Season 2 Episode 20: Minisode Series on Worker Safety & Well-Being: Intro to the Series
About This Episode
In the kickoff of their first ever minisode series, David and Ruth introduce the theme of worker safety and well-being in the context of working on issues related to domestic violence. The goal of the series is to address the critical issues of worker safety and well-being as a critical aspect of domestic abuse–informed systems.
Since the inception of the Safe & Together Model, it has been central to know the perpetrator’s pattern, not only as it relates to domestic abuse–informed work with the family but also as it relates to the safety and efficacy of the worker. A worker who is engaging a family where there is domestic violence needs to know if a perpetrator has a known pattern of violence or intimidation toward others outside the family. This is a basic domestic abuse–informed practice related to worker safety.
And our understanding of the organizational importance of addressing worker safety and well-being has only grown. Worker safety may impact:
Attrition and retention
Worker mental and emotional health
Worker performance
The safety and well-being of workers who are survivors themselves
As the Safe & Together Institute’s work has shown, when worker safety concerns go unaddressed, child protection workers may be more blaming of survivors and hold perpetrators less accountable as parents out fear for their own safety.
This is a series for frontline staff across child protection, mental health and addiction, courts, and other systems. We hope it will validate their experiences. This is also a series for human resources managers and organizational leadership. Setting policies and procedures to address worker emotional and professional safety in the context of domestic violence cases is essential to creating a domestic abuse–informed agency.
Topics in the series will include:
When workers are targeted by the perpetrator of one of the clients.
The connection between worker safety in engaging perpetrators and mother-blaming practice.
When workers are being targeted by their own perpetrator through the workplace and at home.
When workers own experience of abuse are triggered by their work with families.
Managing your own fears, as the worker, about the safety of the family.
Additional Resources
Paper: Worker Safety and Domestic Violence in Child Welfare Systems
Online Course: Worker Safety and Domestic Violence in Child Welfare Systems
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