Sectors We Serve
How We Help
To ensure domestic abuse practices and policies support the goal of keeping the child and survivor safe and together, we partner globally with sectors touching on domestic abuse and child well-being.
From those working in child protection services, addiction, mental health institutions, and the judicial system to those who support women, men, or families, the Safe & Together Institute works hand-in-hand with these agencies to create the domestic abuse–informed practice tailored to each professional and cultural context.
Working Together
A domestic abuse–informed agency will not only see improved outcomes for adult and child survivors but also internal practice improvements leading to greater worker safety, satisfaction, organizational stability, and increased efficacy in working with community partners. Our shared success sees both child and adult survivors, as well as your professionals, become more safe, stable, self-determined, and satisfied.
Each sector we work with receives trainings, organizational and systems assessments, tools, and support to create system change. By learning your specific and agency-wide needs, we tailor our concrete tools and meaningful solutions to assist your agency to be domestic abuse–informed, while also improving your internal policies, procedures, and practices to increase worker safety and satisfaction and reduce costs. By creating a common language, values, and goals, we can then focus our collective efforts for better outcomes for families.
Learn more about how Safe & Together can help your organization.
Women’s Sector
The Safe & Together Model holds the same values as those working with survivors of domestic abuse. Women survivors should have agency and be kept safe and together with their children.
To ensure that you are equipped to fight for the well-being of those you work with, both the survivors and your staff, the Safe & Together Institute provides tools and language necessary to shift the conversation away from the ineffective “failure to protect” paradigm, which focuses blame on the survivor and not the perpetrator.
By becoming more domestic abuse–informed through the Safe & Together Model, you will have a common language as you work with your partners in the domestic violence field, improving collaboration and understanding of what is best for the child and mother. More children and mothers will be kept safe and together, and you will be on the frontlines of changing the system for the better.
Child Welfare
The end result of the Safe & Together Model is the same goal as those working in the child welfare system—to keep the child safe. Many of the cases facing child welfare professionals are tied to domestic violence, with many of those compounded by additional factors like mental health and addiction. Many professionals are not fully equipped with the tools necessary to navigate some of these complex issues and are stifled by a system that blames mothers for failing to protect.
By following the Safe & Together Model, the child welfare field will become domestic abuse–informed. Through its tools and resources, children are kept safe and together with survivors without using the "failure to protect" approach. This reduces victim-blaming and creates a common language and framework to negotiate a way forward. Agencies will see a reduction of marginalized children in state care, cost savings on foster placement, a decrease in personnel burnout, and improved relationships with domestic violence partners.
By committing to domestic abuse–informed practice, you can transform your own system and influence policy and practice change for your community partners.
Family Court
Studies show that two-thirds of family court custody cases include a domestic violence accusation. Separation and the dissolution of a relationship can be one of the most violent times for a family. In some of these cases, children can be used as a weapon of post-separation coercive control or as the target.
Co-parenting and cooperation are the ideal end result, but a perpetrator’s violence, manipulation, and coercive control make safety and stability impossible. Family court professionals must be able to understand the issues surrounding domestic violence, interrogate the evidence, understand the perpetrator’s patterns, and more to make informed decisions for the well-being and safety of the child and survivor.
The Safe & Together Model offers a neutral and objective framework when looking at custody and access issues regarding children and divorce, how to recognize the harm to children, and other domestic violence issues. By becoming domestic abuse–informed and understanding the connection between custody and domestic violence, you will learn a common language to be used in your agency and with other partners to better determine the best way forward.
Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services
Many mental health and addiction professionals find domestic abuse is a factor in their cases. As professionals in the field, you are called in to support child welfare cases to determine the health and capabilities of both the perpetrator and the victim. Yet many mental health professionals are ill-prepared to deal with the complexity and delicacy of these cases. They can assess if the client is a danger to themselves but not always if they are a danger to others.
Safe & Together’s domestic abuse–informed trainings and tools assist professionals in building the behavioral expertise needed to determine the correct course of treatment plans and documentation when domestic violence is a factor.
The Safe & Together Model gives mental health professionals tools on how to best understand how domestic abuse impacts overall mental health, treatment setbacks, healing, and recovery for the perpetrator as well as adult and child survivors.
You will be able to identify how manipulation, coercion, and weaponized threats by the perpetrator can impact the mental health of their victims and their access to safety, treatment, and overall recovery. By becoming domestic abuse–informed, you will be a better partner to your peers in the child wellness ecosystem, working to keep children safe and together with their protective parent.
Perpetrator Behavior Change
As the first line of service for those looking to address male violence, perpetrator behavior change professionals play a critical role in the domestic abuse ecosystem. When the practice becomes domestic abuse–informed through the Safe & Together Model, you can create better outcomes and a more lasting impact on the lives of perpetrators and survivors.
The Safe & Together Model gives you a holistic view of domestic violence, allowing you to address the perpetrator as a parent. Research shows that speaking of the impact of violence on children is a greater motivator for change.
Through the Model, you will become more domestic abuse–informed. You will become a more efficient and effective practitioner able to partner with survivors and other professionals. You will gain a common language and framework to support the safety and well-being of the adult and child survivor. You will be empowered to hold perpetrators accountable as parents and assess the perpetrator's behavior change and whether things have gotten better for the family.
Multi-Disciplinary Teams
It is integral to have a common language across all team members, from reporting, referrals, and shared assessments to interactions with the victims or perpetrators. A common framework and language that empowers all team members to work together to be committed to the best outcome can only be achieved if the group is domestic abuse–informed. This will not only allow for better collaboration and communication but also support you in being a better ally to the adult or child survivor.
The Safe & Together Model will give your team the tools, resources, and trainings they need, so your focus can stay on keeping women and children safe and together.
