Season 3 Episode 11: Pivoting to the Perpetrator: An Essential Tool for Interrupting Victim-Blaming
About This Episode
Conversations about domestic violence often start from a victim-blaming perspective: “Why doesn’t she leave?” or “Why does she keep choosing him over children?” or “I can’t trust her to understand the impact on children. She has a trauma history.” These victim-blaming statements interfere with partnering with survivors and holding perpetrators accountable as parents. They also prevent accurate assessments and increase worker frustration with survivors.
In this episode, Ruth and David discuss the Safe & Together Model practice of “pivoting to the perpetrator,” which offers specific steps to interrupt victim-blaming and to shift the focus on to where it belongs—the perpetrator’s behaviors. The practice helps professionals:
Better assess whether interventions with perpetrators are helping or hindering survivor safety
Recontextualize how survivor “denial” or “non-compliance” is shaped by the perpetrator’s behaviors and the failures of systems’ interventions
Be successful with their most challenging cases through better collaborations with survivors and more effective interventions with perpetrators
David and Ruth lay out what pivoting looks like, why it is important, and how to do the three-part practice in your work.
Additional Resources
Online Course: Partnering with Survivors
Podcast: Season 1 Episode 2: Victim-Blaming
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