How the Safe & Together Model Changed Connecticut’s Child Welfare Casework

When domestic violence perpetrators harm children—whether through direct abuse, using a child as a weapon against the other parent, or simply exposing them to violence—child welfare systems have historically struggled to see it clearly. In 2006, Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families addressed that gap by embedding 13 domestic violence consultants directly inside its Area Offices, using what would become known as the Safe & Together™ Model to guide their work alongside caseworkers on every stage of a case.

Rather than reviewing cases after the fact, consultants worked side by side with caseworkers on home visits, investigations, and treatment planning, guided by five questions central to the Safe & Together approach: What is the pattern of coercive control behind the violence? What specific actions has the batterer taken to harm the children? What has the non-offending parent already done to keep her children safe? How has the batterer’s behaviour affected the children directly? And how do substance use, mental health, and culture shape the picture? In one case described in the report, a caseworker used this lens to recognise that a father who kept shutting off the electricity and taking furniture after leaving the home was continuing a pattern of control—and got the court to order him to stop, rather than treating it as a separate, unrelated problem.

Between March and December 2007, the consultants logged 4,575 consultations and trained more than 700 DCF staff and 400 community providers on the Safe & Together Model. Over the same period, the department’s internal case tracking showed the removal rate tied to domestic violence as a risk factor drop from 5.9% to 4.4%—the lowest of any risk category tracked—which the report attributes to caseworkers getting better at assessing real risk rather than removing children reflexively.