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In a recent article by Tracey De Simone and Susan Heward-Belle*, they describe the "cultural tsunami" triggered by the Safe & Together Model  in Queensland Australia.   In this episode, Ruth interviews David about the theory of change behind the Safe & Together Model and how Safe & Together Institute is attempting to  remake the practice of systems.  David outlines four goals that drive the work:

• Strengthening the safety, and well being of children and families
• Ending mother blaming in domestic violence cases 
• Transforming how systems consider fatherhood
•  Making statutory child welfare a driver of broader social and system change

Ruth guides the conversation to how all this produces better outcomes for adult and child survivors.  David calls out practitioners to remember that professionals are not the arbiters of their own success--adult and child survivors are the arbiters of our success.

*De Simone, T., & Heward-Belle, S. (2020). Evidencing better child protection practice: Why representations of domestic violence matter. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 32(4), 403–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/10345329.2020.1840957

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

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To truly understand the experience of many domestic violence survivors we need to understand  coercive control.  Coercive control,  which is one of the key aspects of the Safe & Together Model,  is as much about entrapment and the deprivation of liberty as it is about physical violence. In fact, the damage of coercive control can occur without any physical violence.  Following the examples of England, Scotland and Wales, many jurisdictions are exploring updating their domestic violence laws to include coercive control.

In this episode, David and Ruth interview Jess Hill , an investigative journalist and the author of  the award-winning book See What You Made Me Do,.   In this far ranging conversation, they discuss her research into coercive control laws, how they are being applied, their impact on abuse victims and her evolution into an advocate for the criminalisation of coercive control .
Jess speaks also about

•  Australian national movement toward criminalising coercive control and the cultural & system challenges  in the application of that law
• The pro-contact orientation of family court as an example of the challenges coercive control laws face in implementation
• How we need to commit to full  independence of women in order to  address this insidious liberty crime

Her book See What You Made Me Do  is being adapted into a 3-part series for SBS in 2021.  To learn more visit her website: www.jesshill.net, and follow her  on Twitter: @jessradio

Learn more about coercive control by listening to Season 1, Episode 1: Coercive Control and Consent 

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

The Safe & Together Model is premised on the idea that child serving systems are natural allies to adult domestic violence survivors.  In the Season 2 kick-off episode, David &  Ruth explore the Safe  & Together Model's principle of partnering and the six steps of partnering practice.   The episode includes an examination of the obstacles to partnering and six practical steps professionals can take to improve their work with survivors.   

Read more about survivors protective capacities

Download our Ally Guide

FAQs about challenges working with survivors

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

In this episode, David and Ruth look back over the  highlights of the first season of Partnered with a Survivor.  They talk about the genesis of the show, favorite episodes,  and the value of survivor anger.   The episode also includes a preview of 2021 episodes including an interview with author Jess Hill, and a new series that looks inside the Safe & Together Institute.  See you in 2021!!

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

The last few decades has seen  the dramatic rise of the criminalization of domestic violence perpetration across the globe.   As a result, police have received a large share of domestic violence funding and partnerships between law enforcement and advocates have become the norm.  But if only 20% of survivors feel safer after calling the police , then it is important to think critically about the relationship between survivors and their advocates, and the criminal justice system. 

In this episode, David & Ruth explore the relationship between advocates and law enforcement  with author and law school professor Leigh Goodmark and a team from Embrace, a network of Refuge's serving communities rural Wisconsin.  The Embrace team shares the story of how funding was clawed back by a sheriff and local government council  who objected to their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, racial equity and police reform. They discuss the realities of advocacy in the current atmosphere of calls for police reform, and how law enforcement's response sometimes has a chilling effect on victims of violence seeking assistance. Leigh Goodmark shares  her insights into the history of advocacy within the context of the carceral system.

To learn about the Embrace program: https://www.embracewi.org/

To donate to Embrace: https://www.gofundme.com/f/embrace-loses-county-funding-over-blm-support

Read Leigh's New York Times op-ed on decriminalizing domestic violence

Purchase Decriminalizing Domestic Violence by Leigh Goodmark

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

In 2020, the  Centre for  Women's Justice filed a groundbreaking "super complaint" against all police forces in England and Wales.   The complaint alleged patterns of "serious concerns about the way policing systems operate where police officers are accused of domestic abuse" and raising concerns of a " lack of integrity, of officers manipulating the system and acting in bad faith in a variety of ways."

In this episode, David and Ruth interview Nogah Ofer, the CWJ solicitor who filed the complaint and Amy (not her real name), who is an OIDV survivor whose story is included in the complaint. The interview  covers:

• the genesis of the complaint
• the patterns of abuse and experiences of UK OIDV survivors
• the failures of the police system to respond effectively to these officers' behaviours

In the episode, Amy shares the details of her abuse and how the system failed to respond to her safety needs.

Listen to other episodes in the series:

Episode 28: “I have something I want to talk to you about...”: A conversation about the experiences of OIDV survivors with pioneering researcher Dr. Leanor Boulin Johnson

Episode 27: “How much crime are you willing to let your police commit?”: An interview with Lieutenant Detective Mark Wynn (Ret) and Police Chief Tom Tremblay (Ret)

Episode 26: Listening to the voices of survivors of officer-involved domestic violence: An interview with Nanette Chezum

Episode 25: When police officers commit domestic violence: Award-winning journalist and author Alex Roslin on the global problem of officer-involved domestic violence

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

The term "trauma bonding" was originally coined by Patrick Carnes,  who was a proponent of the concept of sex addiction.  He originally developed the term to describe "the misuse of fear, excitement, sexual feelings, and sexual physiology to entangle another person." A simpler and more encompassing definition is that traumatic bonding is: "a strong emotional attachment between an abused person and his or her abuser, formed as a result of the cycle of violence."

 Problematically, the term is often misapplied to survivors rather than focusing on perpetrators and their choices and tactics. In this episode Ruth and David discuss 4 ways the concept works against survivors: 

• Problem #1: It deemphasizes or ignores  perpetrators' behaviors that keep survivors trapped in an abusive situation.
• Problem #2:  It blames victims for  the  failure of friends, family, professionals, and faith leaders failure to hold  perpetrators accountable for their actions.
• Problem 3: It focuses professionals on the survivor, not the perpetrator.
• Problem 4: It lets systems  and professionals off the hook for how they are not responding well to survivors and perpetrators

David and Ruth also explore the connections between the concept of trauma bonding and Stockholm Syndrome, co-dependency and learned helplessness.  They also examine the differential impact of this term on  poor and indigenous women, women of color, and trans survivors.

Toward the end of the show David and Ruth talk about how the Safe & Together Institute's approach offers professionals alternative approaches to working with survivors including: 

• Making sure that any discussion of trauma is contextualize to the perpetrator's pattern
  
  
• Actively seeking to understand behaviors of resistance and protection for self and others 
  
  
• Working to ensure that the response that a survivor gets for disclosure is a positive experience (validation, partnership and consequences for the perpetrator) 
  
  
• Respecting survivors unique needs
  
  
• Using tools like the Ally Guide to communicate to professional and kin
  
  
• Training professionals to recognize  a) the patterns of manipulation by perpetrators, b) and b) their vulnerabilities to manipulation 

Listen to other related episodes:

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

Family courts' decisions related to domestic violence and child abuse have tremendous impact on the lives of adult and child survivors. These decisions are suppose to serve the "best interests" of the children in these families. Yet, as research indicates, reports of domestic violence and child abuse are more likely to be disbelieved than believed by family courts.  

In this episode, David and Ruth speak to Joan Meier, an internationally renown author, researcher and attorney, about about her years of experience with family court and abuse, and her recent ground-breaking research study on US family court decisions related to abuse allegations.  Highlights of her research,  from an empirical study of ten years U.S. cases involving abuse and alienation claims, include:

•  data that confirms that mothers’ claims of abuse, especially child physical or sexual abuse, increase their risk of losing custody, and that fathers’ cross-claims of alienation virtually double that risk
• Alienation’s impact is gender-specific; fathers alleging mothers are abusive are not similarly undermined when mothers cross-claim alienation. 

Read the full paper: "U.S. child custody outcomes in cases involving parental alienation and abuse allegations: what do the data show?"

Download infographic of key results of the research

Recommendations for domestic violence survivors involved in family court proceedings

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

The first police spouse Dr. Leanor Boulin Johnson interviewed came in to the office, sat down and said: "I have something I want to talk to you about, and I really don't care what you want to talk to me about. I'm going to tell you what I want you to know about my stress." (p. 60 from Police Wife by Alex Roslin)  She went on to  tell Dr. Johnson and her colleague about how her police officer husband was beating her.  More stories of police officer perpetrated domestic violence were uncovered as the research continued. With each disclosure, Dr. Johnson was thrown deeper and deeper into the hidden world of officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV). 

Over more than thirty years, Dr. Johnson has done multiple studies and even testified to the United States Congress about officer involved domestic violence. Dr. Johnson, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University didn’t set out  to research officer-involved domestic violence. As a professor in African-American and Family Studies, she was looking to research women’s roles in the workplace. After running into roadblock after roadblock, she landed on studying police officers’ stress including their families.  In this conversation with David & Ruth, Dr. Johnson shares her insights and observations related to OIDV including her concerns for the health of police families, lack of support for police officers, and the connections between OIDV and police brutality.  

During this interview Dr. Johnson talks about:

• The connection between “authoritarian spillover,” OIDV and police brutality 
• The gender and race differences in her research 
• How police officers’ need for support and connection is central to addressing OIDV and excessive force problems

For those interested in learning more about her research you can email her directly at: [email protected]

To read more about how research you can read Alex Roslin’s book Police Wife

To listen to  the other episodes in this series:

• Episode 27: “How much crime are you willing to let your police commit?”: An interview with Lieutenant Detective Mark Wynn (Ret) and Police Chief Tom Tremblay (Ret)
• Episode 26: Listening to the voices of survivo

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Send us a text

Police have been fighting against officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV)  for decades. In this episode, David & Ruth interviews two international law enforcement experts and advocates fighting against the perpetration of domestic violence by police officers. Mark Wynn and Tom Tremblay talk about how: 

• Officer -involved domestic violence violates the public trust
• Police executives that don’t address OIDV are colluding with criminals
• Police officer stress is not a cause of OIDV
• OIDV is tied to male dominated culture in police forces  
• Use of excessive force and OIDV are connected and need to be addressed together

To learn more about Mary Wynn’s consulting

To learn more about Tom Tremblay’s consulting 

To listen to  the other episodes in this series:

• Episode 26: Listening to the voices of survivors of officer-involved domestic violence: An interview with Nanette Chezum
• Episode 25: When police officers commit domestic violence: Award winning journalist and author Alex Roslin on the global problem of officer-involved domestic violence

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events