Season 6 Episode 23: Being Seen at 60: A Birthday Conversation About Vocation, Violence & Hope
About This Episode
Rain on the windows, a century-old clock in the kitchen, and a plate of bacon by the coffee set: David’s 60th birthday set the scene for a raw, open conversation about vocation, love, and the future of domestic violence–informed systems. We pause to reflect on 40 years of David’s practice and what it means to be truly witnessed. Then we get specific about how to build safer families by changing how professionals see, measure, and respond to harm.
We dig into a strengths-first approach that starts with what’s going right and why that’s not soft—it’s real and nurturing of change. By centering survivors’ experiences and recognizing good practice in workers, we create solid ground for hard conversations about accountability. We talk candidly about the damage caused when systems remove children from safe parents because of a perpetrator’s behavior and how the Safe & Together Model reframes responsibility, documents patterns of coercive control, and reduces unnecessary removals. Along the way, we explore an ethic of care that holds multiple truths: refuse to demonize people, refuse to whitewash harm, and persist in naming impact.
Looking ahead, we outline three big moves. First, scale with integrity: more Safe & Together Model Certified Trainers, Partner Agencies, and outcomes data across child protection and community services. Second, bridge men’s mental health with male violence prevention—a silo-busting agenda that catches risk earlier, supports men in crisis, and protects partners and kids. Third, bring practice into the workflow with SafetyNexus, a model-guided technology that streamlines documentation, builds decision maps, reduces moral injury and burnout, and delivers real-time quality assurance. We also share how “credible experts”—survivors and cultural leaders—are paid, respected, and embedded in design so solutions are ethical, non-extractive, and truly useful.
Additional Resources
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