When We Defund Domestic Violence Response, Children Die
By Ruth Reymundo Mandel, Chief Business Development Officer and Credible Expert, Safe & Together Institute
Every day, across the globe, frontline workers are making life-or-death decisions that impact children in homes affected by domestic abuse. This work is becoming even more difficult and dangerous under current US policy shifts that dismantle funding for prevention, erase culturally specific support, and restrict violence prevention programs. These changes don’t just reduce services—they amplify worker and organizational risk, create practice confusion and inefficiencies, and strain entire systems of care.
Frontline workers are asked to walk into complex, volatile family dynamics, decipher harm, and recommend actions that could protect—or further endanger—children and adult survivors. Now imagine doing that without guidance, support, or a practice-based map, while enduring policy instability and resource gaps. This is debilitating to our systems of social care and leads to tremendous costs, workforce turnover, and, most critically, danger to children and survivors.
This is the reality for many professionals today, who lack domestic abuse practice-based guidance or even basic policy support and adequate resources.
As someone with lived experience of child abuse and domestic abuse—and now someone who works to improve systems from the inside out—I see this dangerous gap with painful clarity. Without structured frameworks, tools, and models grounded in the realities of abuse patterns and the real-world impact of system responses, we ask too much of workers and too little of institutions. And ultimately, children, survivors, and society bear the cost.
Bumpers, Not Shackles
Some people hear the word “guidance” and imagine restriction. But for workers in the field, good guidance isn’t a leash—it’s a set of guardrails. It protects professional judgment, not replaces it. Structured tools like the Safe & Together Model’s Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool aren’t about compliance for compliance’s sake. They are designed to:
Reduce individual guesswork
Provide a common language for multi-agency coordination
Protect survivors from being misjudged or mislabeled
Improve consistency in documentation and decision-making
In other words, practice-based guidance creates the conditions for safer, more effective, and more efficient work—with measurable outcomes for those most affected.
Better Guidance, Better Outcomes
When frontline workers have access to policy clarity, adequate resources, and domestic abuse–informed frameworks, outcomes improve across the board:
For children: Professionals can assess how a perpetrator’s behaviors as a parent disrupt development, routines, education, and emotional security. This leads to interventions that focus on actual child safety and parenting quality—not just parental presence.
For adult survivors: Workers are more likely to identify protective efforts and partner with survivors rather than blame them for the perpetrator’s choices. This fosters trust and allows for behaviorally informed, long-term safety planning.
For frontline workers: Clear guidance reduces burnout, boosts confidence, and supports ethical, mission-aligned practice. We consistently hear from practitioners that they feel “smarter,” safer, and more supported when organizations implement the Safe & Together Model and use its tools consistently.
Saving Lives and Reducing Costs
Let’s be blunt: When domestic abuse perpetrators maintain contact with children and there is no structured guidance for assessing their behavior as a parenting choice, the risk is deadly. We’ve seen the tragedies—two-thirds of child deaths known to the system in Queensland, Australia, involved a domestic abuse perpetrator in the home.
These aren’t rare exceptions. These are predictable outcomes of systemic neglect—of policy, practice, and funding.
Right now, with dramatic policy rollbacks, funding erosion, and the reframing of domestic abuse as a “fringe” issue rather than a public health crisis and a child safety crisis, costs—both human and economic—are set to explode.
When we defund and weaken guidance, children suffer, survivors are endangered, and public systems are overwhelmed by avoidable harm.
A Proven Alternative: The Safe & Together Model
The Safe & Together Model provides a tested, globally implemented framework that improves family outcomes and reduces long-term costs. Governments and agencies save money because:
Early, accurate assessments prevent high-cost interventions like foster care
Police and emergency services face fewer repeat calls and fewer escalations
Housing and shelter systems aren't overburdened by reactive displacements
Child protection can focus on genuine risks to children, not mother-blaming
Healthcare systems reduce crisis-driven ER visits
Prevention and early intervention are not luxuries. They are smart social investments.
When we guide systems to identify perpetrator patterns early, partner with protective parents, and intervene effectively, we reduce not just short-term costs—but the lifelong burdens across education, justice, healthcare, and housing systems.
The Bottom Line
If we expect frontline workers to protect children and adult survivors—especially when perpetrators remain in the picture—we owe them more than vague policies and reactive oversight. We owe them real, structured, practice-based guidance.
Guidance that:
Holds perpetrators accountable as parents
Centers survivor safety
Brings clarity to complexity
Because when we give workers the right bumpers, we don’t just make their jobs easier—we save lives. We strengthen families. And we prevent billions in public costs by addressing harm early instead of reacting too late.
Additional Resources
Safe & Together Institute’s domestic abuse–informed trainings
David Mandel’s book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence
