Safe and Together

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

Posts Tagged child welfare supervision

Stories from the 2010 Florida Dependency Summit

Aug 31

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Florida, Safe and Together Model

By Kristen Selleck, MSW

National Training and Consultation Director

I attended the 2010 Florida Dependency Summit and, along with David Mandel and Bridget Reilly, met with various leadership staff from DCF and other agencies that’ve been trained in the Safe and Together model. There were excellent stories from these sites about their implementation, the changes in practice and case outcomes.

Workers and managers alike shared stories about the success for families of the implementation of the Safe and Together model. There were stories about how workers had begun intervening with domestic violence perpetrators to reduce the risk to children. There were stories about children who did not have to be removed from their mothers’ care because of assessing survivors’ strengths. In addition, managers talked about how their workers trained in Safe and Together advocated for maintaining children in the care of domestic violence survivors when other staff (not trained in the model) suggested removal. There were stories about how the assessment skills learned in the Safe and Together training helped DCF maintain the safety of children in cases that had the potential to end tragically.

Here are some of those stories:

  • Several managers discussed their strategies for implementing the Safe and Together model. In Jacksonville, FL, they’ve brought in David Mandel &Associates for additional training for their staff and they do monthly meetings of staff trained in the Safe and Together model to discuss cases and the adherence to the model.
  • In Monroe County, the community based care providers began reviewing all case plans and safety plans to ensure that the language of these documents was in line with the principles of the Safe and Together model. They found that many case plans asked domestic violence survivors to end their partner’s abuse (over which survivors have no control) and made changes to how staff writes these plans to avoid putting the responsibility on survivors to end their partner’s abusive behaviors.
  • One attorney discussed a situation in which they reopened a case that was about to end in the termination of parental rights of a mother. When examining the case it was clear that the mother was a survivor of domestic violence and she’d been alienated from the children by her batterer’s family. By reexamining the case through the Safe and Together lens, DCF was able to reopen the case and establish visitation between the children and their mother to support the healing nature of that relationship and their bond for the sake of the children.
  • One manager discussed a tragic case in which historically DCF would have been very “hard” on the domestic violence survivor. Instead, however, a supervisor trained in Safe and Together partnered with the client and was able to learn important assessment information, safety planning information and information that will shape the case plan to protect the child in the future.
  • And finally, a manager and an attorney discussed a case in which the Safe and Together training and the direct case consultation by Bridget Reilly led to the attorney returning to court and amending the case plan to put in interventions for the batterer who was not biologically related to the child in the home. These interventions were a unique approach that can work to protect the child in the future and to support the domestic violence survivor in caring for her child.

There were many success stories that we heard while at the Summit. The entire experience was, honestly, inspiring for me. To hear the stories of good practice and to think how many children have already been kept safe and their well-being accounted for is more than exciting, it’s heartwarming. It was encouraging and informative for me to also hear the creative and innovative ways in which Safe and Together Florida sites have strategized to maintain the momentum of the Safe and Together training as well as find ways to monitor the implementation and ongoing practice.  It supports my confidence that our collective work is really benefiting families and maintaining the safety and well-being of children every day.

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Creativity Aids in the Application of the Safe and Together Model

Aug 4

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

By Kristen Selleck, MSW

National Training and Consultation Director

In order to maintain the safety and well-being of children with limited resources and  following policies and statutes which weren’t necessarily developed with domestic violence cases in mind, child welfare workers need to be creative or think outside the box.   This skill can assist child welfare workers in their application of the Safe and Together model . Workers committed to intervening with perpetrators and partnering with survivors can develop innovative strategies to achieve child safety.  In recent months, I’ve seen this creativity in action in several states currently using the Safe and Together model.

In Florida, attorneys recommended keeping domestic violence survivors’ safety planning information and confidential disclosures separate from the rest of the case record. This is a creative solution to an issue of survivors’ disclosures being provided to batterers in case plans. Because of the work of this group of attorneys, their colleagues along with case managers and supervisors now have better resources for maintaining the confidentiality of survivors which can directly enhance the safety of children.

In Ohio, a child welfare manager discussed ways to create separate case plans for domestic violence survivors and perpetrators. Currently, families receive one case plan which creates expectations of survivors to end the domestic violence. Because domestic violence survivors do not have the power to change the perpetrators’ behaviors, these plans are inaccurate and set up survivors to fail if their partners choose to continue behaving in an abusive manner. The proposed changes are a creative way to ensure that domestic violence perpetrators are clear on the expectations set for them as well as ensuring survivors are not given the responsibility for ending his abuse. Beyond that, this change can be a creative way of enhancing the children’s safety by ensuring that perpetrators don’t have access to interfering with survivors’ case plans.

In Connecticut, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) has found ways to use the criminal justice system to intervene with perpetrators or find other ways (including subpoenaing perpetrators who are not biologically related to children to juvenile court proceedings or testifying in family court on behalf of the safety needs of the children). These interventions allows DCF to connect perpetrators to services or have court orders in place that assisted in protecting children. In addition, there have been numerous examples of how DCF has partnered with survivors to find creative ways to get children into treatment, to use resources and kin networks to maintain safety for children in the care of the domestic violence survivor.

In each of the above cases, child welfare professionals made significant advances in the practice of partnering with survivors or intervening with perpetrators without having to resort to changes in policy or statute.    So I pose the following questions to the child welfare professions reading this blog: What kind of changes can you make in your practice or the practice of your staff today that will lead to stronger partnerships with domestic violence survivors and/or stronger interventions with perpetrators?  What out-of-the-box actions can you take today that will enhance child safety and well being in cases where domestic violence is a factor?  You don’t need to wait for policy or statues to change in order to make real changes that lead to real improvements in safety and well being.

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10 item checklist about the intersection of domestic violence, substance abuse and mental health issues

Mar 9

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

by David Mandel, MA, LPC

Domestic violence frequently co-occurs with mental health and substance abuse issues.   A batterer may be diagnosed correctly or inappropriately with mental health issues.  A domestic violence survivor may also have a substance abuse problem.  A child who has been exposed to batterer’s behaviors may have mental or behavioral health issues. Frequently our response to these issues are “siloed,” meaning we prioritize one over the other or even completely ignore one issue to focus on another.  For instance substance abuse and mental health counselors may not screen for domestic violence or if domestic violence perpetration  is identified as an issue it may seen as a symptom of the substance abuse.  A survivor’s recovery plan may be developed without consideration of how the perpetrator might try to sabotage her recovery.   Or a child’s behavioral health issues are not evaluated in the context of historic and current domestic violence.

The following is a 1o item checklist to help begin the conversation about the intersection of domestic violence, substance abuse and mental health issues.  I share this list with the idea that raising our awareness by asking questions about the connection between different issues can be huge step forward in our ability to help families.

  1. What is the relationship between domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health issues?
  2. How have the batterer’s behavior created or exacerbated mental health/behavioral health and/or substance abuse issues for the adult survivor and/or child?
  3. What is the relationship between the batterer’s abusive behavior and any of his mental health and/or substance abuse issues?
  4. How is the batterer interfering with/supporting the treatment and recovery of family members?
  5. How are family members more vulnerable to the batterer because of their mental health and/or substance abuse issues?
  6. How is child welfare and others assessing for domestic violence when the presenting issue is adult or child behavioral/mental health/ substance abuse?
  7. What are important case or treatment plan steps when domestic violence is co-occurring with substance abuse and/or mental health issues?
  8. What are skill level/policy/practices of substance abuse and mental service providers regarding assessing for domestic violence, safety planning and the integration of co-occurring issues into their treatment plan?
  9. What information do mental health and substance treatment providers have access to regarding the domestic violence?
  10. What is the training and skill level of mental health or substance abuse evaluators/assessors regarding domestic violence in general and more specifically regarding the co-occurrence of domestic violence with substance abuse and/or mental health issues?

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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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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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Short and long term PTSD symptoms documented in child welfare workers

Jun 2

Posted by David Mandel in Trauma Exposure Reaction

by David Mandel

The March/April 2009 Child Welfare League of America publication Children’s Voices cited a recent study conducted by the New York Administration for Children Services in conjunction with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine which found significant evidence of short and long post traumatic stress symptoms in child welfare workers in New York City. The study which asked workers workers to identify their most distressing work related event found that one week later 60% reported “clinically significant post traumatic stress disorder symptoms.” The study also found that half of that group “continued to experience clinically significant PTSD symptoms an average of 2.15 years later.”

This number doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen the impact of trauma in close colleagues and friends working in child protection and I know the effect first hand.  I’ve been part of many conversations about sleepless nights, weekends lost to fear and anxiety about cases and nightmares filled with violence.  I’ve seen individual workers and entire systems traumatized by the death of  a child.   Child welfare workers have shared with me how their work has intruded into their most private thoughts and relationships.

Given these numbers and experiences, we need to be thinking about how we can shift the child welfare culture to be more responsive to the needs of workers.  The CWLA newsletter described two models of how to respond to trauma exposure reaction and worker stress in a child welfare agency. The Administration for Children Services in New York developed the Resilience Alliance Project which provides 12 sessions of prevention intervention focused on building skills associated with optimism, mastery over negative emotion and in the area of self-care, and collaboration. Importantly the effort has targeted supervisors as well as workers, including a component to help supervisors integrate these skills into their supervisory practice.

Closer to home, Dr. Michael Schultz, a colleague of mine at Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families has been coordinating a series of efforts to support workers with , what he refers to as, worker related stress. Mike, along with others, recognizes that any effective effort to address the impact of the work needs to be broached in a sensitive manner. Workers are often resistant to discussing worker related stress or trauma exposure reaction for fear of being perceived as weak and unable to accomplish their work.  These attitudes are often embedded in the child welfare culture and internalized by workers. (Laura van Dernoot Lipsky directly addresses this issue in her book Trauma Stewardship—see April 14 blog entry) The Department’s efforts to sensitively address this issue have included peer led Worker Support Teams, which reach out to workers who are involved in critical incidents, and day long training for workers in worker related stress. The Department’s commitment to child safety, organizational development and worker well-being come together in staff debriefings after critical incidents. These debriefings blend attentiveness to the impact of the traumatic event on staff,  mutual support, organizational dynamics and the importance of learning lessons that may prevent future critical incidents.

If you want to read entire Children’s Voices article click here.

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Trying to change child welfare’s response to domestic violence? Then support the supervisors!

Apr 29

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

by David Mandel

In the Q & A after a recent conference keynote, an administrator from a child welfare community provider agency posed the following to me: “We’ve trained all our staff in better identification of domestic violence and better case practice but we are not seeing the practice changes that we expected? What are we missing?”   The question excited me because he was speaking directly to the central question of my work:  How do we make sustainable real change in a child welfare system that has a historically poor overall track record in partnering with survivors and intervening with domestic violence perpetrators?

In my experience, lots of things can contribute to training non translating into consistent practice change. While the right policies and resources are obviously critically important, most recently I’ve centered my system change work on the role of child welfare supervisors. It is the supervisors through their directives and expectations that determine the focus and the quality of much of the social work practice. The supervisors are the ones giving workers written or verbal instructions to either “Go out there and get have her sign a safety agreement that she won’t let him back into the house” (usually not recommended) or “Go out there and engage her in a conversation about what will make her safer.” (better)  The supervisors are the ones who review the information that comes from the worker and guides the case through their follow up questions.  It really matters if the supervisors ask their workers questions like “What did you learn about the father’s pattern of coercive control?” or “How does the father interfere with or support mom’s parenting?” It is the supervisors who have the final say in most cases about who the child welfare agency is going to find or indicate for child abuse and/or neglect. And it is the supervisors who convey to new workers that it is good child welfare practice to have partnership with the domestic violence survivor as key objective.

Supervisors don’t operate in vacuum. What they do and say is highly influenced by their supervisors and their agency policy. But here is an important fact: much of what supervisors do is not a matter of policy but practice. And in many agencies supervisors do not get specific training on supervision in general and rarely do they get training on specifically supervising domestic violence issues. Why should we expect supervisors to do a good job with these cases, many of which are complex and high risk, with support and training? So in Connecticut I’ve spent the last year training supervisors and administrators on how to better supervise domestic violence cases. These trainings begin by  having them identify their concerns about their workers practice in domestic violence cases.  I then outline how to apply the Safe and Together model to supervisory practices including how to a) give better, more specific directives to workers, b) evaluate the quality of information a worker presents, and  c) identify and address workers’ thinking errors.

A recent survey of supervisors and managers who participated in the training indicated that that some supervisors have made changes to their daily practice. These supervisors report that they are now asking more specific questions about coercive control and expecting workers to be more explicit in their descriptions of the batterer’s behavior. Some of the supervisors report that the changes in their practice have resulted in fewer removals of children from domestic violence survivors, less victim blaming and more batterer accountability. These changes are consistent with the Safe and Together model and what I had hoped to see when I developed the training. So for child welfare agencies who want to take the next step in improving their response to domestic violence cases, ask yourself  “What can we do to improve the focus and quality of the supervision our workers get in domestic violence cases? What values and expectations are our supervisors transmitting to their workers through their questions and directives?”

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