Safe & Together Model 2023 European Conference - Changing Systems Globally - May 10-12, 2023 Hilton London Kensington

2023 Safe & Together Model™ European Conference

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MASTERCLASSES

Masterclass: Applying a Perpetrator Pattern-Based Approach in Family Court Context  

David Mandel 

Family courts are charged with balancing child safety with meaningful relationships with both parents. What does this mean in the context of domestic violence? In many instances, courts are not clearly presented with the perpetrators’ patterns and the specifics of the harm it has caused, and emphasis on collaborative parenting can work against the best interests of children in these cases. Drawing on work in family court settings in the United States and Australia, David Mandel, Executive Director and Founder of the Safe & Together Institute, will explore how the Model can be applied in the family court context. This workshop will look at the difference between risk and harm frameworks; the importance of understanding post-separation coercive control and the targeting of professionals and systems as part of perpetrators’ patterns; how to best understand and contextualize protective parenting behaviors; the centrality of a behavioral approach to objectivity and neutrality; and how to increase accountability for perpetrators as parents in the family court context.  (This is not an introductory class. While not required, prior knowledge of the Safe & Together Model is beneficial.)

Masterclass: Using Coaching to Increase Effective Practice and System Change

Heidi Rankin

Coaching can dramatically increase individual practitioners’ capacity for applying learned skills and tools in their day-to-day practice, as well as help to create a shared language, framework, and practice across agencies, which promotes systems change. In this workshop specifically designed for Safe & Together Model™ Certified Trainers, participants will learn how to take their expertise in domestic violence-informed practice from the classroom to one-on-one and small-group consultations within their agencies. Participants will learn to promote practitioners’ critical thinking, risk and safety assessment, appropriate case planning recommendations, and overall best practices in domestic violence cases. The workshop will also focus on how Certified Trainers can coach workers in using Safe & Together Model™ tools, such as the Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool and the STIM Protocol, in advancing skill and knowledge development that can be applied across a range of cases as well as support practitioners in complex cases with high levels of trauma and safety issues. (This session is for Safe & Together Model™ Certified Trainers).

Masterclass: An Introduction to the Safe & Together Model

Anna Mitchell and Nicola Douglas

In this master class, participants will be introduced to the Principles, Critical Components, and other key aspects of the paradigm-shifting Safe & Together Model. Participants will learn how the Model’s concepts, skills and tools can transform individual practice, agencies’ culture and systems, and cross-sector collaboration.  Learn about partnering with survivors, keeping children safe and intervening with perpetrators as parents. Participants are guaranteed to leave the session with new practices they can implement immediately. (This session is appropriate for professionals from any sector.)

THURSDAY KEYNOTES

KEYNOTES ARE INCLUDED IN THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PACKAGE

KEYNOTE: Stop Blaming Mothers & Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence

David Mandel

We live in a world where, consistently, mothers are still blamed for the harm violent fathers create for children and families. Fathers’ behaviors and choices, positive and negative, and their impact on child and family functioning, are underappreciated or outright ignored. As part of the prelaunch of his forthcoming book, “Why does she keep choosing him over her children?” David Mandel, creator of the Safe & Together Model, will examine some of the professional “myths” that interfere with societal and systemic change and some of the steps to fix the systems charged with keeping children safe from domestic violence.

KEYNOTE: “The Last Drop”: A Sci-Fi Film Designed to Educate Young People About Coercive Control

Adam Joel + Ruth Reymundo Mandel

The Last Drop is a short sci-fi film about relationship abuse inspired by the memories of real survivors. A young woman links minds with her boyfriend to relive their favorite shared memories— but when she spots overlooked signs of abuse, she must escape before he can manipulate her memories in his favor. The film is designed to fill the glaring gap in educational material about coercive control for young people. Ruth Reymundo Mandel, the Safe & Together Institute’s Communication and Strategic Relationship Manager, and writer/director, Adam Joel, discuss the ground-breaking elements of the film, including:

– the power of storytelling to connect and empower survivors. Writer/Director, Adam Joel, will share the communal storytelling method he used to combine his own experience as a survivor with input from other survivors and experts.

– the innovative choice to use science fiction to reach younger audiences and highlight the hidden signs of coercive control.

– the partnership between S&TI (an Executive Producer of The Last Drop) and the filmmakers to distribute this film to the people who need it most.

Join us to learn how The Last Drop could be a powerful learning tool and conversation starter for your work in the field of abuse prevention, education, social work, and more!

FRIDAY KEYNOTES

KEYNOTES ARE INCLUDED IN THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PACKAGE

KEYNOTE: Responding Effectively to Coercive Control

Dr Emma Katz

This Keynote will explore the new, innovative work that is taking place around coercive control. Coercive control is a severe but often hidden form of abuse. It involves situations where a perpetrator subjects their partner or family member to persistent, wide-ranging controlling behaviour over a long period of time and makes it clear that standing up for themselves will be punished. By repeatedly punishing their partner/family member for non-compliance, the perpetrator intends to demoralise and terrorise them into a state of permanent obedience, stripping them of their ability to freely participate in their communities and to make basic choices for themselves. Coercive controllers use multiple tactics of abuse, and every tactic harms the lives of any children in the family as well as the lives of adult victim-survivors. The experiences of adults and children subjected to coercive control are highly similar, and children and adults should be considered co-victims and co-survivors.

After exploring the dynamics and tactics of coercive control and their impacts on victims-survivors, this Keynote will emphasise the following points: it is the abuser, not the relationship, that is the cause of the abuse, and it is the abuser who is responsible for the harms experienced by any children in the family. Perpetrators are making a parenting choice to have their child grow up in a family dominated by coercive control. Responses to domestic abuse by systems and individual professionals must identify the abuser’s pattern of abusive behaviour as the source of the danger and harm. Because separation rarely brings about safety for the adult and child survivors, and most coercive controllers are determined to continue their coercive control post-separation, responses to abusers must focus on meaningfully disrupting and blocking the abuser’s willingness and ability to continue to be abusive. Both adult and child victims and survivors require not only meaningful safety from the abuser but also the freedom, support and resources to make their own choices and to thrive in the aftermath of abuse.

KEYNOTE: The Four Pillars of “Failure to Protect” Culture

David Mandel

“Failure to Protect” culture holds mothers responsible for the behaviors of their abusive male partners. These practices are inefficient, ineffective, unfair and unethical. Drawing from his upcoming book “Why does she keep choosing him over her children,” David Mandel outlines “failure to protect culture,” its limitations and impact, and his suggestions for ending the use of “failure to protect” in domestic violence cases.

THURSDAY WORKSHOPS – SECTION I

Hard to reach or not reaching hard enough? How systems create barriers for minoritised survivors

Meena Kumari
This workshop will cover:
– Cultural competence vs cultural sensitivity 10 years on – the progress made but how systems have overlooked the needs of Black and minoritised women
– Changing the language we use – practitioners are still using ‘culture’ and ‘religion’ to excuse abuse
– Racism and how it is reinforced by the system, which is in turn used by perpetrators
– Perpetrator interventions and their lack of representation of cultural issues

Restart – Earlier Intervention & Accommodation

Sarah Anderson, Hannah Candee and Maria Cripps

The presentation will discuss Restart, a systems change project working to improve responses to perpetrators of domestic abuse (DA) in families that are being supported by Children’s Social Care (CSC) via a co-ordinated multi-agency response, including Safe & Together training and implementation support, and direct intervention work that focuses on ensuring that the perpetrator is held responsible and accountable for change, crucially, this response incorporates a new approach by seeking alternative, diversionary accommodation for the perpetrator of abuse, led by wishes of the victim and when safe, whilst simultaneously offering them behaviour change intervention. This is intended to keep victim-survivors and families safer by enabling them to stay in their own homes by removing the person causing the harm, minimising disruption to their lives, providing space for action, improving housing security and enabling the perpetrator to engage with behaviour change. This presentation will provide an overview of the model which has been designed and informed with the theoretical underpinnings of S&T Principals, provide a brief overview of outcomes to date, and present emerging findings from the independent evaluations.

Nurturing and sustaining systems change:  Best practice in implementation of the Safe & Together Model

THIS SESSION IS INCLUDED IN THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PACKAGE

Anna Mitchell

Workforce development and training are critical to creating domestic abuse-informed practice. But how can this be nurtured systemically to produce high-quality and sustainable changes that result in positive outcomes? The UK is leading this conversation with an increasing number of practitioners who are employed to embed the Model as Safe & Together Implementation Leads and the creation of local Steering Groups. 

Drawing on learning from best practices in implementation and the embedding of the Model across the UK, Anna Mitchell will share recommendations around implementation planning – from workforce development, improvement and communication plans to advice on governance, leadership, and self-assessment to evaluation and data collection. You will hear about how you can become part of the innovative UK Implementation Forum, where Leads share their learning, successes, challenges and how to overcome them. 

THURSDAY WORKSHOPS – SECTION II

10 tips on how to adopt, implement and embed Safe & Together practice and systems. The lessons and mistakes we made in Queensland, Australia (2015-22)

Steve Lock

Steve Lock has 8 years of experience working with the Safe & Together Model. He was a lead on the Safe & Together adoption and implementation plan for Queensland, Australia. Steve will talk through 10 tips based on this experience. He will explain what strategies worked and which didn’t. He will talk about who are the key people/roles to get on board and who are likely to be your most valuable allies. He will outline what you can expect as the most difficult questions, challenges and arguments that you will need to overcome. He will focus on both practice and systemic change. Steve will share and explain the most successful Safe & Together initiatives used in Queensland and reflect on some mistakes that were made.

The intersectionality between Safe & Together and Signs of Safety

Stephen Brock
This workshop will look at the intersectionality between the Safe & Together model and the Signs of Safety practice framework. Fundamentally both ask one key question – Who is doing what to whom and what is the impact? Sharing a strengths-based focus S&T and SoS complement each other and in this workshop, we explore the intersectionality of both. Looking at aspects such as ‘Danger Statements’ and ‘Safety Goals’ through to trajectories in Signs of Safety, link with the principles of Safe & Together.

Using the Web-Based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool to Embed Safe & Together into Your Agency

THIS SESSION IS INCLUDED IN THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PACKAGE

Heidi Rankin
For years, practitioners have depended on the Safe & Together Institute Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool to change practice and change lives of adult and child domestic violence survivors. In the past, access to the tool required attendance in our CORE training. No longer. After a two-year development process, the Safe & Together Institute has launched a web-based version of the tool that is immediately accessible online to any practitioner. This workshop will provide an overview of the new version of the tool and its applications. The workshop will highlight how key aspects of the tool, including new content; built-in coaching and fidelity checks; and how its use supports the implementation of the Model and systems change. 

Partnering Together Through Domestic Abuse – the survivor and social worker’s journey

Catriona Grant and Naomi Fleming

Naomi and Catriona will explore together how the S&T approach helped Naomi when she found herself in crisis, a survivor of domestic abuse and in the child welfare system overwhelmed and afraid. How she met Catriona, who partnered with her using the S&T model and how over the years, she and her children are safe, together and thriving. Naomi’s recovery from domestic abuse and trauma has led her to want to serve others, and she is now on the Parental Advocacy & Rights Board of Trustees championing S&T and parental advocacy as ethical and helpful practice. Catriona will discuss how partnering with survivors is ethical and supports both the survivor and the frameworks workers and families find themselves in. They will use their story to discuss their journey. They invite participants to get involved and come on their journey with them.

FRIDAY WORKSHOPS – SECTION III

Creating Ecosystems of support for Survivors & Perpetrator behaviour change using Safe & Together Tools

Ruth Reymundo Mandel
During a time when communities are exploring how to offer more community-based resources to prevent domestic violence, the Safe & Together Institute has developed two tools designed for use by friends and family members. First, the ‘Choose to Change’ Network Toolkit – a kit that describes a four-step process to help men develop strong, safe support networks to help them interrupt their violence and increase safety for other family members. Second, the How to be an Ally to a Loved One Experiencing Domestic Violence: A Guide for Family & Friends which is a resource developed by survivors that offers information about how to identify domestic violence, explains how coercive control, even when there is no apparent violence, can be very harmful and dangerous, and offers specific concrete steps that family and friends can take to support a loved one who is being abused. Join us to learn how you can support your interventions by engaging and family through the use of these resources.

The Safe & Together Book – Interviewing survivors and practitioners

THIS SESSION IS INCLUDED IN THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PACKAGE

Deb Nicholson and David Mandel

When David Mandel first envisioned writing the Safe & Together book – “Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers” – he couldn’t imagine not including the voices of survivors who have been impacted both by perpetrators’ behaviours and the response of systems. Nor could he leave out the voices of practitioners whose work has been transformed by the Safe & Together Model and who are championing its game-changing approach around the world. David believes that the Model is nothing without the practitioners who practice it, nor can its effectiveness be truly measured without hearing from survivors impacted by professionals’ use of the Model. Early in the book’s development, David decided to interview practitioners and survivors to hear their stories, and their impressions of the Model. Over a period of three months during 2022 Deb Nicholson interviewed practitioners and survivors from Australia, the UK and the USA. In this workshop, David and Deb discuss the methodology and results of the interviews, and what this might mean for future development of the Model.

I’ve held the perpetrator to account – now what?: Learning from the Male Engagement Worker Project

Anjelica Finnegan

This presentation introduces the Male Engagement Worker (MEW) project in Southampton City Council. The project works with fathers who are alleged perpetrators of domestic abuse, supporting the professional network around the family to hold the perpetrator to account and to partner with the survivor.

The MEW project goes beyond mapping perpetrator’s behaviour and holding them to account for their abuse by working directly with fathers to encourage their behaviour change. In this presentation, we will follow the journeys of five fathers who have been referred to the project.

Through these case studies, we will highlight what methods and tools were used to encourage behaviour change and, where fathers have not been able to implement those changes, how the MEW remains involved as part of the professional network around the family to: 1) provide ongoing, dynamic, assessments and, 2) to continue to support the professional network to maintain a focus on the perpetrator’s pattern of abuse and not fall back on the status quo of holding the mother culpable for her own abuse.

The presentation will conclude with key lessons learned, what data we have started to collect and where we envisage the project going next. This session will be interactive so as to facilitate shared learning and consider solutions to shared challenges when working with perpetrators of domestic abuse as fathers.

The Role of Respect’s Implementation Leads in London; Systems Change within Children’s Social Care

Rachael Reynolds, Christina Tomprou, Michelle Smith and Gabrielle Trimblett

FRIDAY WORKSHOPS – SECTION IV

Self Care for Practitioners: Using the Concept of Partnering with Survivors to Promote Worker Health and Well-Being 

THIS SESSION IS INCLUDED IN THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE PACKAGE

David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Working with domestic violence means professionals come into contact daily with complex & challenging trauma. The Safe & Together Model’s concept of Partnering with Survivors offers an efficient, effective, ethical and safe way to engage protective parents. Working with domestic violence survivors may confront professionals with their own prior experiences, uncover where their strengths or needs were not acknowledged and can even trigger their own experiences of trauma. 

In this workshop, participants will: 

  • Learn the six steps of Partnering 
  • Discuss the following questions:
    • What is my experience with being partnered with in my own life?   
    • What are the values, practices and personal responsibilities associated with partnering? 
    • What strengths do I bring to the partnering process?  
    • What judgments do I have that get in the way of partnering?   
    • What beliefs and experiences have I had that make it hard for me to partner with survivors? 
    • What do I need to change in my attitudes and beliefs so I can most effectively partner with survivors? 

As a result of this workshop, participants will be better prepared to partner with survivors and also learn how the partnering process can support the healing and nourishment for practitioners & workers as well. 

How to Deliver the Safe & Together Model to Audiences Outside of North America

Dave Aitken

Despite the cultural similarities and shared worldviews between Europe and the United States, there are also significant differences. When delivering training to European audiences on a North American model, one of these differences often manifests as doubt or suspicion. This session will seek to allay these concerns through the translation of the Model into established and credible UK-based research whilst also empowering potential future trainers and commissioners to recognise the value of the Model and the ability to regionalise the content to meet their needs without compromising on model fidelity.

Integrating the lived experience of Childhood Domestic Violence and Abuse into a domestic violence-informed approach

Áine Costello

We will present on the lived experience of Childhood Domestic Violence and Abuse. Working in a domestic abuse-informed approach, supports us to understand and recognise children/young people’s strengths and protective efforts in order to support their resilience and recovery. In Ireland the work of the Empower kids project is supporting us to develop a shared understanding of childhood domestic violence and abuse in order to improve our practice responses to children and young people.

Empower Kids is a child and young person’s participation project in partnership with 13 services from around Ireland. We began this journey of participation with children/young people to better understand their lived experience of childhood domestic violence and abuse and to increase their visibility as victims in their own right.

Over the last three years, and using the Lundy Model of Participation (developed by Professor Laura Lundy from Queen’s University, Belfast), our project has supported children and young people to define domestic violence and abuse, explore what matters for children/young people who live with domestic violence and abuse and what supports and responses they need from services.

The Safe & Together London Partnership with London Metropolitan University’s CWASU evaluators

Liz Kelly, Maria Garner, Laura Butterworth

The Safe & Together (S&T) London Partnership is coming to the end of its second year of implementation and embedding. The Early Engagement and Intervention with Domestic Abuse Perpetrators (from here S&T) was funded through the Home Office perpetrator programme 2021-22. It extended work in Waltham Forest and Hackney (initially named the East Partnership) to four additional boroughs: Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hammersmith & Fulham, now known as . The London Partnership with Respect is the delivery partner and London Metropolitan’s University’s Woman and Child Unit the evaluators. This presentation will reflect on the learnings from the perspective of the boroughs and from the evaluation of year 1.

Date

May 10 - 12 2023
Expired!

Local Time

  • Timezone: America/New_York
  • Date: May 10 - 12 2023

Location

Hilton London Kensington
London
Category

Speakers

  • Adam Joel - Last Drop Adam Joel - Last Drop Filmmaker, co-founder of Aggressively Compassionate production company
    Adam Joel - Last Drop
    Adam Joel - Last Drop
    Filmmaker, co-founder of Aggressively Compassionate production company

    Adam Joel is an impact-driven filmmaker and a survivor of relationship abuse. He is the Writer and Director of The Last Drop a short sci-fi film about relationship abuse inspired by the memories of real survivors. Adam is leading an international campaign using this revolutionary film to help people identify and react to the lesser known forms of abuse that tend to occur BEFORE a relationship turns violent. To make The Last Drop as impactful as possible, he consulted dozens of other survivors and an Advisory Board of experts in the fields of abuse prevention, education, and social work, including The One Love Foundation and The Safe & Together Institute, who are designing custom discussion guides to accompany the film. Adam is providing this project as a tool to help educators, advocates, and community groups lead meaningful conversations about relationship safety all across the world.

  • Áine Costello Áine Costello National Coordinator of Barnardos’ National Childhood Domestic Abuse Project
    Áine Costello
    Áine Costello
    National Coordinator of Barnardos’ National Childhood Domestic Abuse Project

    Áine Costello is the National Coordinator of Barnardos’ National Childhood Domestic Abuse Project. Áine has been working in the area of social care for the past 20 years and with Barnardos for the last 15 years in both family support capacity and as coordinator for the TLC Kidz programme, working exclusively with children and mothers who have experienced domestic violence. She took on the role of National Coordinator almost 3 years ago, and has been working towards increasing the visibility of childhood domestic abuse and to support a collective and collaborative approach to identifying the needs of children. Aine has completed the CORE training in the S&T Model, and is using this learning to support our practice responses to children and young people living with domestic violence and abuse.

  • Anjelica Finnegan Anjelica Finnegan Social Worker, Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA)
    Anjelica Finnegan
    Anjelica Finnegan
    Social Worker, Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA)

    Anjelica is a registered social worker and a qualified Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA). She has developed a pioneering project in Southampton City Council, embedded in the IDVA service, working with fathers who are alleged perpetrators of domestic abuse. This project is grounded in the principles and core components of the Safe & Together Model. Within 2 years of establishing the project, Anjelica has expanded the team and embedded the project as a key component of the Local Authority’s domestic abuse strategy and as a core intervention for perpetrators of domestic abuse whose children are open to children’s services.

    Anjelica has completed Safe and Together CORE Training as well as the Manager and Supervisors Training. She also facilitates the following domestic abuse perpetrator programmes with the Hampton Trust: Caring Dads, the Respect accredited ADAPT programme, and the Cautioning and Relationship Abuse (CARA) programme.

    Prior to working with children and families, Anjelica worked in academia and the charity sector, including as policy and research manager for a charity infrastructure body.

  • Anna Mitchell Anna Mitchell UK Regional Manager & Organizational Assessment Lead, Safe & Together Institute
    Anna Mitchell
    Anna Mitchell
    UK Regional Manager & Organizational Assessment Lead, Safe & Together Institute

    Anna Mitchell’s interest in women’s issues began when she studied for a degree in Geography with Gender Studies at Edinburgh University in 1996. After working in various women’s organisations she went on to gain her Social Work Masters and began to think about the importance of engaging with men who abuse in order to increase the safety of women and children. She worked as a Women’s Service Worker with the Caledonian System; an integrated approach to addressing domestic abuse combining a court-ordered programme for men, aimed at changing their behaviour, with support services for women and children. Anna co-authored the Caledonian System Women’s Service Manual and was seconded to the Equality Unit in the Scottish Government as a Professional Advisor to support the roll-out of this innovative system across Scotland. Since 2012, she has been employed as Domestic Abuse Lead Officer for Edinburgh’s Public Protection Partnership with the remit to help coordinate domestic abuse services across the council, police, health and the voluntary sector. Anna has completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Services Leadership and led a number of initiatives in Edinburgh to improve systemic responses, not only to adult and child victims but to domestic abuse perpetrators; including the development of auditing tools, improvement plans, service pathways, policies and training. In her current role, she is representing the Safe & Together Institute in the UK and is supporting the development and implementation of the Model across Great Britain.

  • Catriona Grant Catriona Grant Social Worker
    Catriona Grant
    Catriona Grant
    Social Worker

    Catriona Grant is an independent social worker in Scotland, she is dual-qualified in law. She works as an expert witness in courts in regard to domestic abuse and child protection matters. She works in community settings with organisations working in a trauma-responsive way with women who have experienced trauma. She is the Developmental Lead (Job Share) for Parental Advocacy & Rights (PAR) a small Scottish Charity developing parental advocacy for mothers in the child welfare system. She has been a champion of S&T going back to 2012 in Scotland and attended S&T Core Training in 2017, Supervisors Training in 2018 and Train the Trainers Training in 2021.She is the author of the Getting It Right for Every Child in the Caledonian System (Scotland’s Domestic Abuse Perpetrator System). In 2022 she graduated from Edinburgh University with a MScR in Social & Political Science, her research dissertation was on the ethical dilemmas of social workers intervening in families affected by domestic abuse. Catriona is currently completing Expert Witness training at Aberdeen University, hoping to graduate in 2023.

  • Christina Tomprou
    Christina Tomprou
  • Dave Aitken Dave Aitken Combat Stress, Head of Engagement and Social Care
    Dave Aitken
    Dave Aitken
    Combat Stress, Head of Engagement and Social Care

    A qualified social worker, with a master’s in Domestic and Sexual Violence, over the years, Dave Aitken has focused much of his CPD in the field of Domestic Abuse. This includes but is not limited to training in the facilitation of behaviour change and safety programmes of work, and also the delivery of the Caring Dads parenting programme. Dave was first introduced to Safe & Together Institute in 2014, attending CORE Training in 2015 and again in 2017 before completing the Train The Trainer series in 2018. Dave has been a Safe & Together Institute faculty member since 2021. He has delivered in-person S&TI training in Scotland, England, Germany and Belgium, as well as virtually to Australian and North American audiences. This is Dave’s third Safe & Together Conference facilitating session.

  • David Mandel David Mandel Founder and CEO, Safe & Together Institute
    David Mandel
    David Mandel
    Founder and CEO, Safe & Together Institute

    With over almost 30 years’ experience in the domestic violence field, David’s international training and consulting focuses on improving systems’ responses to domestic violence when children are involved. Through years of work with child welfare systems, David has developed the Safe & Together™ Model to improve case practice and cross-system collaboration in domestic violence cases involving children. He has also identified how a perpetrator pattern-based approach can improve our ability to help families and promote the development of domestic violence-informed child welfare systems.

    David and the Safe & Together Institute’s staff and faculty have consulted to United States’ child welfare systems in a number of states including New York, Louisiana, New Jersey, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Vermont, Oregon and Ohio. In the last five years, their work has expanded outside the United States with research, training and consultation in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other countries. The Safe & Together Institute works closely with domestic violence advocates, in the United States and abroad, to help them more effectively work with child protection systems and better advocate for child welfare-involved adult and child domestic violence survivors. David has written and published online courses which has launched a new Safe & Together Model Certified Trainer initiative that will increase the Institute’s ability to support sustainable implementation of domestic violence-informed practice in the US and abroad.

    David has written or co-written journal articles on batterer’s perceptions of their children’s exposure to domestic violence, domestic violence case reading tools, and the intersection of domestic violence and child welfare practice. His chapter on “Batterers and the Lives of Their Children” was published in the Praeger Series Violence Against Women in Families and Relationships.

  • Deb Nicholson Deb Nicholson Writing Assistant, Deb Nicholson Consulting
    Deb Nicholson
    Deb Nicholson
    Writing Assistant, Deb Nicholson Consulting

    Deb Nicholson has worked in the domestic violence / violence against women field in Australia and the UK for over three decades as a front line worker, leader, project manager, trainer and consultant. Qualified in social science, welfare practice, coaching and training, Deb has most recently earned a MA in Creative Writing & Wellbeing, and brings a combination of skill and experience to the work of supporting David Mandel to write his first book about the Safe & Together Model. Deb is trained in the Safe & Together CORE.

  • Dr Emma Katz Dr Emma Katz Associate Professor in Sociology, Durham University
    Dr Emma Katz
    Dr Emma Katz
    Associate Professor in Sociology, Durham University

    Dr Emma Katz, Ph.D., is an internationally-renowned expert in domestic abuse and coercive control, whose work has influenced legislation in the UK and overseas. Coercive control is a form of domestic abuse where perpetrators use a pattern of threats, humiliation and intimation to control and dominate their partner and children, depriving them of independence and isolating them from support. Because coercive control does not always involve physical violence, it has often been under-reported and under-recognised. It was recognised as a criminal offence in England and Wales in 2015.

    Emma’s research with mothers and children who have survived coercive control has transformed understandings of domestic abuse. Children’s experiences of coercive control were largely invisible prior to Emma’s work, which found that children were affected by many forms of abuse beyond physical violence against their mother, including imprisonment, deprivation of resources, and isolation from the outside world. Emma’s research findings on children and coercive control have been used to train professionals internationally.

    Her book, Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives (2022, Oxford University Press) is described as a ‘pioneering work’ that ‘will change how we understand and response to children’s experience of domestic abuse’ (Evan Stark, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University).

    Dr Emma Katz gained her Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham, UK and is currently a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

  • Gabrielle Trimblett
    Gabrielle Trimblett
  • Hannah Candee Hannah Candee Restart Programme Lead at SafeLives
    Hannah Candee
    Hannah Candee
    Restart Programme Lead at SafeLives

    Hannah Candee is a passionate intersectional feminist, dedicated to working to end domestic abuse through a coordinated community response, with a decade of experience in the field and a commitment to ending gender-based violence. Hannah is the Restart Programme Lead at SafeLives, within the Drive Partnership where she coordinates the implementation of the early intervention and accommodation perpetrator pilot across 5 London boroughs. She holds an MSc Degree in Gender, Development, and Globalisation from LSE where her research focused on support for survivors with insecure immigration status, and a first-class honors BA in International Relations, with Minors in Political Science and Psychology from Richmond University in London. Hannah’s previous roles include serving as the Senior MARAC Coordinator at Standing Together, and managing their national Domestic Homicide Review (DHR) Team. Hannah is a strong advocate for the Safe & Together model, having seen first-hand the positive impact it can have for families experiencing domestic abuse. The Safe & Together model is a cornerstone of the Restart project, enabling professionals to change the narrative around domestic abuse, hold perpetrators accountable, and improve outcomes for survivors, including children. When she’s not working, Hannah lives in London with her cat, Goose.

  • Heidi Rakin Heidi Rakin Associate Director, Safe & Together Institute
    Heidi Rakin
    Heidi Rakin
    Associate Director, Safe & Together Institute

    Heidi has over 30 years of experience in the sexual and domestic violence fields and social justice. She has worked in crisis counseling, program and policy development and advocacy in both the United States and Canada. Heidi received a Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in domestic violence from the University of Colorado at Denver, the only program of its kind in the country. In her current role as Associate Director and North American Lead, she helps agencies navigate plans for systems change and supports efforts to build capacity through training and collaboration. Heidi also oversees the Institute training staff, faculty and mentors, manages training for Certified Trainers and presents nationally and internationally.

  • Laura Butterworth Laura Butterworth Director of Early Help and Prevention in Waltham Forest
    Laura Butterworth
    Laura Butterworth
    Director of Early Help and Prevention in Waltham Forest

    Laura Butterworth is the Director of Early Help and Prevention in Waltham Forest. She is responsible for ensuring residents are able to access early help support across their life course. In addition to this, Laura has worked regionally and internationally on programmes to end men’s violence against women and girls through advocacy, support and social change.

  • Liz Kelly Liz Kelly Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU)
    Liz Kelly
    Liz Kelly
    Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU)

    Professor Liz Kelly is Professor of Sexualised Violence at London Metropolitan University, where she is also Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU). She has been active in the field of violence against women and children for over three decades, has led CWASU since 1993, and is recognised as a leader in the field. She is the author of Surviving Sexual Violence (1988), which established the concept of a ‘continuum of violence’ and over 100 book chapters and journal articles.

  • Maria Cripps Head of Domestic Abuse Services, Cranstoun
    Maria Cripps
    Head of Domestic Abuse Services, Cranstoun
  • Maria Garner Research fellow at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University
    Maria Garner
    Research fellow at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University

    Dr Maria Garner is research fellow at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University, and along with Prof Liz Kelly is one of the evaluators of the London Partnership project implementing S&T across six London Boroughs. Maria has worked for CWASU for over a decade on various research projects in the field of woman and child abuse.

  • Meena Kumari Meena Kumari H.O.P.E Training & Consultancy Trainer/Founder
    Meena Kumari
    Meena Kumari
    H.O.P.E Training & Consultancy Trainer/Founder

    H.O.P.E was established by Meena Kumari in 2008 and has trained a number of professionals in a variety of safeguarding subjects.

    Meena has a great passion and commitment towards campaigning, raising awareness and working with professionals to ensure that domestic abuse, sexual violence & safeguarding is always at the forefront.

    Meena has worked in front line services since 2005 and has worked with victims, perpetrators and children/ young people. Most recently Meena joined the Hampshire Trust and currently delivers CARA. Meena also delivers the adult recovery toolkit for women and men from Black and Racilaised communities.

    Meena is an Anti-Racism educator and in 2023 led the first ever Leadership programme
    For 18 learners from Black & Racilaised communities working within VAWG, this programme funded by the Drive Partnership over 10 weeks has been a huge success.

    In 2008 Meena was awarded the Leicester Young Achiever Award (part of women of achievement awards) and in 2015 Meena was shortlisted as a finalist as part of the Iranian & Kurdish Women’s Rights organisation IKWRO Awards for her work in combating Honour Abuse and Forced Marriages.

    In October 2020 Meena was shortlisted for the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize. In 2021 Meena was awarded Thought Leader Award, part of the Baton Awards.

    In 2022 Meena was awarded a High Sheriff of Leicestershire award for her work with women and girls and shortlisted in the Women of East Midlands award

  • Michelle Smith
    Michelle Smith
  • Naomi Fleming Naomi Fleming Survivor and Parental Advocacy & Rights Board Member
    Naomi Fleming
    Naomi Fleming
    Survivor and Parental Advocacy & Rights Board Member
  • Nicole Jacobs Nicole Jacobs Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales
    Nicole Jacobs
    Nicole Jacobs
    Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales

    Since her appointment to the role of Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales in September 2019, Nicole has begun energetically putting her 20-plus years of experience in domestic abuse policy and intervention to work, driving improvements to transform the response to domestic abuse in England and Wales. She is committed to championing victims and survivors of all ages, status, and backgrounds, and to shining a light on practises that fail them.
    Nicole began her career at the Alabama State Coalition Against Domestic Violence in the United States. In 1999, she came to London as an early worker at ADVANCE, one of the first advocacy (now DVA service) services in the UK. In 2000, she began working at Standing Together Against Domestic Violence, expanding the coordinated community response efforts into health settings. Before becoming CEO of Standing Together in 2013, she held a number of senior leadership positions at highly respected organizations, including Special Projects Director at SafeLives, and Senior Operations Manager at Refuge.

  • Rachael Reynolds
    Rachael Reynolds
  • Ruth Reymundo Mandel Ruth Reymundo Mandel Communications and E-Learing Manager, Safe & Together Institute
    Ruth Reymundo Mandel
    Ruth Reymundo Mandel
    Communications and E-Learing Manager, Safe & Together Institute

    Ruth Reymundo Mandel has been in training and implementation since 1995. Her career began as a middle school teacher in post-revolutionary Nicaragua. As a teacher in a developing, post-war country, she became dedicated to issues surrounding social justice and violence. She later transitioned to higher education and worked at the Bryman School and at The Art Institute of Phoenix as an Assistant Director of Admissions. Her responsibilities included vetting prospective students and identifying barriers to enrollment and to matriculation.

    After taking a break to raise her three children, she began working as a trainer and technical support for a national professional line nutritional company and an international professional line herbal company that trained medical professionals in alternative therapies.

    In her role, she trained doctors and medical professionals in clinical application and was ongoing support for successful implementation through patient outcomes. She developed systems for practice management, patient support, managed, created and promoted cyclical education events for clinical success. She developed training strategies to respond to a variety of real-time field challenges.

    Ruth also worked as a professional business coach specializing in systems and practice management. Her dedication to understanding root challenges, institutional, structural and personal impediments that keep people from applying their skills and knowledge in a targeted and successful way helped many of her clients increase their business success.

    Aside from her professional accomplishments, Ruth is a published poet, writer and public speaker. Ruth has worked with clients using various energy medicine and body-centric coaching techniques for trauma recovery. Drawing on her childhood experiences growing up in an abusive religious cult, and as a survivor, she is a fierce advocate for those who have experienced abuse. She is dedicated to helping survivors and allies understand behavioral coping mechanisms arising out of trauma and mitigating societal and personal judgments surrounding common human responses to violence and harm. This transformative approach helps those who have experienced violence and their allies better understand how to support, nurture and nourish survivors in a common-sense manner and without blame.

  • Sarah Anderson Sarah Anderson Senior Policy, Public Affairs, and Communications Officer at the Drive Partnership
    Sarah Anderson
    Sarah Anderson
    Senior Policy, Public Affairs, and Communications Officer at the Drive Partnership

    Sarah Anderson is an accomplished policy, public affairs, and communications professional who is dedicated to driving tangible, positive social change centered on those with lived experience. She completed her BSc in Biomedical Sciences from Queen Mary University of London in 2016 and her MA in Philanthropic Studies with Distinction from the University of Kent in 2020. Her master’s thesis focused on the use of digital communications to respond to Covid-19. Sarah is the Senior Policy, Public Affairs, and Communications Officer at the Drive Partnership, leading on written submissions to government calls for information and evidence, developing and updating policy positions around key issues that are relevant to their workstreams, and supporting a growing team through strategic project management. She is the lead for policy and communications on the Restart project and coordinates the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Strategic Reference Group on Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse to bring together sector leaders to encourage a multi-sector strategic approach to reduce the risk posed by perpetrators of domestic abuse. Additionally, Sarah is responsible for developing mechanisms to ensure and enhance both victim-survivor voice and (when appropriate) perpetrator voice feeds into all aspects of the Drive Partnerships’ work. She lives in London with her sausage dog, Sid.

  • Stephen Brock Stephen Brock Social Work Consultant Manchester City Council Workforce Development Team
    Stephen Brock
    Stephen Brock
    Social Work Consultant Manchester City Council Workforce Development Team

    Stephen Brock works as a Social Work Consultant Manchester City Council Workforce Development Team within Manchester Children’s Services. Steve is passionate about the work he has done and continues to do and has been fortunate to have had a number of valued teachers in his life along the way. He has been practicing Social Work in child protection and community development for nearly 25 years. Steve obtained a Hons BA in Sociology and Media Information Studies through the University of Western Ontario and an MSW through Wilfrid Laurier University. In his current role with Manchester City Council, he is involved in the development and delivery of training, coaching practitioners and implementing models of practice across the partnership network.

  • Steve Lock Steve Lock Safe & Together Institute Trainer
    Steve Lock
    Steve Lock
    Safe & Together Institute Trainer

    Steve Lock has been a Safe & Together Institute trainer for 6 years, working in Queensland, Australia, until 2022. In that role, he was Practice Leader for Domestic Abuse with a focus on child protection. Steve was a lead on the adoption and implementation of the Safe & Together model in Queensland. In that context, he worked with all the key agencies, including the range of children/family services, domestic violence specialists, Probation, Police, Courts, Health and Education.

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Jackie Wruck

Jackie Wruck has been a Certified Trainer with the Safe & Together Institute in Australia since 2017 and joins the Safe & Together Institute as the Asia Pacific Regional Manager! Jackie lives in Queensland, AU, and has been working within the community sector for over 20 years. This included working within Government and Non-Government agencies that worked with vulnerable individuals and families in Australia. Jackie has worked in the fields of Child Protection and Domestic Violence as a frontline practitioner in both advocating and crisis support of families. She has also worked in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations as a DV Specialist and would consult on cases that involved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. Jackie has the lived experience, knowledge and understanding of the issue of DFV in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and was the cultural lead for the Walking With Dad’s program, which is grounded in the Safe & Together Model.  Jackie has assisted in bringing both Safe & Together and the Child Protection Child Placement Principles framework together to enhance the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in Australia to assist in keeping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children out of the Child Protection system.  In addition to training on the Safe & Together Model, Jackie continued to use the Safe & Together Model directly with families as a child protection professional, coaching and consulting on cases with domestic violence. She continues to be committed to the safety and well-being of children and families through practice changes through the Safe & Together Model. Jackie will be representing, assisting and supporting Safe & Together Institute in the development and implementation of the model across Australia and Asia Pacific regions.

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Donna Dukes

Donna joined the Safe & Together Institute in December 2022 as a Coordinator for the Trainer Certification Program. She comes to us with a combination of both corporate and non-profit experiences. Previously, Donna held training coordinator positions in the financial sector with The Vanguard Group and Training The Street. In the non-profit sector, she was dedicated to community service, both professionally and personally. As the Training Manager for United Way of Central Carolinas, she managed a leadership development program. Volunteering in her spare time, she became an integral part of domestic violence awareness, advocacy and training. Appointed by the City Council and the Board of County Commissioners, she previously served two years as the Chair of the Domestic Violence Advisory Board in Charlotte, NC.

Donna holds a Masters Degree in Health and Human Performance and a Bachelors Degree in Organizational Communications. Donna has received the “Volunteer of The Year” award from United Family Services, a Commendation Award from the chief of the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Police Department and has had several appearances on local television. Academically, she consistently made the Dean’s List; was inducted into Lambda Pi Eta, The National Communication Association Honor Society; and was recognized by the North Carolina State Senate for her academic achievements. With a sense of humor and a lot of inspiration, Donna loves bringing joy and hope to others.

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Nicola Douglas

Nicola Douglas has eighteen years of experience in the field of domestic abuse. Her passion for the issue began when she was an undergraduate, volunteering in a homeless hostel and working with women made homeless as they fled abuse. She went on to work as a front-line practitioner in a range of settings, including refuge, outreach (as an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor – IDVA) and Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA). Nicola’s interest lies in systems change and she moved into strategic roles, successfully implementing programmes to improve domestic abuse outcomes within social care, police and the ambulance service. Nicola spent four years at Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse in the UK, with and alongside partners, to improve the way that systems respond to domestic abuse. This included leading a team of coordinators working in healthcare and child protection settings, as well as developing a health-based accreditation scheme. Most recently, Nicola completed her MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice, achieving a Distinction and award for best dissertation which focused on the impact of the Domestic Abuse Act on strategic partnerships in the UK.
Nicola joins the Safe & Together Institute as the European Training Delivery Specialist, working with the EU Lead.

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Kay Stevenson


Coming off of an employment history of managing several small businesses in Connecticut and enjoying the growth and expansion process, Kay is a founding employee of Safe & Together Institute, having started with David in 2006. Now overseeing finance, human resources and technology, Kay balances her commitment to the company’s growth with hobbies of gardening and novel writing.

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Mandy Rousselle


Mandy joined the Safe and Together Institute in February 2022 as a bookkeeper. She studied Early Childhood Develop at the University of Maryland European Division in Germany. Prior to working for Safe & Together, Mandy did bookkeeping, customer service coaching, admin support, and managed a transportation charity in Canada for several years.

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Janet Penza


Janet joined the Safe & Together Institute in 2022. She has a long history of supporting executives to achieve their goals.

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Dani Upham, MS


Dani has been with the Safe & Together Institute since 2021. Dani has extensive experience in digital marketing, social media marketing, growth strategy, business development, and brand management. Dani has over 12 years of experience in the field of domestic violence in Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina & South Carolina. Work includes domestic violence advocacy, child advocacy, sexual assault advocacy, and forensic interview. Dani is a certified Digital Marketing Expert with two marketing degrees from Southern New Hampshire University. She is certified with the American Marketing Association, Google, and Facebook, and is an executive leader with the National Society of Leadership and Success.

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Kim Jurgens


Kim started at Safe & Together Institute in November of 2021. She holds a Diploma in Business (Australia) and Hotel Management (South Africa). She began her working career in South Africa working for a leading hotel chain in Event Management, Food and Beverage. She has lived and worked in South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Oman and the USA and has worked in both the private sector on large-scale events globally – including Hong Kong, Malacca, Zambia, Mozambique, and the USA and then working in a project management capacity for the not-for-profit sector in Australia (Australian Institute of Management). As the Training Delivery Project Administrator, Kim provides logistic support to the UK, USA and AU client leads.  She maintains the training calendar, is a point of contact for clients and faculty alike and is responsible for client correspondence
once training dates have been confirmed. Kim has a strong commitment to her community and has volunteered in suicide prevention in Australia and animal welfare in both South Africa and the USA.

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Dorothy Striker

Dorothy Striker has over 25 years of professional experience in the field of child welfare and domestic violence. In a career that has spanned frontline casework to policy and program development, Dorothy has been involved in major family violence and differential response initiatives. Her areas of expertise include individual and family assessment, structured decision making and risk assessment, CAPTA related policy, practice model development and quality assurance case reviews. Dorothy has also participated in various levels of all three of the federal Child and Family Services Reviews in Ohio. Certified Safe & Together™ Model Trainer since 2010, she has provided multi-day training and case consultations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

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Casie Burke, MSEd, PC

Casie Burke, MSEd, PC, has been a trainer of the Safe & Together™ Model since 2012. She has experience training and working with child welfare agencies, as well as other community partners who support child welfare agencies (schools, domestic violence advocates, law enforcement, mental health/substance abuse counselors). She has over 10 years of experience working directly in child welfare, holding various positions including intake and assessment, visitation, parent education, and supervisor. Casie has provided consultation services within agencies surrounding the Safe & Together Model to staff, casework staff, and management. She participated in the National Quality Improvement Center on Child Welfare Involved Families Experiencing Domestic Violence Listening Tour, where she could voice the current state of conditions and challenges, and the potential direction for future research, investments and interventions. Casie is committed to providing training and support to professionals working with families and children surrounding the intersection of child welfare and domestic violence.

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Beth Ann Morhardt

With over 20 years of experience in the domestic violence field, Beth Ann Morhardt has worked with both child and adult victims/survivors in many roles including Child Advocate, Children’s Community Educator, Adult Advocate, Shelter Services Director and Associate Director. After years of working in direct services Ms. Morhardt transitioned into a consultant role, serving as the Domestic Violence Consultant to Connecticut’s Department of Children & Families. In that role, she was able to build and maintain solid collaborations rooted in mutual respect, which resulted in the growth and development of Domestic Violence-Informed practice and skills to better support victims/survivors of domestic violence and their children. Within this role, working directly with perpetrators of coercive control became a focal point and passion within her work. Since 2016 Beth Ann has been a key member of the Faculty with the Safe & Together Institute, where she traveled throughout the US and internationally, collaborating with child protection workers and other community services professionals to increase their proficiency in Domestic Violence-Informed Case Practice. Currently, she works as the Associate Director at a domestic and family violence agency, overseeing shelter, housing, counseling, education and court advocacy services, while also serving as faculty with Safe & Together Institute. Inspired by the current social climate, Ms. Morhardt has returned to a more independent and multi-purposed career with a broader focus on social & racial justice & personal healing.

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Beth Ann Morhardt

With over 20 years of experience in the domestic violence field, Beth Ann Morhardt has worked with both child and adult victims/survivors in many roles including Child Advocate, Children’s Community Educator, Adult Advocate, Shelter Services Director and Associate Director. After years of working in direct services Ms. Morhardt transitioned into a consultant role, serving as the Domestic Violence Consultant to Connecticut’s Department of Children & Families. In that role, she was able to build and maintain solid collaborations rooted in mutual respect, which resulted in the growth and development of Domestic Violence-Informed practice and skills to better support victims/survivors of domestic violence and their children. Within this role, working directly with perpetrators of coercive control became a focal point and passion within her work. Since 2016 Beth Ann has been a key member of the Faculty with the Safe & Together Institute, where she traveled throughout the US and internationally, collaborating with child protection workers and other community services professionals to increase their proficiency in Domestic Violence-Informed Case Practice. Currently, she works as the Associate Director at a domestic and family violence agency, overseeing shelter, housing, counseling, education and court advocacy services, while also serving as faculty with Safe & Together Institute. Inspired by the current social climate, Ms. Morhardt has returned to a more independent and multi-purposed career with a broader focus on social & racial justice & personal healing.

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Danielle Martin, MSW

Danielle Martin has more than 20 years of experience working with children and families within child welfare, early childhood development and domestic violence settings. Her work with at-risk children and families has involved direct service provision, management and administration. She initiated her career in the field of domestic violence creating new programming, advocating for additional services and creating improved collaboration at a local level. She served on the Governor’s Task Force in Michigan for the prevention of child sexual abuse as a departmental representative. She has trained the Safe & Together™ Model in Michigan and beyond since 2015. Danielle has a Master’s degree in Social Work with an emphasis on child welfare. Danielle’s focus has been on the provision of trauma-informed care for families and children experiencing child welfare intervention. She has worked closely with community partners to integrate trauma information and practices into schools, mental health, child welfare and residential communities. Danielle has received the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services “best practice award” for her leadership in the development of local child trauma assessment programming.

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Sarah L. Heuser

Sarah Heuser, MS, has nearly 25 years of experience working in the domestic and sexual violence field. Her roots are in direct service work with survivors in grassroots service agencies focused on crisis intervention, counseling-advocacy, outreach, support and program development. She also has substantial experience in training, prevention and awareness efforts and has worked with a broad spectrum of groups ranging from high school and college students to athletes, DV advocates, child welfare, law enforcement and the judiciary. Sarah has also served on multiple task forces and workgroups in Michigan to address policy issues. A substantial focus of Sarah’s work has been on the intersection of domestic violence and child welfare. Sarah was a strong early advocate for integrating the Safe & Together™ Model to Michigan and became a certified trainer for the Safe & Together Institute in 2015. Sarah has trained on the Model across the US and in Scotland.

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Lisa Fleischer, MSW, LSW

Lisa began her career in child welfare in 2003. She has served in the role of caseworker and supervisor, working long-term with families as well as supervising an Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)/Alternative Response (AR) Unit. Lisa has also been training on the Safe & Together™ Model since 2010.

Lisa previously worked as a Social Worker in an emergency room at a local hospital and a Community Instructor at the Ohio State University College of Social Work. She has a Master of Social Work and is a licensed Social Worker.

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Lórien Castelle

Lórien Castelle has been an activist and advocate for social justice focusing on ending gender-based violence for over two decades. She has had the honor of working with several national organizations across the United States including work as a trainer for the National Center on Domestic Violence, a prevention consultant to the National Resource Center on Domestics Violence, a trainer and consultant for Major League Baseball (MLB) and currently for the Safe & Together Institute.

While working as the Director of Prevention for the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, she was responsible for promoting best practices for preventing and responding to domestic violence and coordinating diverse stakeholders to design and implement community, regional and state-level initiatives. She also worked with the Pennsylvanian Coalition Against Domestic Violence to launch a statewide prevention initiative in Pennsylvania.

Ms. Castelle brings a wealth of experience with coaching, support and training to both domestic violence programs and allies. She has specialized experience with community organizing, organizational development and prevention strategies. In addition, Ms. Castelle has served on numerous national, statewide and regional committees and is a much sought-after trainer, meeting facilitator and keynote speaker.

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Rhonda Dagg BSc, BSW

Rhonda Dagg has over 20 years of experience working in the child welfare field in a variety of roles including front line worker, supervisor and business analyst. In her current role as a CFS Program and Leading Practice Specialist, Rhonda is a passionate advocate for families affected by domestic violence and a strong supporter of staff who work with these families. She is also the media consultant for federally funded systems change project created to reduce gender-based violence and improve outcomes for children and families.

Rhonda has utilized the Safe & Together™ Model in her work since 2014, writing policies, coaching and mentoring staff and trains internationally for the S&T Institute.  In her personal time, she also creates educational material and videos for the community on gender-based violence and prevention.

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Kristi Burre, MA

Kristi Burre began her professional career over 22 years ago in local and state government, community partnerships, and system transformation. Most recently, she served as the Director of Children’s Initiatives for Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, focusing on child well-being and driving improvements with communication and coordination across all state agencies providing services to children and families. In this role, she prioritized system enhancements and advancing policy with early childhood education, early intervention and prevention services, maternal and infant health, child physical and mental health, and children services. Kristi has vast experience collaborating with local, state, federal, and private sector partners to align efforts and investments to have the largest possible impact on improving outcomes for children, families, and communities.

Kristi has worked extensively in the child protection and foster care system in the capacities of caseworker, supervisor, manager, and director. In addition to her public service work, she has held various roles teaching, training, and coaching for the last 22 years, to include roles as a social and behavioral sciences adjunct instructor at Columbus State Community College, and a trainer and executive coach with the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program.

Kristi has been a Safe & Together Institute Senior Faculty and certified trainer since 2011 and is committed to guiding child and family serving agencies to become more domestic violence informed. She has trained professionals in North America, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom from various disciplines, to include child protection, domestic violence advocacy, law enforcement, education, behavioral health, juvenile justice, health care, and the legal community. She also coaches and mentors professionals from across the world involved with the trainer certification program and observes training sessions for evaluation, feedback, and approval for certification.

Additional leadership roles have included chairing the Ohio Governor’s Children Services Transformation Advisory Council and Eliminating Racial Disparities in Infant Mortality Task Force. Kristi has also held leadership positions and appointments for many other state and local entities committed to protecting children and strengthening families, including the Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Board, Ohio Children’s Trust Fund Regional Prevention Council, Ohio Intimate Partner Violence Collaborative, and Ohio Early Childhood Advisory Council. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology, criminology and psychology from Capital University and a master’s degree in sociology from Ohio University.

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Ashley Bowers, MSW, LSW

Ashley Bowers, MSW/LSW, has been a Trainer with the Safe & Together Institute since 2012. She facilitates training and consultation services around the Safe & Together™ Model for child welfare professionals. Ashley is a licensed social worker who has worked throughout the child welfare field for over eleven years. She has worked as a Child Welfare Intake Supervisor in both intake and ongoing departments. In addition to training on the Safe & Together Model, Ashley has utilized the Safe & Together Model directly with families as a child welfare professional, coaching and consulting on cases with domestic violence. She continues to be committed to the safety and wellbeing of children and families through practice changes through the Safe & Together Model.

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Kari Akins

Kari Akins is the Assistant Deputy Director of the Office of Families and Children at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services responsible for state level administration and oversight of child and adult protective services.  Prior to this position, Kari was appointed to the Office of Children Services Transformation leading children services and foster care efforts in Ohio. With 20 years’ experience in the child welfare system, Kari has served in multiple capacities including screening, intake and assessment for direct service, and community response and outreach at an administrative level. In addition, Kari’s work has emphasized community collaboration and education regarding child maltreatment and trauma, the intersection of domestic violence and child welfare practice, and coaching/supervision in child welfare. In 2010, Kari began her work with the Safe & Together™ Model as part of a pilot county in a statewide rollout of the Model, allowing her to be at the forefront of this practice in her state. Kari has served as an advocate on numerous local and state-level workgroups to address best practice policy around Intimate Partner Violence while providing education and training at the state and national level as Faculty for the Safe & Together Institute.

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Alison Simari

Alison joined the Safe & Together Institute in August 2021 as an Administrative Assistant for the Trainer Certification Program. Prior to this, she provided almost a decade of support to the Certified Trainer community at the Center for Nonviolent Communication in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Alison thrives in an environment where she can support the work of those positively impacting the world for the greater good. She is thrilled to be part of Safe & Together’s mission to be an agent of systemic change in the domestic violence field.

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Minh-Chau Truong

Minh-Chau has been with the Safe & Together Institute since June of 2021 as the Virtual Academy Customer Experience Specialist. Her time with eLearning in the non-profit sector, with patients experiencing chronic pain and illness, and 15 years of customer service, back her lifelong goal of helping individuals pursue personal sustainability. Her goal at the Institute is to make the online learning process as easy as possible so that learners can focus on what matters most: maintaining themselves and peace at home.

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Colleen Jameson

Colleen has 20 years of experience working at the intersection of mental health, domestic violence, and education. She has worked as an educator and advocate in DV shelters, teen safe houses, residential programs for at-risk youth, and programs for adults with disabilities. For the past 10 years, Colleen has worked in rural Mississippi with children and families impacted by mental health. She serves on the inaugural Board of the domestic violence shelter in Oxford, Mississippi. In 2010, she authored a curriculum that was awarded an Iowa Women’s Foundation grant for implementation state-wide. Colleen is passionate about making tools that equip individuals to be agents of positive change in the systems where they work and live.

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Lindberg Chambliss

Lindberg joined Safe & Together Institute in June 2021 as Events Logistics Administrator. His  professional career includes over fifteen years of experience in live music event coordination and marketing, artist management, and tour logistics. As an activist with a focus on equity for youth and equity through education, he volunteers with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and participates in projects that advocate for systemic and equitable policy change in K-12 education. Lindberg is passionate about social justice, personal growth, love, art, and adventure.

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Jacob Linzenbold

Jacob Linzenbold has been with the Safe & Together Institute Staff since March, 2021 and currently holds the title of Resource Development, Events & Evaluation Administrator. He works across the organization with each department to ensure that each team is on the same page and best serving survivors and advocates. Jacob graduated from Penn State University and has been involved with several start up companies, giving him the skill set necessary to help with the different aspects of the organization. Jacob excels in providing mentorship and advice to prospective business founders and enjoys teaching students. In his spare time, he enjoys going on adventures and exploring nature with his fiancé and their dog.

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Dana Schmersal, MSW – Resource Development Specialist

Dana Schmersal has been involved in child and family policy and programs for nine years, most recently managing Safe & Together trainings for child welfare staff across the state of Ohio. She has worked directly with families impacted by the juvenile justice system, provided training for child support staff working with families impacted by domestic violence, advocated for women’s reproductive rights, and served as communications director for a state and federal child advocacy organization and taught as an adjunct professor for the Interdisciplinary Child Welfare Institute at Capital University Law School. Currently, she is a member of the Institute’s Resource Development Team and coordinates the certified trainer mentoring program. She has completed both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in social work as well as a B.A. in criminal justice and has made advocacy for vulnerable populations and improvements in community and system responses the focus of her macro practice.

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Peju Thompson

Peju Thompson has been with Safe & Together Institute since July 2020 providing international accounting support for Safe & Together Institute’s business overseas.  Peju holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Rutgers University and a Master of Science Degree in Accounting from Fairleigh Dickinson University.  Prior to working for Safe & Together, Peju was a staff accountant for both a mid-size CPA firm and in city-government. In addition to her diverse professional experience, she enjoys working with people and endeavors to always positively impact others.

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Leah K. Vejzović, LMSW

Leah has been working as a social worker in the fields of child welfare and domestic violence victim advocacy since 2007. She has experience as a child welfare services provider, a domestic and sexual assault victim advocate, a therapist specializing in work with adult and child survivors and perpetrators, a men’s behavior change program facilitator and the coordinator of domestic violence training and response for the Department of Human Services in Iowa. Leah first became connected to the Safe & Together Institute during her tenure as state coordinator when she helped facilitate the implementation of the Safe & Together Model across the state. She came on board in 2020 as a Resource Development Specialist, creating DV-informed curriculum, eLearning and practice tools. She also worked to coordinate programming for our Events. Leah is passionate about equipping professionals with the tools they need to do effective work with families and engage in larger agency and systems change.

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Ingryd Flores

Ingryd began at Safe & Together Institute in June of 2019. Ingryd holds a degree in Social Behavioral Science. She expanded her educational background to include a Bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in History from the University of California, Irvine. She fluently speaks, writes and reads Spanish.

Ingryd’s career began when she worked for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a national leadership program that assists and trains Latino elected and appointed officials on issues important to the Latino population. Here she became inspired to help motivate the Latino community to become naturalized US citizens and engage in civic life. Ingryd simultaneously went to school and also earned a Paralegal diploma.  She then served as a Criminal and Immigration Law Paralegal where she was responsible for researching case law for deportation, domestic violence, child and family cases.

Ingryd believes education gives knowledge and knowledge is important for building informed opinions. She strongly believes educators can make a strong impact on a student’s life. For this reason, she teaches as a Per Diem Substitute Teacher where she encourages a positive learning environment and develops students’ ability and aspiration to learn.

As the Technology and Trainer Certification Program Administrator, Ingryd provides high-level technology assistance and utilizes superior tact and diplomacy when coordinating and changing event registrations, or pre-and post-event evaluations.  It is important to her to address our learners and participants in the right manner as well as stay connected with them until navigating the online courses becomes comfortable and events are finalized.

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Shelly Napoletano Flynn, MSW

Shelly Napoletano Flynn, MSW began at Safe & Together Institute in July 2018 as the Trainer Certification Program Manager overseeing the Institute’s Certified Trainer Expansion. Shelly’s professional career includes over twenty years of experience in the field of child welfare with a dual focus on direct practice with children and families and systems-level social work practice. With the focus on children birth through age eight and their families, her career included direct service, case management and administration which included intersections with statutory child protection, juvenile and family courts, mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, and local crisis response teams.

Shelly’s experience in systems-level practice involved projects such as the evaluation and development of a community’s local capacity to holistically serve its at-risk population of children and families. Additionally, she evaluated and reported on the state-wide supervision practices of Connecticut Certified School Social Workers. As a result of this research, Shelly served on the State of Connecticut Department of Education’s Task Force to develop and implement properly aligned and discipline-specific evaluation standards for school-based social workers in the State of Connecticut. Additionally, her work in systems practice led to the honor of being invited to present on local capacity development of a Birth through Age Eight Children and Family Initiative to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in Washington DC.

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Anna Mitchell, Safe & Together United Kingdom Lead

Anna Mitchell’s interest in women’s issues began when she studied a degree in Geography with Gender Studies at Edinburgh University in 1996. After working in various women’s organisations she went on to gain her Social Work Masters and began to think about the importance of engaging with men who abuse in order to increase the safety of women and children. She worked as a Women’s Service Worker with the Caledonian System; an integrated approach to addressing domestic abuse combining a court-ordered programme for men, aimed at changing their behaviour, with support services for women and children. Anna co-authored the Caledonian System Women’s Service Manual and was seconded to the Equality Unit in the Scottish Government as a Professional Advisor to support the roll-out of this innovative system across Scotland. Since 2012, she has been employed as Domestic Abuse Lead Officer for Edinburgh’s Public Protection Partnership with the remit to help coordinate domestic abuse services across the council, police, health and the voluntary sector. Anna has completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Services Leadership and led a number of initiatives in Edinburgh to improve systemic responses, not only to adult and child victims but to domestic abuse perpetrators; including the development of auditing tools, improvement plans, service pathways, policies and training. In her current role, she is representing the Safe & Together Institute in the UK and is supporting the development and implementation of the Model across Great Britain.

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Ruth Reymundo Mandel, Communications and E-Learning Manager

Ruth has been in training and implementation since 1995. Her career began as a middle school teacher in post-revolutionary Nicaragua. As a teacher in a developing, post-war country she became dedicated to issues surrounding social justice and violence. She later transitioned to higher education and worked at the Bryman School and at The Art Institute of Phoenix as an Assistant Director of Admissions. Her responsibilities included vetting prospective students and identifying barriers to enrollment and to matriculation.

After taking a break to raise her three children, she began working as a trainer and technical support for a national professional line nutritional company and an international professional line herbal company which trained medical professionals in alternative therapies.

In her role, she trained doctors and medical professionals in clinical application and was an ongoing support for successful implementation through patient outcomes. She developed systems for practice management, patient support, managed, created and promoted cyclical education events for clinical success. She developed training strategies to respond to a variety of real-time field challenges.

Ruth also worked as a professional business coach specializing in systems and practice management. Her dedication to understanding root challenges, institutional, structural and personal impediments that keep people from applying their skills and knowledge in a targeted and successful way helped many of her clients increase their business success.

Aside from her professional accomplishments, Ruth is a published poet, writer and public speaker. Ruth has worked with clients using various energy medicine and body-centric coaching techniques for trauma recovery. Drawing on her childhood experiences growing up in an abusive, religious cult and as a survivor, she is a fierce advocate for those who have experienced abuse. She is dedicated to helping survivors and allies understand behavioral coping mechanisms arising out of trauma and mitigating societal and personal judgments surrounding common human responses to violence and harm. This transformative approach helps those who have experienced violence and their allies better understand how to support, nurture and nourish survivors in a common-sense manner and without blame.

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Brittany DiBella, MSW, DVS

Brittany DiBella has been with the Safe & Together Institute since 2015. Brittany has extensive experience developing curricula, e-learning content, and resources, as well as with providing consultation and training facilitation on the Safe & Together™ Model for a wide range of family-serving professionals. Brittany has over 10 years of experience in the field of domestic violence work including research and evaluation of New Jersey’s co-located advocate program; educating advocates, child welfare professionals and social work students on issues related to violence against women and children; direct-practice experience with survivors of trauma and interpersonal violence and work with adolescents impacted by violence. Brittany also served on New Jersey’s Child Fatality Review Board in 2017, is certified in Violence Against Women & Children from Rutgers University School of Social Work and is certified in New Jersey as a Domestic Violence Specialist.

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Heidi Rankin, MPA – Associate Director

Heidi has over 30 years of experience in the sexual and domestic violence fields and social justice. She has worked in crisis counseling, program and policy development and advocacy in both the United States and Canada. Heidi received a Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in domestic violence from the University of Colorado at Denver, the only program of its kind in the country. In her current role as Associate Director and North American Lead, she helps agencies navigate plans for systems change and supports efforts to build capacity through training and collaboration.  Heidi also oversees the Institute training staff, faculty and mentors, manages training for Certified Trainers and presents nationally and internationally.

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David Mandel, MA, LPC – Executive Director

With over almost 30 years’ experience in the domestic violence field, David’s international training and consulting focuses on improving systems’ responses to domestic violence when children are involved. Through years of work with child welfare systems, David has developed the Safe & Together™ Model to improve case practice and cross-system collaboration in domestic violence cases involving children. He has also identified how a perpetrator pattern-based approach can improve our ability to help families and promote the development of domestic violence-informed child welfare systems.

David and the Safe & Together Institute’s staff and faculty have consulted to United States’ child welfare systems in a number of states including New York, Louisiana, New Jersey, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Vermont, Oregon and Ohio.  In the last five years, their work has expanded outside the United States with research, training and consultation in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other countries. The Safe & Together Institute works closely with domestic violence advocates, in the United States and abroad, to help them more effectively work with child protection systems and better advocate for child welfare-involved adult and child domestic violence survivors.  David has written and published online courses which has launched a new Safe & Together Model Certified Trainer initiative that will increase the Institute’s ability to support sustainable implementation of domestic violence-informed practice in the US and abroad.

David has written or co-written journal articles on batterer’s perceptions of their children’s exposure to domestic violence, domestic violence case reading tools, and the intersection of domestic violence and child welfare practice. His chapter on “Batterers and the Lives of Their Children” was published in the Praeger Series Violence Against Women in Families and Relationships.

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