WEBINAR series

The 2024
Quick Take Series

In this free webinar series, Safe & Together experts lead short webinars of 20-30 minutes, focusing on engaging topics related to the Safe & Together Model and Tools.

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Upcoming Quick Take Webinars...

Many jurisdictions have some sort of multi-agency domestic violence meeting that is designed to improve coordination and collaboration around high risk cases. While these meetings are invaluable in managing risk, their efficiency and effectiveness can be hampered by a lack of common language around items like the harm caused by domestic violence perpetrators, perpetrators as parents, protective efforts of survivors, and perpetrators’ manipulation of systems.

In this Quick Takes webinar, you will learn more about the gaps in risk assessment frameworks, how these gaps hinder collaboration and staying centered on the needs of adult and child survivors, and how to increase shared understandings of harm and other areas as part of your multi-agency/high risk team.

Have you ever seen a professional expect a survivor to control a perpetrator’s behaviors? You have seen this if you’ve seen a plan that says, “The survivor will ensure that children will not be exposed to more violence.” When an agency expects their workers to create plans like this, they are engaging in “domestic violence-destructive” behavior. This refers to practice that increases the risk to survivors or pushes them away from support.

“Domestic violence-destructive” practice is at the “bad” end of the Continuum of Domestic Violence-Informed Practice. Domestic violence-proficient, or the “good” end of the continuum, is closely correlated assessments based on the perpetrator’s pattern of behavior. In this Quick Takes webinar, you will learn about the Continuum of Domestic Violence-Informed Practice and how to evaluate your own and your agency’s practice.

It really does matter whether you write, “The children were exposed to domestic violence” or “the perpetrator’s pattern of abuse and control has impacted children’s social and emotional development.” It does matter whether you say, “the survivor let him back into the house,” or “the perpetrator showed up to the home in violation of the court order.”

In this Quick Take webinar, you will learn some basics of domestic violence-informed documentation and why it matters to document cases using a domestic violence-informed approach.

Learn more about our previous Quick Takes...

Often the conversation about survivors starts and finishes with their trauma and entrapment. While the negative impacts of abuse are real, survivors are more than their injuries and losses. On a daily basis, in big and small ways, survivors engage in acts of resistance and protection for themselves and their children. In this Quick Takes webinar, you will learn: 1) how we often wrongly limit our understanding of survivors' strengths, especially for survivors from marginalized communities, 2) how to move from a deficit-based approach to a strength-based approach with survivors, and 3) how to document those strengths for systems that make decisions about survivors as parents.

Accountability for perpetrators as parents is one of the top priorities for adult and child survivors. Survivors’ worries and hopes are often intimately tied to their children's safety and well-being. Even when a survivor is able to leave an abusive relationship, the perpetrator often continues to control post-separation via the children, sometimes directly, other times via systems like child protection and family court. In this Quick Takes webinar, you will learn about how a perpetrator pattern-based approach forms the foundation of accountability for perpetrators as parents, how gender double standards are barriers to accountability (and how to overcome those barriers), and how setting behavior change expectations can help improve outcomes for survivors in different systems like family court.

Many social work approaches talk about taking a ‘strength-based’ approach to work with families. While a strength-based approach is very appropriate for domestic violence survivors, it is more complex and potentially dangerous when applied to domestic violence perpetrators. In this Quick Takes webinar, you will learn more about the challenges of applying strength-based approaches to domestic violence perpetrators and some tips to integrate strength-based practice with perpetrator accountability and meaningful change.

Unfortunately, we all have been in meetings where the conversation about harm to children focuses on a victim’s choices instead of the perpetrator’s responsibility for causing harm. These conversations aren’t just unfair- they can result in efficient and ineffective practice and in some cases the unnecessary removal of children from protective parents.

This Quick Take session will outline a simple, powerful and field-tested 3 step practice for turning the focus onto the source of the harm: the perpetrator’s actions and choices.

For almost two decades, the Safe & Together Model has been using the concept of coercive control to improve assessments of perpetrator’s patterns of behavior. Instead of a limited focus on physical violence, the Safe & Together Model embraces the understanding that the robust and more comprehensive concept of coercive control offers one of the best ways to understand how domestic violence perpetrators create danger & harm for adult and child survivors.

This Quick Take session will dive into the concept of coercive control, how it shapes the Safe & Together Model, and how to use the concept to improve your practice.

To be truly domestic violence-informed, an organization needs to apply the principles of the Safe & Together Model to its own staff. Regardless of its mission, service or product, every company has employees who have been harmed by domestic violence. When survivors do not feel supported by their agency, workplace performance can suffer. It can also impact retention and attrition.

In a webinar designed for a wide variety of governments, NGOs and private companies, David Mandel, CEO and founder of the Safe & Together Institute will outline some of the key dynamics related to HR and domestic violence and how organizations can start to support their employees who are survivors.

About David Mandel

With over 30 years’ experience in the domestic violence field, David’s international training and consulting focuses on improving systems’ responses to domestic violence when children are involved. Through years of work with child welfare systems, David has developed the Safe & Together™ Model to improve case practice and cross-system collaboration in domestic violence cases involving children. He has also identified how a perpetrator pattern-based approach can improve our ability to help families and promote the development of domestic violence-informed child welfare systems.

Follow David Mandel on Twitter @davidgmandel

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Safe & Together Institute
PO Box 745
Canton, Ct 06019
connect@safeandtogetherinstitute.com
1.860.319.0966

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The 2024Quick Take Series

Once you've registered for the Quick Take series, you are automatically enrolled in upcoming sessions. You won't need to register again!

Upcoming Quick Take Webinars...

Using a Common Language to Improve Your Multi–Agency/High Risk Response

Using a Common Language to Improve Your Multi–Agency/High Risk Response

Using the Safe & Together Model to Support the Rights of the Child in Domestic Violence Cases

Is My Agency Domestic Violence-Informed?

Is My Agency Domestic Violence-Informed?

Is My Agency Domestic Violence-Informed?

Good (vs. Bad) Domestic Violence Documentation

Good (vs. Bad) Domestic Violence Documentation

Good (vs. Bad) Domestic Violence Documentation

Learn more about our previous Quick Takes...

Strength-Based Work with Survivors

Strength-Based Work with Survivors

Strength-Based Work with Survivors

Increasing Accountability for Perpetrators as Parents

Increasing Accountability for Perpetrators as Parents

Increasing Accountability for Perpetrators as Parents

Pros and Cons of Strength-Based Work with Domestic Violence Perpetrators

Pros and Cons of Strength-Based Work with Domestic Violence Perpetrators

Pros and Cons of Strength-Based Work with Domestic Violence Perpetrators

Pivoting to the Perpetrator: How to Prevent Victim Blaming in Real Time

Pivoting to the Perpetrator: How to Prevent Victim Blaming in Real Time

Pivoting to the Perpetrator: How to Prevent Victim Blaming in Real Time

Using the Safe & Together Model to Support the Rights of the Child in Domestic Violence Cases

Using the Safe & Together Model to Support the Rights of the Child in Domestic Violence Cases

Using the Safe & Together Model to Support the Rights of the Child in Domestic Violence Cases

Coercive Control: How the Safe & Together Model Brings It Alive in Practice

Coercive Control: How the Safe & Together Model Brings It Alive in Practice

Coercive Control: How the Safe & Together Model Brings It Alive in Practice

HR and the Safe & Together Model: Creating a domestic violence-informed agency for your employees

HR and the Safe & Together Model: Creating a domestic violence-informed agency for your employees

HR and the Safe & Together Model: Creating a domestic violence-informed agency for your employees

About David Mandel

Get in touch

Policies

Stay Connected

The 2024
Quick Take Series