Safe, Ethical & Effective Practice: How Safe & Together Fosters Domestic and Family Violence–Informed Practice
By Jessica Tyzack, Safe & Together Model Certified Trainer
As we mark the 20-year anniversary of the Safe & Together Model, I find myself reflecting not only on what the Model has taught me, but also how deeply it has shaped who I am as a practitioner. I have been privileged to undertake the Safe & Together Institute’s Core Training twice in my career, and in 2023 I qualified as a Certified Trainer. As a feminist and a firm advocate for those who have experienced violence, abuse, and oppression in our society, the Safe & Together Model aligned with my personal and professional values and integrity. More than that, it provided me with a clear, evidence-based, and research-led framework to practice safely, ethically, and effectively.
The most significant learnings I have gained from applying the Model in practice include 1) practicing with professional curiosity, 2) understanding the nuances of intersectionality, 3) safely and meaningfully engaging with fathers and men who choose to use violence, and 4) recognising that system accountability is critical and crucial to improving outcomes for families.
Professional Curiosity
One of the most transformative aspects of the Model has been learning to practice with professional curiosity—inquisitiveness before judgement, empathy before blame, and kindness before scrutiny.
Adult and child victim-survivors of domestic and family violence carefully consider what and how much information to disclose, and they weigh up the risks and consequences, asking themselves questions such as:
Will Child Safety be notified?
Will my child be removed?
Will someone be arrested?
Will the person choosing violence escalate; will they cause serious harm, injury or death?
Will I be blamed?
Can I trust this professional?
The Model continually prompts me to ask: What else is happening here? Is he weaponising her childhood trauma to portray her as emotionally dysregulated? Did his abuse cause or exacerbate her anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress? Is he interfering with her sobriety by bringing substances into the home? Is it safe for the children to be cared for by their father so she can attend therapy? Has he fabricated allegations to undermine her credibility?
Approaching situations with curiosity enables a more accurate and holistic assessment of:
The risk posed by the person choosing to use violence, abuse, and coercion
The constrained and limited choices available to the victim-survivor
The numerous and often invisible ways the adult victim-survivor ensures that the children are safe, experience stability, are nurtured, and heal from trauma
Professional curiosity allows us to partner with victim-survivors to rewrite inaccurate narratives held by systems. It also strengthens rapport in time-critical situations and improves outcomes by ensuring responses are grounded in reality rather than assumption.
Deepening Our Understanding of Intersectionality
No two victim-survivors experience violence, abuse, and coercion in the same way. Each person’s identity—their sex, culture, ethnicity, gender, ability, sexuality, class, immigration status, and lived experiences of oppression—shapes both how violence is perpetrated against them and how systems respond.
The Model strengthens our capacity to ask nuanced questions such as:
Why is one child being targeted more aggressively than others?
Is another child aligning with the person using violence to reduce risk?
Why does contacting police or child safety feel unsafe?
What are the risks of engaging with services?
Until we understand a person’s lived reality, we cannot fully comprehend the impact of abuse upon them. The Model helps us recognise that violence is not experienced in isolation—it intersects with systemic inequities and inequalities. Only by acknowledging this complexity can our responses be safe, targeted, and meaningful.
Raising the Standard in Our Work with Fathers
Practitioners have historically been offered limited guidance on engaging with fathers—particularly men who choose to use violence, abuse, and coercion. The Safe & Together Model provides a practical and achievable framework for doing this work safely.
The Model has equipped me to:
Have direct conversations with men about their parenting choices
Explore the role they play in their children’s lives
Explore the impact of their behaviours on their children
Hold men to a higher standard of responsibility.
When I feel confident discussing how a father’s choices are affecting his children, I create space for accountability while also acknowledging his capacity to choose differently.
Children deserve fathers who are safe, nurturing, and emotionally present. When we raise the standard for men, we affirm that they can meet children’s needs. The Model does not lower expectations for men as fathers—it elevates them. The Model supports fathers to be the best version of themselves and become the father that their child deserves.
System Accountability: Pivoting Back to Perpetrator Responsibility
Perhaps one of the most powerful contributions of the Model is its insistence on system accountability.
Systems can either collude with the person choosing to use violence—through minimisation, justification, victim-blaming, or inaction—or they can align with the Model and partner with victim-survivors to increase health, safety, and overall well-being.
The Model consistently guides us to pivot back to the perpetrator’s choices, behaviours, and acts and omissions. It centres violence as a parenting choice and identifies it as the foundational source of risk to children. This shifts the narrative from “failure to protect” toward a clear analysis of coercive control and harm.
Using the Model’s lens, I feel equipped to facilitate difficult conversations within systems—to refocus assessments, reports, and decision-making on the person creating the foundational risk. It shines a light on the “absent presence” of the perpetrator of violence and challenges destructive victim-blaming attitudes and practices.
What I Have Gained—and What I Hope to Pass On
I want to be realistic about what we're facing. We cannot fix governmental instability.
After 20 years of the Safe & Together Model, my greatest takeaway is this: It gives me hope.
Hope that when we consistently apply this framework:
Victim-survivors are treated with dignity and respect
Children’s lived experiences are more accurately understood
Fathers are held accountable while supported to change
Systems can act as forces for protection rather than harm
For those new practitioners, I would offer these key learnings:
Stay curious—assumptions close doors; curiosity opens them
Always pivot back to the perpetrator’s pattern of behaviour
Document protective efforts with the same rigour as risk
Approach intersectionality as essential, not optional
Hold systems—including your own workplace—accountable
Lead with empathy but anchor in evidence
The Model has shaped not only my professional practice but my humanity. It reminds me that kindness, care, and accountability can co-exist. It strengthens my belief that systemic structures can be harnessed for good. It challenges entrenched views that protect those in power and instead centres those most oppressed and marginalised in our society.
It gives me hope that one day, when I hang up the lanyard and perhaps open that bookstore I have been dreaming of, the field will continue to move toward safer, more ethical, and more effective practice.
Until then, alongside my extraordinary colleagues and communities, we continue the work—safe and together.
Additional Resources
Online Course: Safe & Together: An Introduction to the Model
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
