Safe and Together

Shifting the paradigm where domestic violence, child maltreatment and child welfare meet

Daycare providers as an example of who else should be at our collaborative “table”

Jan 27

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

By Kristen Selleck, MSW

National Training and Consultation Director

I recently facilitated a training attended by child welfare investigators, family preservation and other in-home service providers, domestic violence advocates, and day care providers who work with child welfare involved clients. The varied group of professionals in this training led me to think about the importance of including less conventional community partners in our domestic violence-child welfare collaborations.

Hearing the experiences and needs of daycare providers within this group led me to reflect upon the numerous professionals who have regular contact with children but are not regularly working with child welfare; these professionals can be allies in working toward the safety and well-being of children. Teachers, coaches, clergy members and religious educators, school administrators, doctors, nurses, daycare providers, therapists and counselors, bus drivers, guidance counselors, mentors, and others work with children on a daily basis; it is uncommon for many of these community partners to be involved in training together with child welfare staff to develop a shared language for the critical discussion about child safety and well-being. Vitally important in the day-to-day lives of children, these professionals provide and ensure children’s heath, routine, structure, social development, education or developmentally appropriate play. For a child exposed to a domestic violence perpetrator’s behavior, these things can assist a child in healing. However, in the child welfare and domestic violence fields, we rarely take the opportunity to collaborate with these other professionals who spend significant time with children on a regular basis.

Collaboration with others in children’s daily lives would require some cross training. Child welfare and domestic violence agencies could learn about the structure of different professionals’ capacities and obligations for their work with children. Additionally, child welfare and domestic violence professionals could educate these providers about indicators of exposure to domestic violence as well as ways to provide for the needs of children to have safety, stability and an opportunity to talk about their experiences.

In the recent training I facilitated, the presence of daycare providers working with child welfare involved children was beneficial to them and to the group as a whole. As the entire group learned about the Safe and Together model, the day care providers in the room were able to discuss with the group their observations about how children were impacted by domestic violence and begin to formulate ideas about how to improve their own responses to children; this information was useful to child welfare staff in thinking about how to gather information for their documentation about the children on their case loads.

As a result of this training, relationships were formed that hopefully will lead to improved collaboration, communication, and practice. By regularly communicating about the children (their needs, their behaviors, and their comments), child welfare and community providers can continue to monitor the behaviors of perpetrators of domestic violence as well as the impact of that battering on children. In addition, input from community providers can assist child welfare staff in learning about the strengths of non-offending parents through information about their actions to protect and provide for routine and stability for children. With more information, child welfare workers and management can make better educated decisions about their case plans and the needs of the children on their caseloads. This training opened my eyes about community partners I personally had not thought about engaging with through the Safe and Together model. Going forward in my work I know that I will be asking questions about the inclusion of child care providers and other unconventional partners in communities’ efforts to address the needs of families impacted by domestic violence perpetrators.

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Preventing disclosures of abuse and neglect

Jan 20

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

By David Mandel

By now,  everyone is clear about  how damaging, counterproductive and dangerous it is when law enforcement officers tell a domestic violence violence survivor that any new reports of violence will lead to the arrest of both herself and her partner.  While this is not a sanctioned practiced, some domestic violence survivors report that this is what she was directly told or that it was implied through the interaction with law enforcement. For folks who aren’t clear about the downside to this practice:  it blames the survivor for the violence;  it adds, for the survivor, the threat of arrest and incarceration to the existing danger posed by the perpetrator; and makes the survivor more vulnerable because of the barrier it represents to help seeking.

There are parallels to this situation in child welfare. The following are similar actions:

  1. Asking a domestic violence survivor to sign a case plan that includes a condition of  “No further engagement in  violence in the home.”
  2. Workers directly stating or suggesting that if there is any more violence will summarily lead to more aggressive steps being taken, e.g. filing a petition or removal of a child.
  3. Not clarifying to a domestic violence survivor (and the perpetrator) the child welfare agency’s expectations and likely responses to new incidents of violence including the ways the agency could helpful and supportive to the survivor and her child if new violence was reported.

These actions, like those of law enforcement, can prevent disclosure of  new incidents of abuse and/or neglect;  increase the vulnerability of domestic violence survivors and their children; give perpetrators more power; decrease the flow of information on risk and safety factors to outsiders including child welfare; further isolate a survivor and her children from their support system; and ultimately impede the development of effective plans or timely interventions.

The interests of domestic violence survivors and child welfare are, in my opinion, highly consistent with one another.  Both the survivor and child welfare are interested in seeing the domestic violence stop and seeing the survivor’s child safe and well.  These common interests can form the basis of partnership and collaborative planning. And one of the principle steps to creating an effective partnership with the domestic violence survivor  removing barriers to that partnership while taking practice and policy positions that encourage collaboration.

A collaborative approach to domestic violence survivors is characterized by the following:

  1. Child welfare clearly explaining their approach to domestic violence issues to the survivor.  This approach starts with child welfare specifically articulating that it sees the perpetrator as responsible for causing the violence and being the source of the harm to the children. It is also includes stating that child welfare wants to partner with the survivor around the safety and well being of the children and intervene with the perpetrator to reduce is harmful impact on the family.
  2. Child welfare actively seeking to understand the domestic violence survivor’s strengths including the actions she takes on a daily basis to maintain her children’s  safety, stability and well being.  This includes understanding what she does to maintain their basic needs.
  3. The collaborative development of a safety plan for the children that fits with the perpetrator’s patterns, the survivor’s resources and can be documented by child welfare.
  4. Validation, by child welfare, of the survivor’s strengths (which does not preclude expressing concerns about the perpetrator’s danger to the survivor and the children or asking the survivor to agree to certain jointly identified steps to improve the safety and well being of the child.)
  5. Child welfare taking other active steps to be an ally and a support to the domestic violence survivor and her children.  This can include helping her with housing, other basic needs for herself and her children, helping overcome barriers to assistance and so on.

Domestic violence survivors are assessing outsiders through the lens:  “Are you going to make things better or worse for me and my children?  When child welfare takes the steps like the ones outlined above, they demonstrate to domestic violence survivors (and their advocates) that they understand her experience, that they won’t blame her for the perpetrator’s actions and that they will actively partner with her in practical, concrete and useful ways around the safety and well being of the children.   These steps can lead to more information about what is happening in the home and the development of more efficient, effective case plans.  This collaborative approach can ultimately pay huge dividends for child welfare and for families in the form of increased safety and well-being.

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Paying attention to worker safety in domestic violence cases

Jan 11

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

by Kristen Selleck, MSW, National Training and Consultation Director

Successful child welfare interventions with families experiencing domestic violence depends on child welfare staff feeling confident, competent, and comfortable in working with situations where violence is a possibility. As part of our Safe and Together model we discuss safety concerns and safety measures taken by child welfare workers during the course of their daily tasks.

For example, worker safety needs to be considered when engaging and interviewing a perpetrator. The assessment of worker’s safety begins with seeking all available knowledge about the batterer’s specific tactics (his use of violence, threats and his potential actions towards escalation) and risk factors (possession of weapon, criminal record, past attempts or acts of aggression towards police or child welfare among others) prior to interviewing domestic violence perpetrators. While we know that the vast majority of domestic violence perpetrators will pose no physical harm towards child welfare workers, it is important to recognize that, despite this low occurrence of incidents, many workers have fear and worry at times when interviewing perpetrators of domestic violence. These fears can be about their own safety or fears that the intervention will trigger harm to the family members.

When I was a domestic violence victim advocate, clients spoke about their instinctive awareness of a batterer’s escalation. Numerous clients could identify key signals that their abuser was working himself up towards choosing to be violent. Battered women’s instincts were important to their ability to safety plan.  This is true for child welfare workers whose instincts are shaped and enhanced by their training, their supervision and their use of consultation.

I recently sat in on an interview of a domestic violence perpetrator by a child protective investigator in which the client was visibly agitated and fixated on the investigator’s ability (or lack thereof) to allow him to see his children despite the presence of a court order barring him from seeing his children. When the investigator appropriately explained her inability to change a judge’s order, the client became increasingly agitated and aggressive before finally stating that he wanted to harm someone. My instincts told me that the investigator and I were in physical danger and I repeatedly motioned to the investigator that we needed to end the interview. The investigator continued her interview until I stated that we had to leave. After we safely were out of the situation, I asked this investigator, for whom I have utmost respect, why she did not end the interview. She stated that she did not want her supervisor to be angry that she had not collected all of the information she was required to obtain.

Child welfare workers have incredibly difficult jobs with high levels of potential risk; much like firefighters walking into a burning building, child welfare workers walk into homes and situations that most people would turn away from. It is the job of a child welfare worker to go into volatile homes without armor, weaponry, badges or even hazardous duty pay. They face strict time frames and expectations of their duties and at times what falls by the wayside is their ability to take the time to trust their own instincts and walk away from a potentially dangerous situation.  While workers understand this risk and do their jobs despite it, it is important to recognize the tension between meeting the needs of a job and maintaining one’s safety.

It is important for child welfare supervisors, managers and consultants to allow for ongoing conversations about their workers’ anxieties and worries. These conversations will increase the likelihood that workers will use their instincts and make decisions based on those instincts rather than on a blanket anxiety that doesn’t account for the specific risk posed by any particular domestic violence perpetrator.

Here are some tips for workers and their supervisors to think about related to assessing worker safety related to going into homes with domestic violence:

  1. Worker should seek out information on related to the perpetrator’s dangerousness from multiple sources including criminal record, child welfare case records, and interviews with family members and collaterals.
  2. It is especially useful for workers to ask the domestic violence survivor how she believes the perpetrator will respond to the presence of child welfare.
  3. It is helpful for workers to understand the warning signs of high-risk or dangerous situations including perpetrators who have a history of assaultive and/or threatening behaviors to non-family members.  Especial attention should be paid to perpetrators who have history of assaultive and/or threatening behavior to law enforcement, child welfare and/or other authority figures.
  4. To actively seek out information regarding perpetrator access to or a history of weapon possession.
  5. Workers who are aware of potentially dangerous clients may feel more comfortable interviewing perpetrators in safe locations, such as courts, police departments or in the child welfare office.
  6. Child welfare staff should also have the opportunity to process their fears and concerns with their supervisors and learn about de-escalation tactics to assist them in their interviews with potentially dangerous domestic violence perpetrators.
  7. Cases involving high risk perpetrators can often benefit from being teamed with in a multi-disciplinary setting that includes law enforcement, child welfare and others.

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A brief overview of the Safe and Together model

Oct 29

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

This short paper describes the Safe and Together model, the context for its importance,  select evaluation data and the standard elements of the Safe and Together training and technical assistance package for child welfare and its partners. To view click here.

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Domestic violence training for supervisors produces some positive results

Sep 29

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

by David Mandel

“In child welfare cases involving domestic violence, supervision plays a critical role in determining the quality and consistency of case practice.   The expectations of supervisors and managers, as expressed through their questions and directives, determine workers’ priorities and areas of focus. Supervisors and managers make the critical decisions regarding case substantiation, transfer and removal.   In domestic violence cases,  it is the supervisor who decides whether a worker’s assessment of the domestic violence perpetrator’s threat to a child safety is complete. It is the supervisor who reviews the worker’s discussion with the survivor regarding safety planning and the children’s well-being.  It is the supervisor who often decides whether a case will be opened and transferred. And managers are frequently involved in cases, providing feedback and direction.” (excerpted from Supervising Domestic Violence Cases: A Training for Child Welfare Supervisors and Managers by David Mandel)

Starting in June 2008, I’ve been delivering targeted day long trainings for CT’s Department of Children and Families’ supervisors and managers entitled “Supervising Domestic Violence Cases.”   And as a follow up to the training,  I surveyed the participants regarding changes in their supervisory practice and their perception of the training is changing outcomes for families. The results are promising.

  • 66% of the respondents identified specific positive changes in their supervisory practice including (1) improved and increased utilization of the Domestic Violence Consultants; (2) greater understanding of the dynamics of coercive control and its impact on the family; (3) increased understanding of survivors’ strengths and safety planning; and (4) more specific questions and directives to workers.
  • 62% indicated positive change in their workers’ practice as a result of their training in the Safe and Together model including 1) workers were more empathetic and supportive to domestic violence survivors; 2) improved assessment and information gathering and 3) improved utilization of the Domestic Violence Consultants.
  • 50% of the respondents indicated positive changes in outcomes for families as a result of the training including 1) increased ability to maintain children safely in the home resulting in fewer out of home placements 2) referrals better tailored to the needs of the family 3) more support for domestic violence survivors and 4) greater accountability for the domestic violence perpetrator.
  • 69% of the respondents indicated continued positive or improved utilization of the Domestic Violence Consultants. For example, one supervisor reported an 80% increase in referrals to their Area Office Domestic Violence Consultant and other supervisors indicated workers were better prepared for the consultation process.

To read the full report on the training and the survey click here.


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David Mandel guest blogs for Hartford Courant Overcoming Battered Lives Series

Sep 1

Posted by David Mandel in Trauma Exposure Reaction

Tomorrow, September 2, I will be a guest blogger for the Hartford Courant Series Overcoming Battered Lives.  The focus of the blog post will be men and domestic violence.  I will be responding to comments on the blog all day.

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Batterer as fathers chapter published

Sep 1

Posted by David Mandel in Batterers as Fathers, Children Exposed to Batterer Behavior

by David Mandel

I recently had a chapter published on Batterers and the Lives of Their Children in the Praeger Perspectives 4 Volume Series “Violence Againt Women in Families and Relationships” edited by Evan Stark and Eve Buzawa.   My chapter appears in Volume Two “The Family Context” and focuses on the connections between batterer’s behavior and children from conception through adulthood.  I also engage issues related to the desire of many battered women for their children to have safe contact with their fathers, the double standard we apply to mother and father’s behaviors and the importance of setting high expectations of change for batterers as fathers.

The entire series offers a comprehensive overview of  the issue of violence against women in families and relationships. The volumes cover victimization and the community response, the family context, the criminal justice system and the law, and the media and cultural attitudes.   The series includes chapters by Evan Stark on the Battered Mothers’ Dillemma,  Joan S. Meier on the Misuse of Parental Alienation Syndrome in Custody Suits,  Leigh Goodmark on Battered Women who Fight Back Againt their Abusers,  Claire M. Renzetti on Intimate Partner Violence and Economic Disadvantage and Janice Ristock on Understanding Violence  in Lesbian Relationships.   Other chapters are by well known scholars and practitioners like Andrew Klein, Eve Buzawa, and Marianne Hester.  The series is a tremendous resource for students, practitioners and academics. I hope you check it out. (Fair warning: The entire series is on sale new for $400 for the four volumes.  If you decide not to purchase it, please recommend it to your local academic institution or library for their collection.)

The series is on sale at Amazon and through the publisher.

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Overcoming Battered Lives

Aug 25

Posted by David Mandel in Trauma Exposure Reaction

The Hartford Courant recently started an on-going series of articles on domestic violence. Their in-depth look at  domestic violence in CT can be accessed here.  As part of this series, Kristen Selleck,  one of the DCF domestic violence consultants trained in the Safe and Together model and a trainer for David Mandel & Associates LLC, is a guest blogger.  Check her blog entries and the other blog postings that are part of this series here.

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Assessing for domestic violence is important for worker safety

Jul 22

Posted by David Mandel in Trauma Exposure Reaction

by David Mandel

Assaults against child welfare workers are generally rare but I recently came in contact with a case where the worker was assaulted by client during a visit.  For agencies  where workers are going into the home for any reason—child welfare, parent aide, in-home family support or other services—there is an unnecessary increase in the danger for case workers when we do not universally screen for domestic violence or fail to integrate existing information about coercive control, threats or acts of violence into our safety assessment.   Even when information about coercive control and violence is available, we may be blind to connecting the dots regarding coercive control and violence because it is a “mental health” or a “physical abuse” case.

The “take away” message: Universal, thorough screening for coercive control and actions taken to harm the children can help identify safety issues for workers going into homes.

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Domestic Violence and Child Welfare: The work always starts with the children

Jul 3

Posted by David Mandel in Children Exposed to Batterer Behavior, Safe and Together Model

by David Mandel

The dynamics of domestic violence pose a series of challenges to child welfare workers. What is the adverse impact of a batterer’s behavior when the children haven’t been physically harmed? How do we identify the presence of domestic violence in families when the presenting issue is something else like substance abuse or mental health issues? How do we work with families when the batterer remains in the home or identify how the batterer may still be impacting the children’s safety and well-being when he is not living in the home? What’s the best treatment plan for families experiencing domestic violence? How do we determine if the situation in the family has changed enough to close a case or reunify the children with one or both parents? And how do to all this while not increasing the safety concerns for the family or the worker?

Looking at domestic violence from the perspective of child welfare is slightly different than domestic violence work from other perspectives. While everyone from the police to court personnel to victim advocates share a common concern for the safety and well-being of the adult and child victims of batterer’s behavior, child welfare workers are the only ones in the system who have a statutory responsibility for the safety and well being of children. And it’s this unique responsibility that demands an approach to domestic violence issues that places the children at the center of the response.  By keeping the children’s perspective in focus, we can better tackle the challenges these cases represent to child welfare workers.

In Children Who See Too Much, Betsy McAlister Groves clearly and thoughtfully lays out what children need when they have been exposed to batterer’s violence. She says that children need 1) a supportive and nurturing parent/caregiver, 2) safety for themselves and their loved ones and 3) an opportunity to express themselves about what has happened to them.  By keeping focused on how batterer’s behavior creates adverse impact for some children and what children need once they have experienced violence in the home, we can more effectively shape our responses to meet the needs of children exposed to batterer’s behavior.  For example, knowing a supportive and nurturing parent is particularly important to children exposed to batterer’s behavior, we can ask assessment questions like “which parent is working towards keeping the children’s environment stable?” or “what is each parent doing to meet the developmental needs of their children?” In many families with domestic violence it is the non-offending parent or domestic violence survivor, not the batterer, who is taking day to day care of the children’s needs. And in many instances they are doing this despite the violence, assaults on their parenting and without significant support of the children’s other parent.

We can also use this same thought process to document the batterer’s limitations as a parent, and outline a case plan for him.   For example, can the children talk to the batterer about the violence that he has perpetrated against them or their mother? While in many cases it will be obvious that the batterer is not willing or able to accept responsibility for his behavior, we would still need to be clear about our expectations for him. These would include being able to tell his children that he was wrong for his behavior and to listen to their feelings about what he did. Even when the batterer does not appear capable of this behavior it is crucial that the social worker document this limitation, articulate it as one of the batterer’s goals and transmit this expectation to any service provider who is working with the batterer. In this way we develop a measure that is useful in promoting success and documenting failure.

Finally children’s stability and well being is tied to the safety of those that they care about including siblings, the non-offending parent and sometimes even the batterer. Children, who are in families where batterers have created instability, fear and physical harm, do better when they are safe and together with their siblings and the non-offending parent. And while there can be some exceptions to this ideal e.g. the domestic violence survivor also physically abuses the children or is significantly compromised as parent by mental health or substance issues, the domestic violence survivor is often the parent who is providing the children with essential emotional support, nurturance and safety in the face of the batterer’s choice to be abusive. To be as effective as possible with these families, our assessment needs to look at the full spectrum of the survivor’s efforts to promote the safety and well being of the children. In identifying these efforts we can document strengths, validate to them to the survivor which can help her feel empowered in the face of the batterer’s emotional abuse and develop a plan that builds on those strengths.

For further information you can visit Children Witness to Violence Project at http://www.childwitnesstoviolence.org.

*This originally appeared as part of a newsletter I write for the Connecticut Department of Children and Families entitled Domestic Violence Matters. That newsletter is circulated to the entire Department as part of its best practice response to domestic violence. To read more about Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families Domestic Violence Consultation Initiative click here.

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