Safe and Together

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

Posts Tagged safety planning

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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The language of child safety

Mar 10

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

By Kristen Selleck, MSW

National Training and Consultation Director

Professionals who work in the domestic violence and child welfare fields use language that others outside these fields may find unusual. Terms such as fatality, safety planning, imminency, order of protection, and many others are common in our conversations but are not always common for others outside our professions. Although professionals in both fields use the same terms, the words may have slightly different meanings whether you’re working in child welfare or if you’re working in the domestic violence field.   This was apparent to me during a recent training I facilitated that was attended by domestic violence advocates and child welfare staff.

Safety planning, for example, in the domestic violence field is about planning with a battered woman based on her experience and needs with her input. Within a framework of “woman defined advocacy,” domestic violence advocates work with their clients to strengthen plans the client has already enacted and provide her with information to broaden her options. Domestic violence advocates safety plan with clients who choose to stay with the batterer and those who choose to leave. Its hallmark is the collaboration between the advocate and the survivor that prioritizes the adult survivor’s right to make her decisions and the centrality of the wisdom gleaned from her experience of the batterer and her situation.

For child welfare workers, safety planning means something significantly different. Child welfare workers regularly use the term “safety planning” to mean the process for developing a plan for keeping children safe from the risk factors in the home. A safety plan for child welfare often involves a parent agreeing to engage in steps to ensure child safety. These steps could involve attending substance abuse treatment, leaving the home, or to ensuring a child is safely sleeping without hazards. Child welfare safety plans may include language about domestic violence but this will rarely be the only item written down as a task or goal for a parent.   Even when domestic violence is included in a child welfare safety plan, it is singularly focused on creating conditions related to the safety of the child.

Because of this difference, along with the many other terms that both professional fields use with slightly different meaning, domestic violence advocates and child welfare workers can believe they’re on the same page when they are not. This can lead to confusion and tensions between the fields. In the training I recently facilitated, advocates and child welfare staff had an open discussion about the barriers to their communication, including differences in the meaning of terms. It was a frank and important discussion to address and move past these barriers to improve communication. Throughout the training, the participants worked at defining their terms and using the Safe and Together model as  a framework and common language for collaborative conversations focused on the safety and well-being of children and their mothers. It is useful for domestic violence advocates to articulate the importance of child safety to working towards safety and empowerment for domestic violence survivors. It would also be helpful for child welfare to work towards the safety of adults as part of their safety planning for children.

With such alignment around ending violence and keeping children safe, domestic violence advocates and child welfare workers should be natural allies. There are, however, tensions at times between the fields. By talking openly about these tensions and finding common ground and common purpose (at times through a mutually understood language), I believe that domestic violence and child welfare fields working together will only improve the outcomes for families. In areas where there is good partnership between advocates and child welfare, I have seen extraordinary collaborative efforts that have led to safe outcomes for children while they can remain in the care of the non-offending parent.  I am also excited to see efforts to improve collaboration in various locations throughout the country as I believe it will only lead to improved outcomes for battered women and their children. This can be accomplished in various ways, but it is an important step for advocates and child welfare alike to learn about each other’s positions, missions and the language each field uses to discuss the safety of children and their mothers.

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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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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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Partnering with Survivors at the Core of Keeping Children Safe

Apr 11

Posted by David Mandel in Safe and Together Model

by David Mandel

A meaningful child welfare response to domestic violence needs to be articulated from the perspective of the safety and well-being of  children.  I’ve heard many child welfare workers say “I am empathetic to the survivor* and I don’t want to re-victimize her but…my bottom line is the safety and well-being of those children.”  Any training or initiative that hopes to influence the practice of child welfare in domestic violence cases needs to accept and even embrace this reality.   Statute, policy and culture all point in the same direction.  Our communities and legislatures have made it clear that child welfare agencies have been given a trust—intervene in families to protect children from their abusive or neglectful parents.

Acknowledging the legitimacy and importance of child welfare’s role in protecting our children forms a critical starting point of the Safe and Together model.   So when the question arises about how to relate to the adult survivor of domestic violence, the Safe and Together model starts with the principle:

#1: Keeping children safe and together with the survivor ( non-offending parent) is ideal from the perspective of the children.

Given the active role that most survivor’s play in promoting the physical safety and well being of their children, the stabilizing and healing role that non-offending parents play in regards to the trauma caused by the perpetrator and the traumatic impact of removal, any child centered intervention needs to have as this principle as a value guiding decision making. Following this, the next two principles provide further direction:

#2: A successful partnership with the non-offending parents is one of the best ways to keep the children safe.


#3: How we define how domestic violence survivors are “active” in protecting their children is directly related to child welfare’s willingness and ability to development meaningful partnerships with the survivors. A broader definition of “active” promotes collaborative safety planning that is based on the specific experience of the survivor.

The development of meaningful partnerships between child welfare and domestic violence survivors around the safety and well-being strongly hinge on child welfare’s ability to expand the yardstick it uses to measure the protective capacity of the domestic violence survivor (or non-offending parent).    We’ve defined protective survivors as the ones who either 1) leave/end the relationship 2) pursue a civil stay away order and/or 3) call law enforcement. Survivors who aren’t willing or able to pursue these options are assessed as:

  • Making bad choices
  • Having poor judgment
  • Not understanding the impact of the domestic violence on their children
  • Picking the perpetrator over the children

All of which boil down to, in child welfare parlance, as “failing to protect.”
So what’s wrong with this yardstick to measure the protective capacity of the non-offending parent (domestic violence survivor)?

#1: It wrongly focuses on living arrangements and relationship status versus the domestic violence perpetrator’s tactics and access to the children. Most domestic violence perpetrators continue to have access to their children even when a relationship ends, after an arrest or as part of civil court proceedings.  Our focus should be on how a perpetrator is harming or using the children versus whether the parents remain living together or in relationship.

#2: It ignores everything that a non-offending parent is doing day to day to actively reduce the impact of the domestic violence on her children. This includes talking to them about safety, helping them process their feelings, providing nurturance and stability in teeth of the domestic violence perpetrator’s disruptive and destabilizing behavior patterns, and developing plans that may shield them from significant portions of the abuse.    Much of ignorance in this area derives from our double standards regarding mothers and fathers.

#3: It assumes that the non-offending parent is in control of the violence versus the perpetrator. This is best seen in safety or case plans that developed by child welfare that ask the survivor to “not engage in any more violence.”

The yardstick is flawed because it is based on inaccurate assumptions which place unnecessary barriers to collaboration between child welfare and survivors.The impact of these myths is missed opportunities to partner with non-offending parents (survivors) who are sincerely and actively invested in the safety and well-being of their children. This in turn may lead to poor case planning and inefficiency as the child  welfare systems invests energy in developing and enforcing its own strategies for safety. And since these strategies are being developed without the input of the person most knowledgeable about the perpetrator’s behavior, they are often unnecessarily aggressive and disruptive to the family, trap the non-offending parent between the child welfare system and the perpetrator, and fail to meet the needs of the children.

*Throughout this blog I will use the term “survivor” and “non-offending parent” interchangeably. When  domestic violence is the focus of a child welfare intervention it is important to articulate that the survivor is the non-offending parent (except when  they engage in their own specific abusive or neglectful behaviors).  Inappropriately  labeling a domestic violence survivor as a perpetrator of child abuse and/or neglect can create an unnecessary obstacle to collaborative safety planning, push the survivor and perpetrator into an avoidable alliance against child protection. It can shift the focus off the domestic violence perpetrator and offer him another potential tool for gaining power over the survivor and impeding her efforts to protect the children.

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