What New UK Research Reveals About Safe & Together Model Implementation
By Nic Douglas, European Regional Manager, Safe & Together Institute
A new study published in Child Abuse & Neglect finds that the Safe & Together™ Model helped transform how practitioners across five UK sites understood, assessed, documented, and discussed domestic abuse.
Jane Callaghan and colleagues describe the Model as “necessary but not sufficient,” locating that insufficiency “at the level of the system rather than the Model.”
That distinction is an important finding, and one we explore in our implementation work with all our partners. A practice model can change how a professional works with families. The outcomes that matter come when effective practice, implementation, and an enabling organisational context work together.
The study draws on focus groups with 55 professionals across five local authority areas, two in Scotland and three in England, at sites ranging from under a year into implementation to more than three years in. Participants included frontline practitioners, line managers, senior managers, and multi-agency partners. The findings reflect professionals’ experiences of implementation rather than a direct evaluation of outcomes for families.
Together, these accounts provide valuable insight into how the Safe & Together Model can change domestic abuse–informed practice, while highlighting what organisations need to do to support and sustain that change.
What Did the Research Find About the Safe & Together Model?
The research identified substantial improvements in professional practice, alongside important limitations in how the Model was implemented and supported.
It strengthened practitioners’ confidence in their approach. Acceptability was high across the participating sites. One social worker of 15 years said the Model had revolutionised her practice and reflected on previous mother-blaming work. A family support worker described it as giving them permission to work in the way they had always wanted.
It helped overcome initial scepticism. A team manager described how colleagues who were initially wary of adopting a new model had begun challenging others to think more carefully about perpetrator patterns.
It changed how practitioners talked about domestic abuse. Case discussions shifted from focusing on mothers’ actions to examining perpetrators’ patterns of behaviour. The research found that this shift became embedded in team discussions, with evidence of similar changes in language among police in some areas. Health visitors were also reported to have embraced the Model’s approach.
It improved assessments and court documentation. Practitioners described mapping patterns of abuse over time, identifying how perpetrators undermined survivors' parenting and involved children in their abuse. Participants also reported substantial changes in court documentation. The researchers noted that legislation addressing coercive control provided a complementary legal context for pattern-based assessments.
It helped some practitioners work more efficiently. Assessments initially took longer as practitioners developed more detailed analyses of perpetrator behaviour. However, one social worker reported being able to close cases faster because they had a clearer understanding of the risks involved.
It improved some mothers’ experiences of services. One practitioner recalled a mother saying that they were the first social worker who had not made her feel like a bad parent. While encouraging, the researchers noted that survivor feedback was reported through professionals rather than gathered systematically from families.
It created changes that could be sustained with ongoing support. Some shifts in language and professional culture became embedded in everyday practice. However, the research found that sustainability remained vulnerable to short-term funding, staff turnover, and the loss of dedicated practice leads. Ongoing supervision, case consultation, and organisational commitment were important to maintaining progress.
These findings demonstrate how the Model can strengthen professional understanding and assessment. But the researchers also identified a critical gap: practitioners were becoming better equipped to recognise harm without always having the services available to respond. The study did not establish whether these practice improvements translated into better outcomes for adult and child survivors.
Why Effective Intervention Matters
The research highlights the challenge practitioners faced in linking what they had uncovered using the Model to appropriate and timely service provision. Some struggled with long waiting lists, a lack of options and, in some cases, no services at all.
We are clear that any intervention and engagement with perpetrators can and should include behavioural expectations for change. Some perpetrators are eligible for service interventions, and these should be options available to practitioners. Similarly, we need a range of services equipped to meet the complex needs of both adult and child survivors.
The research raised the concern that enhanced assessment without intervention capacity risks raising expectations that cannot be met.
The multi-agency findings reflect that the Model was well established in children’s services, yet police adoption was described as intellectual rather than operational, and engagement from adult mental health was identified as challenging.
The language crossed agency boundaries, which is real progress, without yet changing the steps each agency takes once a pattern has been identified.
This is why the Model has never been solely a children’s social care intervention and works best when a multi-agency approach is taken.
Perpetrator pattern assessments inform an understanding of what is happening in a family. Whether anything changes can rest on how prepared the partnership is to respond effectively. This includes access to:
Interventions for perpetrators and support for all members of the family, without significant waiting lists.
Therapeutic and direct work for children, so that better understanding of harm translates into something offered to the child experiencing it.
Adult mental health and substance use services that will engage with the person causing harm, while understanding the impact of their behaviour on their family.
Housing, financial, and practical support for adult survivors, without which partnering with survivors risks becoming advice rather than meaningful help.
Better assessment helps practitioners understand what is happening. Effective intervention requires the wider system to respond to that understanding.
Why Implementation Matters Beyond Practitioner Training
The study also looks at the conditions inside the participating organisations. The authors record that implementation across all five sites largely centred on training and practice development, rather than structural changes.
None of the sites had revised assessment frameworks, case management systems, or decision-making protocols. Where local guidance appeared, it was practitioner-led rather than organisationally mandated. The Model was, in the researchers’ words, “layered onto rather than replacing established practice infrastructure.”
Practitioners were working hard to integrate the Model, but often against the grain of the systems in which they worked.
This presents a significant challenge for organisations seeking to embed domestic abuse–informed practice. Workers may be trained to identify perpetrator patterns, recognise survivors’ protective efforts, and document the impact of abuse on children, while the systems they use continue to reflect different assumptions and approaches.
The study also raised questions about how the Model is applied across different cultural contexts, particularly where abusive behaviour involves extended family or community dynamics. This reinforces the importance of ongoing practice support and ensuring implementation is responsive to the communities organisations serve.
The Role of Leadership and Practice Leads
Leadership was identified as a significant factor in implementation, with leaders’ support for, and recognition of, what is required for success being essential.
So too was the role, where it existed, of the practice lead.
One participant described how essential their practice lead had been to the organisation’s progress, particularly through group supervision and case consultation when practitioners encountered difficult cases.
The researchers identified practice leads, with protected time for supervision and case consultation, as an important source of ongoing implementation support. Where these roles existed, they helped practitioners apply the Model in everyday practice and embed its principles within team culture.
The authors conclude that implementation outcomes were shaped more by organisational conditions than by the characteristics of the Model itself.
To that end, the Safe & Together Institute has been supporting organisations to embed the Model in a sustainable, planned way.
My fellow regional managers and I work with leaders from the outset. This support begins before training and looks at what the Model will ask of their systems, who will hold the work locally, and how they will know practice has shifted.
That support continues after training, because that is usually when the organisational questions arrive.
The research reinforces the importance of this work. Training can change practitioner knowledge and skills, but sustaining those changes requires organisations to consider the policies, processes, leadership, and partnerships that shape everyday practice.
What This Research Asks of Leaders and Commissioners
The findings have clear implications for organisations implementing the Safe & Together Model, as well as those looking to strengthen an existing implementation.
Map your intervention capacity before you train your workforce. Is the system geared towards perpetrator accountability, and are services available to support all members of the family? What happens when a practitioner identifies a pattern of abuse but cannot access an appropriate intervention?
Review how well organisational systems support domestic abuse–informed practice. Assessment templates, recording systems, policies, and decision-making processes need to align with the practice expected of workers using them.
Fund practice leads with protected time. Staff need the capacity to run group supervision, provide case consultation and support practitioners as they apply the Model. The research highlights the importance of these roles in sustaining change.
Agree with legal colleagues what a pattern-based assessment looks like. Practitioners need shared expectations for documenting perpetrator behaviour, its impact on children, and survivors’ protective efforts, particularly when preparing evidence for court.
Bring multi-agency partners in from the start. Discuss what effective referrals, assessments, information-sharing, and documentation look like, and how agencies will respond when perpetrator patterns are identified.
Involve adult and child survivors in implementation and evaluation. The researchers found no evidence of systematic survivor involvement across the five sites. Organisations need to create meaningful, safe opportunities for survivors to help shape implementation, evaluate how practice changes affect their experiences, and influence decisions about service improvement.
These are not decisions practitioners can make alone. They require organisational commitment, leadership, and coordination across the services involved with families.
The Question Organisations Should Be Asking
The question for any organisation adopting the Model is not simply whether it can change practitioner practice. This research provides evidence that Safe & Together shifted how professionals understood, assessed, and documented domestic abuse across five UK sites. It also identifies the organisational conditions that may help sustain those changes over time.
The question is whether organisations have the systems, policies, leadership, and partnerships in place to support that shift.
The researchers’ description of the Model as “necessary but not sufficient” captures this distinction. Practitioners can develop a clearer understanding of perpetrator behaviour and its impact on families, but they need organisational systems and effective services that enable them to act on that understanding.
Those conditions are shaped by decisions made by leaders and commissioners, not just by the practitioners in the room.
At Safe & Together Institute, we work with organisations to plan and sustain implementation so that domestic abuse–informed practice becomes embedded in how systems operate, rather than depending on the efforts of individual workers.
If your organisation is considering implementing the Safe & Together Model, or strengthening an existing implementation, contact our team to explore how we can support that work.
Additional Resources
Blog: Ireland Steps In: How Safe Ireland Is Building a Domestic Abuse–Informed System
Report: London Partnership Reaches the Cusp of Systems Change with Safe & Together
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
