure framed as commitment. It affects adults and young people alike.
Maxine's Arms offers education on what healthy relationships look like, support for people currently in an unsafe one, and prevention programming for schools, campuses and youth groups.
What this includes
- One-to-one support and safety planning
- Healthy relationship education
- Help recognizing coercion, monitoring and pressure
- Prevention workshops for schools and youth programs
Stalking Support
Stalking is a pattern of unwanted attention that makes a person afraid. It often continues, or begins, after a relationship ends, and it frequently happens through phones and accounts rather than in person.
Maxine's Arms helps survivors recognize the pattern, document it in a way that holds up later, tighten their digital and physical safety, and connect with law enforcement and legal resources when they choose to.
What this includes
- Help building a stalking log and evidence record
- Device, account and location safety review
- Safety planning for home, work and routine
- Support understanding protective order options
- Referrals to legal and law enforcement resources
Bullying Prevention & Support
Bullying is repeated, targeted harm — in hallways, in group chats, and on platforms adults rarely see. It affects sleep, grades, health and safety, and it can escalate.
Maxine's Arms supports young people who are being targeted, coaches the adults around them, and delivers prevention and bystander programming in schools, faith communities and youth programs.
What this includes
- Support for young people being targeted
- Guidance for parents, teachers and coaches
- Online harassment and digital safety
- Bystander and prevention workshops
Category 4 of 5
Stability & Advocacy
Safety is the beginning. These services are about what comes after it.
Case Management & Advocacy
Case managers help residents organize documents, keep appointments, navigate systems, and connect to medical, mental health, housing and financial resources in the community.
The goal is not paperwork. The goal is stability.
What this includes
- Coordinated referrals
- Help navigating agencies and benefits
- Follow-through, not hand-offs
Legal Advocacy
Legal advocates help survivors understand protective orders, court processes, and the paperwork that comes with them, and connect residents to legal services in the community.
Maxine's Arms provides advocacy and referrals. Advocates are not attorneys and do not provide legal advice.
What this includes
- Help understanding protective orders
- Court accompaniment where available
- Referrals to legal services
Housing & Economic Stability
Maxine's Arms helps survivors secure safe housing, strengthen economic independence, and access ongoing community-based supports.
Long-term stability is part of safety, not a separate project.
What this includes
- Housing search support and referrals
- Connections to financial resources
- Ongoing community-based supports
Transportation & Basic Needs
Residents receive assistance with transportation and basic needs — food, clothing, hygiene supplies — so that getting to an appointment or an interview is not the thing that stops progress.
What this includes
- Transportation assistance
- Food, clothing and hygiene supplies
- Essentials at intake
Category 5 of 5
Community Education & Training
Prevention work, and training for the people a survivor is likely to encounter first.
Community Outreach, Education & Training
Maxine's Arms conducts community outreach and educational programs to increase awareness of domestic violence, abuse prevention, and available support services.
Training is available for volunteers, staff, faith-based organizations, and community partners on trauma-informed care and victim advocacy. Prevention and early intervention work is aimed at reducing family violence and supporting healthy community relationships.
What this includes
- Community education events
- Trauma-informed care training
- Prevention and early intervention
Right now
If you need to talk to someone right now
These are statewide and national services. They are free, confidential, available 24 hours a day, and none of them is operated by Maxine’s Arms. To reach Maxine’s Arms directly, call 773-243-5464.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Support for anyone affected by relationship abuse — including people who are unsure whether what they are experiencing counts.
800-799-SAFE (7233) Or text START to 88788 · TTY 1-800-787-3224 · thehotline.orgIllinois Domestic Violence Hotline
Illinois’ statewide 24-hour hotline. Call, text or chat with an advocate who can connect you to a program anywhere in the state.
877-863-6338 877-TO END DV · 240+ languages · the-network.orgStrongHearts Native Helpline
Culturally appropriate support for Native Americans and Alaska Natives affected by domestic, dating and sexual violence.
844-7NATIVE 844-762-8483 · strongheartshelpline.orgRAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline
For survivors of sexual assault, by phone or online chat, routed to a provider near you.
800-656-HOPE 800-656-4673 · rainn.org988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Free, confidential support during any mental health or emotional crisis, by call or text.
988 Call or text 988 · 988lifeline.orgIf you are in immediate danger or facing a life-threatening emergency, call 911.
Every part of this work is held up by someone.
Survivors reaching out. Advocates answering. Neighbors giving. Partners opening doors. There is a place in it for you.