Feeling safe again is something you can learn
We teach free classes in self-defense, safety planning, and handling the stress that follows abuse. They're built for women, single moms, and kids, and they're taught at a pace you set.
Shelters, hotlines, and legal aid carry people through the emergency, and they do it well. What comes after is quieter and lasts a lot longer. That's the part we're here for.
Help usually stops when the emergency does
You get handed a safety plan on the worst day of your life, and then you rarely get to practice it on an ordinary one.
Crisis services end
Emergency shelter, protective orders, and hotline support are built for the acute moment. Recovery takes years, and most of it happens after the file closes.
Regular self-defense classes don't fit
Most are loud, fast, full of contact, and taught by strangers. If your body is already braced for danger, that isn't training. It's a trigger.
Cost decides who gets skills
The people most likely to be hurt again are usually the least able to pay for private lessons, better locks, or ongoing therapy.
Kids get left out
Children who saw it or lived it are rarely offered anything of their own past counseling. No boundaries, no practice, no say.
Trauma-informed isn't a label we stuck on a normal class
It changes what we teach, how we teach it, and who gets to decide what happens next. That last one is usually you.
You choose
Every drill has an opt-out, and taking it costs you nothing. Nobody gets talked into a technique, a partner, or a scenario.
Nothing is a surprise
You'll know what's coming before it happens. We don't run ambush drills, we don't touch you without saying so first, and we're not testing your reactions.
You set the pace
Classes are meant to be repeated. Sitting one out and coming back next week is a normal way to do this, not a failure.
A clinician checks the material
A licensed trauma therapist reviews what we teach and how instructors are trained before any of it reaches you.
Four tracks, and you can take them in any order
Take one of them, or all four, or the same one three times. Whatever's useful.
- Track 1
Awareness & De-escalation
Reading a situation early, and talking your way out of one.
- Track 2
Trauma-Sensitive Physical Skills
A small number of simple techniques for making space and getting out.
- Track 3
Mental & Emotional Resilience
Body-based skills for panic, flashbacks, and the exhaustion of being on alert all the time.
- Track 4
Survival & Safety Planning
A written plan for your actual life. Your home, your car, your custody schedule, your phone.
We're a network, not a gym
We don't pretend to be every expert a survivor needs. We find people who already are, train them to one standard, and pay them to work with our participants.
- Find and vetSelf-defense instructors, therapists, nurses, and social workers who are willing to be trained in trauma-informed practice and held to it.
- Train to one standardEveryone completes our protocol training before working with a participant, no matter what credentials they already hold.
- Take referralsShelters, DV and sexual assault agencies, schools, caseworkers, and courts send us people who are ready for this part.
- Pay the providersGrants, donors, and paid corporate trainings cover it. Nobody we serve gets a bill, and nobody has to fundraise for her own safety.
Find your way in
I need help for myself
Tell us as much or as little as you want. You don't need documentation, a police report, or proof of anything.
I work with survivors
Send us a client, or bring a whole group. We come to your space, on your schedule, and your clients aren't charged.
I want to teach or treat
Instructors, therapists, social workers, nurses, and physicians. This is paid work, not a volunteer rota.
I want to fund this
We're pre-launch and building out the first two years. Early support decides how soon the first group of women is in a room learning something.
If you need someone right now
If you are in immediate danger, call 911.
National Domestic Violence Hotline (opens in a new tab)
24/7, free, confidential. Call, text START to 88788, or chat online.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (opens in a new tab)
24/7 support for emotional distress or thoughts of suicide.
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline (opens in a new tab)
24/7, free, confidential support for survivors of sexual violence.
Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline (opens in a new tab)
24/7 support and referrals concerning the safety of a child.
We're building this in the open
ShadowWing Alliance became a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation in May 2026. Our 501(c)(3) application is still with the IRS. Right now we're recruiting a clinical advisor, filling out the board, and raising money for the first classes.
We're saying that plainly because an organization asking abuse survivors to trust it doesn't get to be vague about what it is yet. When the facts change, this page will too.
ShadowWing Alliance is a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation. Our application for federal tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) is pending with the IRS. Until a determination letter is issued we can't promise a gift will be tax-deductible, and we won't imply otherwise.