Stopping Family Violence CEO Damian Green and Project Consultant Mark O’Hare attended the Safe and Together Model Core Training in Melbourne from September 25th. This five-day course further developed Mr Green and Mr O’Hare’s domestic violence informed skills in assessment, interviewing, documentation and case planning.
Formulated by David Mandel and Associates, the Safe and Together Model is a perpetrator pattern based, child centred, survivor strength approach to working with domestic violence. Originally developed for the child welfare system, the Model aims to pivot accountability onto the perpetrator and develop service providers’ skills in partnering with the adult survivor. The approach is based on clear understanding of DV perpetrator’s behaviours as the source of safety and risk concerns for families, while emphasising a strong focus of high parenting standards for fathers. This method is further informed by working with DV victims from a strengths based perspective, and understanding them often to have remarkable parenting capacity under difficult circumstances.
Mr Green and Mr O’Hare aim to become Certified Safe and Together Trainers later this year, with future plans of teaching their acquired knowledge and skills to the broader WA family and domestic violence sector. The Safe and Together Model has policy and practice implications for a variety of professionals and systems including child welfare, women’s and family service providers, domestic violence advocates, police, and the legal system.
