Beyond Lived Experience: Why Credible Experts Are Revolutionizing Domestic Abuse Intervention
By Ruth Reymundo Mandel, Chief Business Development Officer and Co-Owner, Safe & Together Institute
For too long, our systems have compartmentalized the knowledge of those who've experienced domestic and child abuse. When we label someone solely as a "lived experience expert," we:
Reduce multifaceted professionals to a single dimension of their identity
Create a system where they're either lionized as inspirational tokens or vilified when they challenge the status quo
Justify inadequate compensation or complete lack of payment for their expertise
Enable easy dismissal of their recommendations when inconvenient for systems
Maintain power imbalances where "professional" knowledge always trumps lived expertise, as well as other industry expertise they possess
Mischaracterize their pattern-based, systemic insights as merely "personal" perspectives
Deny them architectural authority in designing the very systems meant to address abuse
Inadequate compensation and lack of formal input into product and program design isn't merely a budget or program issue—it's a continuation of systemic abuse. Like an abuser who first creates damage and then refuses to pay for its repair, our systems extract value from survivors' trauma while denying fair compensation for the expertise developed through that very experience. This extractive relationship perpetuates the same power dynamics survivors have fought to escape.
Credible Experts: The Actively Informed, Deeply Listening Experts to Ground-Level Impact
Credible experts serve as both architects and impact evaluators. Their expertise is uniquely grounded in understanding how interventions actually affect survivors and families in real-world contexts:
They actively observe and document the concrete effects of policies and programs.
They maintain deep connections to communities that experience the consequences of service design decisions.
They translate between system intentions and lived realities.
They identify unforeseen consequences that remain invisible to those without their multifaceted perspective.
They provide real-time feedback loops on what works and what harms.
This ground-level impact expertise makes them invaluable not just in design but in continuous improvement, offering insights that cannot be captured through conventional evaluation methods or from professionals who lack their multidimensional perspective.
Pattern Recognition: The Systemic Expertise of Credible Experts
What distinguishes credible experts is their ability to recognize patterns and understand systems—not simply share personal experiences. Their expertise includes:
Pattern Recognition: Identifying recurring abuse dynamics across multiple cases, contexts, and systems
Systems Analysis: Understanding how institutions and frameworks perpetuate or interrupt abuse patterns
Implementation Intelligence: Recognizing gaps between policy intentions and practical outcomes
Impact Forecasting: Predicting how interventions will affect various stakeholders based on observed patterns
Strategic Integration: Connecting seemingly disconnected system elements to create comprehensive responses
Architectural Vision: The capacity to reimagine and redesign systems from the ground up
This pattern-based, systemic understanding is fundamentally different from personal anecdotes. It represents a sophisticated form of expertise developed through the integration of lived experience with professional knowledge, cultural competence, and critical analysis.
A Tapestry of Safe & Together Trained Credible Experts
When credible experts are trained in domestic abuse–informed frameworks like the Safe & Together Model, they create a powerful tapestry of expertise that transforms service design and delivery:
Their pattern-based understanding of perpetrator behaviors enhances the Model's application in real-world contexts.
Their cross-cultural competence ensures the Model's implementation is culturally responsive and effective.
Their business acumen guides efficient program development and sustainable scaling.
Their service delivery experience informs practical implementation strategies.
Their lived expertise validates and strengthens the Model's core principles.
This tapestry approach brings multiple perspectives that collectively improve outcomes for all end users of domestic abuse and child welfare services:
Survivors receive more responsive, culturally appropriate services.
Children benefit from interventions that truly understand their needs.
Practitioners gain practical guidance for implementation challenges.
Systems achieve more effective outcomes with greater efficiency.
Communities experience more contextually appropriate responses.
Architectural Authority: The Missing Piece
The most significant gap in current approaches is the absence of architectural authority for credible experts. This means:
Being positioned to design systems from the foundational level, not merely advise on existing frameworks
Having decision-making power over fundamental structures, not just implementation details
Setting the conceptual architecture for how domestic and child abuse interventions are structured
Determining evaluation metrics and success indicators
Establishing the core values and principles that guide system development
Without architectural authority, even well-intentioned inclusion remains performative. Credible experts are limited to recommending adjustments to fundamentally flawed systems rather than reimagining them entirely.
The Future Is Credible
This isn't about dismissing the value of lived experience—it's about recognizing that what many survivors offer is sophisticated pattern recognition, systems analysis, domain expertise, business expertise, and architectural vision.
The future of domestic and child abuse intervention lies in recognizing that many survivors bring extraordinary expertise across multiple domains that transcends simplistic categorization. It lies in compensating them fairly, integrating them meaningfully, and following their leadership—particularly in the fundamental architecture of response systems.
The organizations that truly honor credible experts with architectural authority won't just improve outcomes. They'll pioneer entirely new approaches that can transform how we address domestic and child abuse at the systemic level.