Partnering with Survivors to Protect Children: How One City Revolutionized Children’s Services with Safe & Together
By the Safe & Together Institute Team
Systems change efforts are some of the most challenging undertakings. It’s no surprise that most of us are hesitant to roll the die on system-wide changes. Yet, Manchester Children’s Services (MCS) decided to do exactly that. They radically changed their approach to safeguarding children who have been exposed to domestic violence by partnering with survivors using the Safe & Together Model’s approach. We sat down for a conversation with the champions working tirelessly for the well-being of children in Manchester.
The Manchester Team
Jane Slinger, Lucy Birch, and Steve Brock were instrumental in implementing the Safe & Together Model in Manchester City. Jane is a service manager who coordinates the implementation of service models with social workers and partner agencies. Lucy is a social worker who works closely with direct service providers, interacting closely with the medical system. Steve is a quality assessment consultant who oversees the quality of service provision, training social workers in assessing families from the Safe & Together perspective.
Their Safe & Together Journey
What set Jane and her team down the path of the Safe & Together Model? Jane responded: “High numbers of children subjected to child protection plans because of domestic violence. About 70% of our referrals are due to domestic abuse.”
At one time, most of these children would have been quickly subjected to child protection plans. And many would have been separated from their parents. Further, this would have occurred irrespective of who perpetrated the abuse. This strategy is not new to the world of child and family services.
For example, survivors have long been held responsible for “failure to protect.” This means that they are held accountable for their partner’s abuse. In fact, Jane had heard too many service providers say things like, “You [mothers] are prioritizing your relationship, not protecting your child.” This did not improve outcomes for children—unfortunately, these children often returned to MCS over and over again.
In 2016, Jane first stumbled upon the Safe & Together Institute. Here was an organization pushing a novel idea: shifting from “failure to protect” to partnering with survivors to ensure good outcomes for children. She knew she had found the answer she needed to improve outcomes for children and to address the double standards placed on adult survivors.
Importantly, the Safe & Together approach has fundamentally altered relationships between the families the unit serves and the advocates and case workers working with them in Manchester. “Parents often worry that if they get a knock from a social worker, their children will be taken away, so partnering with the survivor from the start has changed relationships,” said Jane. “We’ve had feedback from survivors talking about their confidence and trust in services.”
Breaking Through the Barrier of Trust
The barrier of trust has long divided both child welfare workers and advocates from families. Lucy, who provides and supervises advocacy in the region, attributes the shift in social workers’ behaviors to the breakthrough of trust with families: “The social worker makes contact with survivors, and straight away they focus on what will work for the survivor and what they need rather than us deciding. The partnering aspect is what they are really strong at.”
Partnering with Survivors and Intervening with Perpetrators to Protect Children
One might wonder: If the goal is to protect children, shouldn’t the focus of services be on the child? Steve, MCS’ resident quality assessment and training specialist, jumped in to elaborate: “The approach does exactly that: protect children. The loss of a parent who is working every day to protect their child from a perpetrator only renders children more vulnerable. In addition to partnering with the survivor, seeing the role of the perpetrator’s patterns of behavior enables the social worker to make a strong case for keeping children under the safe protection of the surviving parent. The old language around ‘failure to protect’ is pretty much flushed out of the system. Everyone is talking about how to keep the child together with the non-offending parent.”
Where there was once a conveyor belt approach to cases, this team now plays the long game. “We’re looking at it through a longer-term lens now,” said Steve. “Even when the perpetrator may receive accountability, we’re not closing the case right away. We are looking at how can we strengthen things with the survivor and how can we form that partnership and make sure that she’s safe. Whether or not she chooses to remain in that relationship, she becomes stronger and has a network around her.”
The Manchester team has also seen an increase in referrals to their perpetrator intervention programs. This is another advantage to partnering with the survivor. The increased awareness of perpetrator behavior patterns has resulted in Social Workers making more referrals to offender intervention programs.
Working Closely with Partners to Build System-Wide Change
Next, as with any new approach, these changes in practice have required working more closely with partners. According to Jane, Lucy, and Steve, their partners have embraced the new approach. They have championed the Model in their respective spaces, and it has begun shifting the culture of their organizations. Most importantly, they now have a blueprint for how to work together in this approach. “The Model lays out tangibles that people can organize themselves around and allows them to figure out how to work in a system that is highly reliant on multiagency work. Everyone can support the child in different ways. So, that’s where we’ve done all the training and awareness raising,” said Jane. “If you work in this sector, you can at least latch on this one aspect of the Model and have an impact.”
How Safe & Together Facilitated Systems Collaboration
Every month, Jane brings together providers and leaders who have been trained in the Safe & Together Model into one room to help continue to roll out the Model, share practical experience, and talk about the approach.
As a result, new language, new alliances, and greater perpetrator accountability have bled into partner systems. This has provided the collective momentum to sustain the approach long into the future. “When we take a case to a conference now, there is a shift,” said Jane. “People are now asking why the perpetrator is not here.” It also means that MCS has expanded its protective reach in the community. For example, others who come into contact with vulnerable children, like teachers in schools, are now more empowered to respond appropriately to domestic abuse. Specifically, they are able to respond better to survivors. The school system itself is shifting as a result of the Model.
Training on Partnering with Survivors Transforms Practice
Finally, among MCS staff, Steve sees newfound intentionality and thoughtfulness in approaching families. “I did a lot of one-on-one chats with workers. For the first time, instead of just coming to a conclusion, they are having a chat about how they can address this, which was different from what was happening before. They are stopping to think before acting, where typically they would walk into a situation unprepared.”
Prior to venturing down this partnership with Safe & Together, social workers in this unit had very few skill-based trainings. They received information about domestic violence, focused mostly on the impact of abuse on children, but that was all. “There was no training that informed or coached workers on how to conduct an assessment, how to organize the information, how to intervene in a safe manner, and how to look at the impact of all that on the child all in one go. [Safe & Together] is the first,” said Steve. When service providers have concrete tools to transform their practice, such as partnering with survivors, survivors and children will be the first to benefit.
About Manchester Children’s Services
Children’s Services of Manchester City is tasked with safeguarding children (ages 0 to 18), their families and youth between 18 and 24 who were previously in the care of the city. They provide advocacy on behalf of children, including initiating court proceedings in cases of domestic abuse, initiating adoption proceedings, creating and implementing child protection plans and plans to cater to the needs of children, not in the city’s care. They also work with parents to ensure the wellbeing of children. Additionally, children’s services works closely with drug & alcohol services, education, health services, police, and various charities like women’s aid, domestic abuse agencies, and housing providers to identify the best response for a child in need.
Additional Resources
Online Course: Partnering with Survivors
Safe & Together Institute’s domestic abuse–informed trainings
Safe & Together Institute’s upcoming events
David Mandel’s book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence