The results revealed that the women in the study experienced horrific abuse at the hands of the partners and sought help multiple times from multiple outlets. In some cases, the women continued to seek help even after experiencing multiple failures to secure help. The women’s stories showed how being socially marginalized in ways beyond gender played an important role in accessibility to institutional assistance. Despite the abuse they suffered, the women in the sample were described as active help-seekers and diligence emerged as the overriding theme in their life stories. The author warns, however, that her sample may have been affected by selection bias because the women interviewed had all been successful at securing safe housing at the domestic violence shelter. In terms of policy implications, the results suggest that a coordinated community response protocol providing support and collaboration between various social service agencies, victims, and criminal justice agencies could increase the efficient use of resources for victims of domestic violence. Participants were 19 women recruited from a domestic violence shelter who completed qualitative, semi-structured interviews regarding their experiences of abuse, their help-seeking behaviors, and the social and institutional responses to the women’s help-seeking behavior. The interviews were coded and analyzed for emerging themes. References