What Practice Change Actually Sticks a Year After Safe & Together Training?

A University of Melbourne research team followed up with 16 practitioners one year after they completed the STACY Project—a Community of Practice initiative combining coaching in the Safe & Together™ Model with training on the intersection of domestic violence, substance use, and mental health. Their briefing paper examined which practice changes actually held up over time, and what separated lasting change from change that faded.

Practitioners most consistently pointed to shared language as the change that stuck—specifically, language that held perpetrators accountable while clearly establishing a position of partnering with the non-offending parent. They described this as reshaping respectful communication both across agencies and directly with the families they worked with.

The researchers found that practice change held up best where leadership was informed and supportive, creating what they called an “authorising environment”—without it, practitioners said they struggled to gain traction. Geographic proximity between practitioners from different agencies also mattered, letting collaborative relationships develop and last. Practitioners consistently cited a lack of time and funding as the biggest ongoing barriers to embedding the approach more deeply.