Season 2 Episode 14: How to Perpetrator-Proof Custody and Access Processes

About This Episode

Building on the Safe & Together Institute’s white paper on perpetrators’ manipulation of systems (and the related podcast) and work with the Federal and Family Court of Australia, David and Ruth take a closer look at how domestic violence perpetrators can continue to undermine child safety and well-being post-separation, how they manipulate systems regarding custody and access issues, and how they target professionals in order to extend their coercive control after a relationship has ended. 

In this episode, Ruth and David talk about how: 

• Professionals can properly identify and assess coercive control in the context of custody and access matters 

• Professionals can use a behavioral lens to identify how systems and professionals are targeted post-separation by parents who choose coercive control   

• Professionals can inoculate themselves against these behaviors

• Systems can increase accountability in custody and access situations by using a collaborative parenting standard as a lens for identifying the risks and harms created by domestic violence perpetrators

• Understanding patterns of pre- and post-separation coercive control and actions taken to harm the children is essential for understanding,  contextualizing, and validating the protective parent’s behaviors 

• Acknowledging differing cultural expectations of men and women as parents is essential to assessing child safety and well-being in the context of post-separation coercive control

Their discussion includes practical steps and has implications for women sector workers and advocates, legal practitioners, child protection, family court, children’s advocates, mental health practitioners, and others. David and Ruth also hope that survivors can use this information to educate professionals who work with them.

Additional Resources

• Podcast: Season 2 Episode 12: How Coercive Control Harms Child Safety and Well-Being: An Interview with Dr. Emma Katz

• Podcast: Season 2 Episode 5: How Professionals Can Avoid Being Manipulated by Perpetrators

• Podcast: Season 1 Episode 29: Family Courts Are Failing the “Best Interests” of Adult and Child Abuse Survivors: An Interview with Joan Meier

• Safe & Together Institute’s domestic abuse–informed trainings

• Safe & Together Institute’s upcoming events

• David Mandel’s book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence