Partnered with a Survivor Podcast
Partnered With a Survivor is a professionally focused podcast created and produced by Ruth Reymundo and hosted by the Safe & Together Institute. What began as intimate conversations between Ruth and David Mandel — Founder of the Safe Together Institute and creator of the Safe & Together Model — exploring personal and professional experiences around violence, relationships, abuse, and the systemic and professional responses that too often harm rather than help, has grown into a global conversation about systems and culture change.
Hosted by Ruth Reymundo and co-hosted by David Mandel, the podcast offers deep, professionally grounded discussions about how institutions respond to domestic abuse, gender-based violence, and child maltreatment. In many episodes, Ruth and David are joined by global leaders in areas such as child safety, men and masculinity, perpetrator accountability, fatherhood, and partnering with survivors.
Each episode takes a rigorous look at complex topics, including how systems fail adult and child survivors, how societal narratives about masculinity and violence shape professional practice, and how intersectional factors such as cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, racialised identities, LGBTQ+ experiences, immigration status, disability, and other vulnerabilities influence how we respond to abuse and violence.
The podcast offers an insider lens into how professionals navigate systems as practitioners, as parents, and as partners. Through candid dialogue and critical reflection, Ruth and David challenge the assumptions and structures that prevent meaningful accountability, safety, and healing. The goal is collective movement across systems, cultures, and families toward safety, nurturance, and sustained change.
Note: Episodes contain sensitive topics and occasional mature language that may be difficult for some listeners.
Check Out All of Our Podcast Episodes
Season 7 Episode 3: How Systems Become Tools of Coercive Control and What Professionals Must Change: An Interview with Valerie Frost
Ruth and David sit down with advocate and analyst Valerie Frost to explore how systems built to protect families can become tools of coercive control—and how to change that trajectory with better listening, precise language, and survivor-centered practice. Valerie traces the everyday realities of child welfare, family court, schools, and law enforcement, showing where checklists fail, how jargon shuts doors, and why knowledge inequity forces survivors to learn a foreign language just to get help.
Season 6 Episode 10: A Champion’s Journey to System-Wide Change: A Conversation with Kyra Feetham About Transforming Practice
What does it take to transform domestic violence practice in an organization? In this illuminating conversation with Safe & Together Institute’s Systems Change Champion Kyra Feetham from the Centre for Women & Co. in Queensland, Australia, we explore the power of language, values alignment, and relationship-building in creating sustainable change.
Season 6 Episode 9: See the Person, Not Just the Problem: Kelly Daley’s Award-Winning Approach
When Kelly Daley, Community Connection Practitioner at Upper Murray Family Care, stood to accept her Champion Award for case practice in the Asia Pacific region, she was not just celebrating professional achievement—she was honoring a deeply personal journey of healing and transformation. Working across three agencies to implement the Safe & Together Model framework with children and young people affected by violence, Kelly has pioneered practice that shifts focus from managing children’s behaviors to holding perpetrators as parents accountable for the trauma they’ve caused.
Season 6 Episode 4: The Paradox of Proximity: Understanding Domestic Abuse in Rural and Remote Communities
In this episode, David and Ruth speak with Dr. Anni Donaldson about her groundbreaking research examining domestic abuse in Scotland’s rural, remote, and island communities.
Season 6 Episode 1: “Just Leave”: Examining Displacement-Based Responses to Domestic Violence
In this thought-provoking first episode of 2025, David and Ruth explore how displacement-based responses to domestic violence reflect and reinforce gender double standards while often creating additional vulnerabilities for survivors and their children. Recording from the Azores, they examine how the expectation that victims must leave their homes to find safety places unfair burdens on survivors while failing to hold perpetrators accountable.
