Season 2 Episode 10: Trauma-informed is not the same as domestic abuse-informed

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About Episode 10, Season 2

In this episode of Partnered with a Survivor, David & Ruth tackle one of the most pressing issues in the domestic violence field: how to make mental health and addiction services more domestic abuse-informed when it comes to interacting with survivors. While awareness of trauma and its impact continues to increase, it often is decontextualized from the dynamics of coercive control. Mental health and addiction professionals are often ill-prepared by their education and training to integrate coercive control into their assessments. Organizations that are striving to trauma-informed are not always committing to be domestic abuse-informed. Domestic violence survivors are often harmed by these gaps.In  this episode Ruth & David, discuss:

• How perpetrators' can cause and exacerbate existing mental health or addiction issues for adult and child survivors
• How perpetrators' can interfere with other family members' treatment and use their involvement with treatment against them
• How systems, like family court and child welfare, may more negatively perceive a survivors' mental health and addiction issues than  perpetrators' coercive control
• How practitioners and organizations may have blindspots regarding how current coercive control dynamics may be impacting survivors' mental health and addiction treatment

David & Ruth also tackle how structural sexism, racism and colonization dynamics are often ignored in mainstream mental health and addiction paradigms to the detriment of clients from oppressed communities. Ruth also shares about how she's been impacted by reading Judy Atkinson's book, Trauma Trails, Recreating Song Lines: The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous AustraliaIf you like this episode you may want to also listen to the following other episodes of Partnered with a Survivor:Season 2, Episode 5: How professionals can avoid being manipulated by perpetratorsSeason 2, Episode 1: 6 Steps to Partnering with SurvivorsEpisode 30: 4 Ways the Concept of Trauma Bonding Works Against SurvivorsEpisode 18: Survivors aren’t Broken! An intimate discussion about support and partnership in relationships

More About The Podcast

You asked, we answered. Amidst our current, global political and social upheavals, during movements, activism and testimonies, legal cases, fear and victim-blaming - we’ve heard your voice asking for clarity, insight and thoughts about how all of this is reflected in the Safe & Together Model. Many of the stories and news pieces we hear about from our partners all over the world involve complex questions, yet the beginnings of change and hope are based on the sound, simple principles of the Model.To that end, in our new podcast, “Partnered with a Survivor,” S&T’s Executive Director and Founder, David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel offer a raw and intimate glimpse into their personal and professional partnership and what it means to truly partner with a survivor, raise a family based on S&T principles and engage in social change at every level. This is a podcast for practitioners and parents, partners and employers, coworkers and friends - and anyone else who may want clarity, understanding, hope and healing.What does it mean to give consistent consent? What is coercive control? How do you probably see it or feel it every day? This is a podcast you’ll wish you had heard when you were a teenager. In unsure, confusing times, it’s our goal to widen the audience for the Safe & Together Model-associated material to survivors, their family members, and even perpetrators. For professionals familiar with the Model, it will offer another angle on the issues addressed by the Model. For those who don't know Safe & Together, it offers a connection to the themes and ideas behind the work.These podcasts are a reflection of Ruth & David’s on-going conversations which are both intimate and professional and touch on complex topics like how systems fail victims and children, how victims experience those systems, and how children are impacted by those failures. Their discussions delve into how society views masculinity and violence, and how intersectionalities such as cultural beliefs, religious beliefs and unique vulnerabilities impact how we respond to abuse and violence. These far-ranging discussions offer an insider look into how we navigate the world as professionals, as parents and as partners. During these podcasts, David & Ruth challenge the notions which keep all us from moving forward collectively as systems, as cultures and as families into safety, nurturance and healing.Note: Some of the topics discussed in the podcast are deeply personal and sensitive, which may be difficult for some people. We also use mature language to describe some feelings. Finally, we use gender pronouns like “he” when discussing perpetrators and “she” for victims for two reasons: 1.) statistically, more men are perpetrators than are women when it comes to domestic violence, abuse and coercive control; and 2. For clarity's sake, sticking with one pronoun causes less confusion for the listener. We know there are many men who are in abusive relationships and we are not invalidating their situations.About the podcasters: David and Ruth are committed to creating systems and cultures of nurturance and safety. David Mandel founded the Safe & Together Institute which trains systems in domestic violence aware practices from a child safety lens. Ruth Reymundo Mandel is a survivor of complex abuse, child abuse and domestic abuse growing up in a cult. She is a former teacher and trainer using her experience to clarify messages and complexities around abuse and survivors.