The Safe & Together Model
The Safe & Together Model is an international, perpetrator pattern–based framework for transforming how systems and practitioners respond to domestic abuse and threats to child well-being. It applies a child-centered, strengths-based, and systems-informed approach that shifts the focus from blaming protective caregivers—usually mothers—to holding perpetrators accountable as parents.
Domestic abuse is a highly prevalent issue across sectors and is strongly correlated with child neglect, abuse, and child fatalities. As such, the Model is relevant across a wide range of professional settings. It is designed to improve individual practice, systemic function (including data collection and quality assurance), and outcomes for families—making interventions more ethical, efficient, and effective while increasing safety for both adult and child survivors.
The name “Safe & Together” reflects the evidence-informed belief that children in homes impacted by a perpetrator’s behavior do best when they can remain safe and together with their protective parent.
While applicable to various family structures and patterns of abuse—including women’s use of force against male partners—the Model maintains a strong gender analysis and a coercive control perspective. It integrates concerns about partner abuse and child maltreatment and considers intersectional factors that contribute to entrapment. The Model proposes that better family engagement, assessments, and decisions occur when:
We operationalize the foundational idea that a father’s choices and behaviors significantly affect children, partners, and family functioning; and
We give protective mothers full credit for maintaining parenting under intense stress and pressure—recognizing the profound difficulty of caregiving under conditions of coercive control and the importance of acknowledging and validating these efforts in safe and ethical practice.
The Model strongly emphasizes partnering with survivors, offering a deliberate counterpoint to system responses that focus primarily on risk management and safety in ways that can inadvertently punish or further entrap survivors. While trauma-informed, the Model begins with the assumption that survivors are not responsible for their own victimization or for the perpetrator’s abuse of their children. It avoids automatically attributing dysfunction or “brokenness” to survivors. This does not mean the abuse has not harmed them or that they do not require support; it means that the abuse is not of their making. Accordingly, any assessment should begin with the premise that “she was safety planning for herself and her children before we arrived,” and our role is to learn from her—not to diagnose or instruct.
Safe & Together Principles
Keeping child safe and together with non-offending parent
Partnering with non-offending parent as default position
Intervening with perpetrator to reduce risk and harm to child
A Perpetrator-Inclusive, Child-Centered Approach
The Safe & Together Model provides a holistic and integrated view of fathers who perpetrate domestic abuse. It asserts that interventions must explicitly consider perpetrators’ responsibilities as parents or caregivers. Their behaviors are understood through a pattern-based, rather than incident-based, lens—highlighting coercive control and direct actions that harm children.
The Model sets high expectations for change. It goes beyond cessation of abuse, demanding active efforts to repair harm in alignment with their parental responsibilities. Creating harm does not absolve perpetrators of the duty to contribute to their children’s healing—on the contrary, it deepens that obligation. These expectations create a foundation for meaningful accountability, enabling both the encouragement of genuine change and the measurement of failure to change.
The Model also recognizes that many perpetrators have their own trauma histories. Acknowledging this is important, but trauma does not excuse abusive behavior or negate personal accountability. In fact, abusive actions can compound trauma in others and undermine a perpetrator’s own healing through increased shame and social isolation.
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Cultural Portability & Structural Relevance
Originally developed in a North American context, the Safe & Together Model has proven highly adaptable across diverse cultural, legal, and socioeconomic environments. Its emphasis on observable behavior rather than context-specific jargon and definitions likely contributes to its wide resonance and “portability.” Similarly, the cross-cultural reality of sexism manifesting in lower expectations of men than women as parents also likely plays a role in the Model’s transnational appeal. The Model’s relevance across cultures also results from how it centers the intersection of domestic abuse with substance use and mental health—common challenges in most jurisdictions.
The Model incorporates a nuanced understanding of structural vulnerabilities, including racism, poverty, immigration status, and systemic oppression. It recognizes and values informal, culturally specific protective strategies often used by communities that distrust mainstream systems. Its holistic view of fathers includes their relationships with family and community, while still prioritizing behavior change, healing, and repair.
The Model’s child-centered lens is closely aligned with the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Model Effectiveness & Results
The goal of the Safe & Together Model is to create systems and practice change that is child-centered, keeping children safe and together with the protective parent. The effectiveness of the Model is measured by how domestic abuse–informed agencies make this occur as much as possible. We strive to measure and evaluate the Model to ensure its continued success.
To learn more about the successes of the Model, check out these case studies and evidence reports from your region.
What People Are Saying