GIRFEC Meets Safe & Together: Transforming Domestic Abuse Practice in Scotland

By David Mandel, CEO and Founder, Safe & Together Institute 

As a frontline child and family worker in Scotland, you're committed to Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC). But when working with families affected by domestic abuse, you might find yourself struggling to effectively address the perpetrator’s behaviour while supporting survivors and children. You’re not alone in this challenge.

The good news? The Safe & Together Model, already used by most local authorities across Scotland, offers a powerful framework to enhance your GIRFEC practice. By connecting Safe & Together more explicitly to GIRFEC, you can elevate its impact on your work with families.

Practice Framework Alignments

Safe & Together's Multiple Pathways to Harm (MPH) framework aligns perfectly with GIRFEC's SHANARRI indicators. It helps you map out how a perpetrator’s behaviours directly impact a child’s well-being. For example, you might identify how a father’s financial control leads to inadequate heating in the home (affecting the child’s health) or how his disruption of daily routines impacts the child’s school attendance (affecting achievement). This detailed mapping allows for a more comprehensive assessment of risks and needs across all SHANARRI domains.

The Model’s emphasis on partnering with survivor parents reinforces GIRFEC’s principle of working collaboratively with families. By identifying and validating protective efforts, you build stronger alliances to keep children safe and together with non-offending parents—a key goal in the Scottish child protection approach.

Importantly, Safe & Together aligns with the Scottish government’s increased focus on coercive control, as reflected in its recent criminalization under Scottish law. The Model’s perpetrator pattern–based approach helps you identify and document patterns of coercive control that might otherwise be overlooked.

A Common Language for GIRFEC

While Safe & Together brings invaluable insights from beyond Scotland’s borders, it’s been effectively adapted to the local context. It provides a common language that enhances multi-agency work, which is crucial for delivering the coordinated support GIRFEC envisions across Scotland’s diverse services.

As you continue to embed GIRFEC in your practice, integrating Safe & Together principles can significantly enhance your ability to support families affected by domestic abuse. It’s an approach that respects the Scottish framework while offering practical tools to address common challenges.

How are you currently connecting Safe & Together and GIRFEC in your practice? Share your experiences in the comments!