A coercive control law can be groundbreaking and still leave survivors asking, “Why doesn’t life feel safer?”

David and Ruth are joined by Dr. Marsha Scott, CEO of Scottish Women’s Aid, to talk about Scotland’s hard-won reforms and the uncomfortable truth behind them: Legal change is only the beginning, and implementation is where domestic abuse reform succeeds or fails. 

They dig into what makes Scotland’s coercive control framework so influential, including its course of conduct focus and why impact matters more than trying to read a perpetrator’s “intent.” Dr. Scott shares what the law has changed in public understanding and what has not changed yet in courts, sentencing, and survivor trust. Ruth, David, and Dr. Scott also get practical about what closes the implementation gap: infrastructure, better evidence, skilled supervision, and real accountability when systems keep defaulting to old habits. 

Then they turn to family court, child protection, and child contact decision-making, where children’s rights can get lost and where poor documentation can make the perpetrator disappear while the survivor is judged through a deficit lens. They talk about reports, mental health models, and what it takes to pivot practice toward perpetrator patterns as parenting behaviours with measurable harm to kids. 

If you care about coercive control, children’s safety, and systems change that actually sticks, hit subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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If your picture of domestic abuse is still “bigger person equals perpetrator,” that assumption can derail safety planning in minutes, especially in same-sex relationships and LGBTQ families. 

In this episode, Ruth and David sit down with Dr. James Rowlands, sociologist and founder of the Dyn Project, to explore what actually helps practitioners identify abuse more accurately: tracking patterns of coercive control, listening for fear and entrapment, and documenting real behaviours instead of relying on identity-based assumptions.

Ruth, David, and Dr. Rowlands unpack the tension many professionals feel between maintaining a gender-based violence lens, recognising gendered double standards, and being inclusive of queer survivors and male victims. While “gender-neutral” approaches can sound fair, they can also flatten power dynamics, erase social context, and obscure the role gender norms play in abusive relationships.

Together, they examine the “public story” that often steers professionals toward proxies like size, presentation, or stereotypes instead of evidence-based assessment. They also discuss how abuse tactics can look different in LGBTQ relationships, where outing, community stigma, and questions around “who counts as queer” can become tools of coercion and control.

The conversation gets practical, too. David, Ruth, and Dr. Rowlands explore why LGBTQ survivors are often missed in MARAC referrals, how generic risk checklists fail without LGBTQ-specific prompts, and what domestic homicide and death reviews can get wrong when queerness is treated as the explanation rather than focusing on perpetrator behaviour and systemic failures.

They close with concrete questions practitioners can ask to build trust with survivors, along with guidance for navigating biased or unsafe professional responses.

Subscribe, share this with a colleague or friend, and leave a review so more people can find these tools. What’s one assumption you’ve seen cause harm in a domestic abuse response?

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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We are starting our 7th season and asking the question: "What if love wasn’t the soft side of this work, but the method that makes healing possible?"

We chat again with Nneka MacGregor—co-founder and executive director of WomenatthecentrE, survivor, advocate, and visionary—to explore how love, joy, gratitude, and community connection can transform responses to gender-based violence. Instead of centering punishment that rarely repairs harm or teaches nurturing protective behavior, we examine a path where boundaries are love, accountability restores dignity, and systems are redesigned to reduce violence at its roots.

Nneka shares the personal story of surviving an attempted femicide and the vow that shaped her leadership: to live with gratitude, choose joy, and build a world where women and children are safer. From there, we dig into transformative justice—what it is, how it works, and why carceral reflexes often disconnect people from community, dull empathy, and compound and reproduce harm. You’ll hear a clear case for accountability that tells the truth, makes repair, and supports real change without throwing people away.

Nneka also introduce three bold frameworks that flip misogyny and misogynoir on their heads: amourgyny (love of women, girls, trans, and gender-diverse people), amourgynoir (centering love for Black women, girls, and gender-diverse folks), and amourgenous (centering love for Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people). These ideas are already influencing policy in Canada, offering a practical language for institutions to move beyond retribution into more behaviorally grounded and care-centered design. Along the way, we redefine power as something you hold upright and share—strong, embodied, and unentangled from coercion, control, and violence.

If you’re a practitioner, policymaker, survivor, or ally, this episode offers a grounded blueprint: lead with love, pair it with firm boundaries, build accountability that repairs, and design systems that center those most harmed. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with your take: where should love show up first in your world?

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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In 2020, the Centre for Women's Justice (CWJ) filed a groundbreaking "super-complaint" against all police forces in England and Wales. The complaint alleged patterns of "serious concerns about the way policing systems operate where police officers are accused of domestic abuse" and raising concerns of a "lack of integrity, of officers manipulating the system and acting in bad faith in a variety of ways."

In this episode, David and Ruth interview Nogah Ofer, the CWJ solicitor who filed the complaint, and "Amy" (pseudonym used), an officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV) survivor whose story is included in the complaint. The interview covers:

• The genesis of the complaint
• The patterns of abuse and experiences of UK OIDV survivors
• The failures of the police system to respond effectively to these officers' behaviors

Amy shares the details of her abuse and how the system failed to respond to her safety needs. 

Listen to other episodes in the OIDV series: 

• Season 1 Episode 28: “I Have Something I Want to Talk to You About”: A Conversation About the Experiences of OIDV Survivors with Dr. Leanor Boulin Johnson
• Season 1 Episode 27: “How Much Crime Are You Willing to Let Your Police Commit?”: An Interview with Lieutenant Detective Mark Wynn (Ret) and Police Chief Tom Tremblay (Ret)
• Season 1 Episode 26: Listening to the Voices of Survivors of Officer-Involved Domestic Violence: An Interview with Nanette Chezum
• Season 1 Episode 25: When Police Officers Commit Domestic Violence: An Interview with Award-Winning Journalist and Author Alex Roslin

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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The term “trauma bonding” was originally coined by Patrick Carnes, who was a proponent of the concept of sex addiction. He originally developed the term to describe “the misuse of fear, excitement, sexual feelings, and sexual physiology to entangle another person.” A simpler and more encompassing definition is that trauma bonding is “a strong emotional attachment between an abused person and his or her abuser, formed as a result of the cycle of violence.”

Problematically, the term is often misapplied to survivors rather than focusing on perpetrators and their choices and tactics. In this episode, Ruth and David discuss four ways the concept of trauma bonding works against survivors: 

1. It deemphasizes or ignores perpetrators’ behaviors that keep survivors trapped in an abusive situation.
2. It blames victims for the failure of friends, family, professionals, and faith leaders to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.
3. It focuses professionals on the survivor, not the perpetrator.
4. It lets systems and professionals off the hook for how they are not responding well to survivors and perpetrators.

David and Ruth also explore the connections between the concept of trauma bonding and Stockholm Syndrome, co-dependency, and learned helplessness. They also examine the differential impact of this term on poor and Indigenous women, women of color, and trans survivors.

Toward the end of the show, David and Ruth talk about how the Safe & Together Model offers professionals alternative approaches to working with survivors, including: 

• Making sure that any discussion of trauma is contextualized to the perpetrator’s pattern
• Actively seeking to understand behaviors of resistance and protection for survivors and others 
• Working to ensure that the response that a survivor gets for disclosure is a positive experience
• Respecting survivors’ unique needs
• Using tools like the Ally Guide to communicate to professionals, family, and friends
• Training professionals to recognize the patterns of manipulation by perpetrators and their vulnerabilities to manipulation 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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Family courts’ decisions related to domestic violence and child abuse have tremendous impact on the lives of adult and child survivors. These decisions are suppose to serve the “best interests” of the children in these families. Yet, as research indicates, reports of domestic violence and child abuse are more likely to be disbelieved than believed by family courts.

In this episode, David and Ruth speak to Joan Meier, an internationally renowned author, researcher, and attorney, about about her years of experience with family court and abuse and her recent groundbreaking research study on U.S. family court decisions related to abuse allegations. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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The first police spouse that Dr. Leanor Boulin Johnson interviewed for her research came into the office, sat down, and said, “I have something I want to talk to you about, and I really don’t care what you want to talk to me about. I’m going to tell you what I want you to know about my stress.” She went on to tell Dr. Johnson and her colleague about how her police officer husband was beating her. More stories of police officer–perpetrated domestic violence were uncovered as the research continued. With each disclosure, Dr. Johnson was thrown deeper and deeper into the hidden world of officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV). 

Over more than 30 years, Dr. Johnson has done multiple studies and even testified to the United States Congress about officer-involved domestic violence. Dr. Johnson, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, didn’t set out to research officer-involved domestic violence. As a professor in African American and Family Studies, she was looking to research women’s roles in the workplace. After running into roadblock after roadblock, she landed on studying police officers’ stress including their families. 

In this conversation with David and Ruth, Dr. Johnson shares her insights and observations related to OIDV including her concerns for the health of police families, lack of support for police officers, and the connections between OIDV and police brutality. During this interview Dr. Johnson talks about:

• The connection between “authoritarian spillover,” OIDV, and police brutality 
• The gender and race differences in her research 
• How police officers’ need for support and connection is central to addressing OIDV and excessive force problems

For those interested in learning more about her research, you can email her directly at drlbj@yahoo.com. To read more about her research, you can read Alex Roslin’s book Police Wife.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Police have been fighting against officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV) for decades. In this episode, David and Ruth interview two international law enforcement experts and advocates fighting against the perpetration of domestic violence by police officers. Retired Lieutenant Detective Mark Wynn and Retired Police Chief Tom Tremblay talk about how: 

• Officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV) violates the public trust
• Police executives that don’t address OIDV are colluding with criminals
• Police officer stress is not a cause of OIDV
• OIDV is tied to male dominated culture in police forces  
• Use of excessive force and OIDV are connected and need to be addressed together

Listen to other episodes in the OIDV series: 

• Season 1 Episode 26: Listening to the Voices of Survivors of Officer-Involved Domestic Violence: An Interview with Nanette Chezum
• Season 1 Episode 25: When Police Officers Commit Domestic Violence: An Interview with Alex Roslin

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Survivors of officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV) face unique threats and challenges compared to other domestic abuse survivors. OIDV perpetrators are highly trained in violence, control, and surveillance; have access to resources to surveil and threaten the survivor; can use knowledge of the system, including the location of confidential shelters/refuges; can use their relationships with other professionals to further their abuse; and often have access to firearms.

In episode, David and Ruth interview Nanette Chezum, an OIDV survivor, about her experience of abuse. Nanette discusses: 

• How the initial trust she placed in her partner was elevated because he was a police officer
• Her partner’s tactics of abuse and its relationship to his training and position
• The importance of getting support and validation from the partner from another officer
• The supportive and positive response she received from her perpetrator’s department

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

When police officers commit domestic violence, it harms their family, the public, and the efficiency and effectiveness of police departments. Domestic violence survivors who are partnered with police officers face unique vulnerabilities and challenges. Officers who perpetrate domestic violence are often the same people who are involved in excessive force and altercations with their peers. It is believed that 2 in 5 domestic violence police calls are responded to by police officers who have a history of domestic violence perpetration.   

In this episode, Ruth and David have a far-ranging conversation with Alex Roslin, an award-winning journalist and the author of Police Wife, about: 

• How he first learned about the issue of OIDV from a survivor who was participating in a support group that was one-half partners of gang members and the other half were partners of police officers
• How he began researching OIDV across the world 
• How often police officers who are known to commit domestic violence remain on the job, responding to domestic violence survivors’ calls for law enforcement assistance
• The lack of resources for OIDV survivors
• The linkages between OIDV and excessive force used against civilians 
• How OIDV perpetrators use their position, power, training, and relationships to engage in coercive control 
• The need for improved policy and statutes to create better transparency, training, and consequences for OIDV perpetration 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Survivors deserve a variety of options for support, justice, and healing.

In this episode, Ruth and David start by interviewing Janette Barcenas, a survivor, practitioner, and researcher involved with U.S.-based survivor impact panels. Janette shares how her healing journey was strengthened by her participation in survivor impact panels and one-on-one dialogues with people who had chosen violence. David and Ruth’s second guest, Matt Johnston, a Licensed Professional Counselor and manager of these dialogue programs, describes how the structure of these programs help both survivors and perpetrators. Their third guest, Dr. Kate Sackett Kerrigan, shares the research behind the programs, including the increases in empathy, guilt, and a greater understanding of partners’ perspectives by perpetrators. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Often gendered and non-gendered frameworks for domestic violence are pitted against each other as if they represent two mutually exclusive universes. This does not need to be the case. To be useful, a domestic violence assessment and practice approach needs to  be accurate, comprehensive, and holistic.  

In this episode of Partnered with a Survivor, Ruth and David discuss how practicing without a gendered analysis of parenting expectations and societal dynamics fails the test for accurate, comprehensive, and holistic assessments and interventions. They also explore how a behavioral focus allows practitioners to assess danger and risk in diverse situations, including men's violence against women, women's use of violence against men, abuse in same-sex relationships, and lateral violence.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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Systems often fail domestic survivors who are from religious communities, and worldwide, Muslim survivors can face racism from outside their community as well as intense pressure to conform to community norms around male entitlement and family honor.  

In this episode, Ruth and David interview Shana Begum, a domestic violence education coach who is a survivor of not one but two attempted honor-based killings and two forced marriages. Shana speaks about:

• Her experience with being groomed for coercive control and domestic violence in her South Asian community
• How addressing the violence in her community was resisted because of fear of further marginalization
• How adherence to religious principles is manipulated to maintain power and control
• Her journey from being a victim to being an empowered survivor and professional educator 

Central to her story is the notion that partnering with communities that are self-protective because of cultural or religious beliefs or marginalization requires specific skills and understanding. Shana talks about how religion and culture played a role not only in her initial abuse but in her isolation via communal pressure and collusion with her perpetrators. She speaks about how certain closed communities create a pressure cooker of abuse by becoming “communal abusers,” which makes it very difficult for victims to report abuse and seek assistance. 

Ruth and Shana talk about how to avoid attacking a culture or religion when breaking down coercive control and violence in order to assist survivors in those communities. David and Shana talk about professional curiosity in partnering with survivors who wish to be connected to their community, family, and culture. Shana speaks about the dangers of honor-based violence and the need for systems to educate themselves about cultural challenges in assisting survivors. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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Mist, wind, the volcanic island of São Miguel, and a hard look at the words and jargon that decide families’ futures. We begin in the Azores, Ruth’s ancestral home, where arguments for European westward expansion took shape after Bartolomé de Las Casas reported the finding of two “dead Amerindian" bodies—and where mainland-imposed poverty, illiteracy, and family separation set conditions that still shape domestic violence today. 

From that grounding, we pull apart a label that quietly drives child removals, court outcomes, and professional blind spots: “denial.” Across child protection and domestic violence documentation, the phrase “mother is in denial of the impact of domestic violence” appears with alarming regularity—automatically shifting scrutiny onto women in records that determine custody and liberty, while the person causing harm fades from view. The result is compounded harm at both personal and system levels.

We trace how this term traveled from early psychoanalysis—where women’s reports of sexual violence were recast as inner conflict or sexual turmoil—into today’s case notes and court filings. Over time, denial and hysteria morphed into failure to protect and parental alienation, redirecting attention from perpetrators’ patterns of violence to mothers’ supposed deficits in “controlling” that violence or responding to it. Instead of centering victims’ reactions to harm, we argue for real behavioral evidence: name who did what, to whom, with what impact, and what has been tried with the person causing harm. This shift is not cosmetic, yet it changes documentation, supervision, and safety planning, and it guards against wrongful liberty removals and harmful system collusion with perpetrators.

You’ll hear practical questions that move practice quickly: What did she do or say that led you to that conclusion? What is your specific safety concern about that behavior? These prompts redirect focus from a survivor’s inner world to the perpetrator’s actions, choices, and behaviors—opening the door to mapping risk to children, cataloging incidents, and designing interventions that actually reduce danger. We also widen the lens to the ecosystem around survivors—family pressure, faith norms, small-island logistics, and economic traps—that make “just leave” dangerous or impossible for many.

The invitation is clear: try a week—or a month—without the word denial. Replace labels with behavioral pattern facts. Keep the person causing harm at the center of risk and response.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review telling us which label you’re dropping next. Your words help others find the show—and change practice for the better.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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For too long we have not listened to children and young people's experience of their father's violence. To fill this gap, Professor Cathy Humphreys and Dr. Katie Lamb interviewed children and young people about what they wanted to say to the fathers who were violent to their families. 

In this episode, David and Ruth chat with Cathy and Dr. Lamb about their groundbreaking research. Their impactful conversation includes:  

• One of the digital stories where a young person, in her own voice, shares her feelings about father and his behavior
• Katie and Cathy describing their interactions with the young people and what they learned from them 
• David and Ruth exploring with their guests how some professionals struggle with confronting fathers who choose violence with the lived experience of their children 
• A discussion of how Aboriginal workers used the the young people's digital stories to help men change

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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During this time of reflection on law enforcement's role in communities, explorations of restorative justice practices are more important than ever. In this episode, David and Ruth interview Dr. Eloise Sepeda, a national expert trainer and consultant of restorative justice and discuss:

• The importance of listening to domestic violence survivors and asking them the question: What does justice look like for you?  
• How to work with people who choose violence using restorative practices 
• The need for practitioners to reflect on how they respond to survivors' stories 

To learn more about Dr. Sepeda's work, visit bethechange.tools.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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In this episode, Ruth and David outline nine common narratives that support and encourage dangerous collusion with domestic violence perpetrators and offer practical tips for how to unwind and challenge those narratives. This episode is helpful for professionals, survivors, allies, and people who choose violence. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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In this episode of Partnered with a Survivor, David and Ruth offer a very personal look at relationship dynamics when one partner is a survivor. In response to a request from a survivor to explore this topic, David and Ruth share their personal challenges and rewards of navigating historical abuse. What does living with and partnering with a survivor really look like emotionally and behaviorally? How does one learn to honor and respect the emotional implications historical abuse has inside relationships? 

Ruth and David talk about how: 

• David learned about and honored the impact of Ruth’s earlier abuse in their relationship and while co-parenting
• Ruth’s openness about her trauma and her advocacy for the voices of survivors has deepened and enriched David’s work
• Both survivors and those who live, love, and work with them can navigate trauma, trauma content, trauma emotions, and trauma behaviors in a healthy and responsible way that improves trust and collaboration
• David’s personal internal work assisted him in learning the principles of how to partner with survivors

This discussion is truly the place where personal meets professional and is an intimate behavioral look at how partnering looks and feels in a relationship and in practice.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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About the Episode: Undiscussable On Talk Radio

Episode 4 When religious traditions are manipulated to abuse.
Really key conversations...with @abdulwahidstephenson & @ruth_stearnsmandel
If you haven’t caught the series so far you catch up on the podcast available wherever you get your pods.

Send us Fan Mail

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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To coincide with Father’s Day in the UK and US, we are pleased to launch our Choose to Change: Your Behavior, Your Choice campaign materials. This is a time of significant disruption in service delivery and reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of mainstream responses to domestic violence. Lockdown, loss of employment, and social distancing are creating new and unique pressures on families. More men than ever are calling hotlines and reaching out for help with their violence toward loved ones. The Choose to Change Toolkit offers communities, families, and practitioners a new suite of tools to help interrupt violence. 

In this podcast, Ruth interviews David about the Choose to Change Toolkit and its applications. David outlines how these resources can help make real differences in the safety and quality of life for women and children and can offer men new, practical options for choosing to change their behavior. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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In this episode, David interviews Ruth about the Safe & Together Institute's Family and Friends Ally Guide. This guide was created out of the direct experiences of survivors of domestic violence, coercive control, and child abuse. It outlines what survivors wish their friends and family had known or done to assist them to safety and healing.  

David and Ruth discuss the ideas behind the guide, including:

• How to identify coercive control and domestic violence in the life of their loved one
• What to say to ease difficult conversations about abuse
• How to decode coded disclosures about abuse
• Steps for practical support 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Before he murdered their mother, Claire, and their sister, Charlotte, Luke and Ryan Hart's father spent years justifying his control by telling them the world is a dangerous place. All the while, he was the one who was dangerous to their lives and liberty. 

In this podcast, Ruth and David conduct a transatlantic interview with the two brothers who have been on a journey to raise awareness about coercive control and how dangerous it is. Authors of the book Remembered Forever, the Hart brothers tell their family's story with an emphasis on how their father entrapped and isolated their family. They highlight that coercive control is best identified not through acts of violence but through the loss of choice.  

David and Ruth explore specific parallels between their story and the current context of the pandemic. The Hart brothers share some of the ways they resisted their father's control and maintained their sanity through small rituals of connection.  

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Ruth and David sit down with Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, author and director of the Trauma Stewardship Institute. David, who has known Laura for years, has seen and felt the power, practicality, and simplicity of her message. 

In this conversation, Laura discusses:

• How the current situation with the pandemic is impacting an already emotionally overwhelmed workforce
• The balancing the urgency of the moment with the need to take care of self
• Simple strategies for self-care that help your body metabolize stress

Laura is the author of two books: Trauma Stewardship: An everyday guide to caring for self while caring for others and The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the long haul. You also may want to check out her Tedx Talk: Beyond the Cliff.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode Ruth and David outline an emerging checklist for professionals and families to help them map perpetrators' patterns of behavior in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and our social response. 

The episode includes discussion of:

• How to avoid colluding with perpetrators who are using the pandemic as an excuse for their behaviors
• Things to consider when you are assessing for increased danger, including changes in the perpetrator's anxiety, depression, and substance abuse
• Survivors' vulnerabilities that the perpetrator may be using against them
• How to continue to focus on survivors' protective efforts
• How to continue to partner with survivors in the current environment

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Rain on the windows, a century-old clock in the kitchen, and a plate of bacon by the coffee set: David’s 60th birthday set the scene for a raw, open conversation about vocation, love, and the future of domestic violence–informed systems. We pause to reflect on 40 years of David’s practice and what it means to be truly witnessed. Then we get specific about how to build safer families by changing how professionals see, measure, and respond to harm.

We dig into a strengths-first approach that starts with what’s going right and why that’s not soft—it’s real and nurturing of change. By centering survivors’ experiences and recognizing good practice in workers, we create solid ground for hard conversations about accountability. We talk candidly about the damage caused when systems remove children from safe parents because of a perpetrator’s behavior and how the Safe & Together Model reframes responsibility, documents patterns of coercive control, and reduces unnecessary removals. Along the way, we explore an ethic of care that holds multiple truths: refuse to demonize people, refuse to whitewash harm, and persist in naming impact.

Looking ahead, we outline three big moves. First, scale with integrity: more Safe & Together Model Certified Trainers, Partner Agencies, and outcomes data across child protection and community services. Second, bridge men’s mental health with male violence prevention—a silo-busting agenda that catches risk earlier, supports men in crisis, and protects partners and kids. Third, bring practice into the workflow with SafetyNexus, a model-guided technology that streamlines documentation, builds decision maps, reduces moral injury and burnout, and delivers real-time quality assurance. We also share how “credible experts”—survivors and cultural leaders—are paid, respected, and embedded in design so solutions are ethical, non-extractive, and truly useful.

If you care about domestic violence, child safety, survivor-centered practice, men’s health, or building humane systems that actually work, this conversation will give you tools and hope. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with one insight you’re taking back to your practice.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In the first of a series of COVID-19–specific podcasts, David and Ruth talk about how the dynamics of domestic abuse are changing in the context of the pandemic. The conversation includes:

• Specific resources for immediate support for survivors across North America, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK
• An exploration of how perpetrators may be using the pandemic to increase coercive control, including increased monitoring of family members trapped by social distancing
• Ruth's insights from her own history of being isolated with her abusers
• How children may be impacted by the intersection of the pandemic and living with an abusive parent
• Specific practice tips for partnering with survivors and intervening with perpetrators in the context of COVID-19 and social distancing

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this podcast, David and Ruth explore the psychology behind men who use violence and abuse. They examine how different forms of entitlement create justifications for coercive control and how the emotional driver behind abuse may not be anger but rather avoidance of feelings of fear and powerlessness.

The discussion covers several key factors that perpetuate abusive behavior: the perpetrator's refusal to accept responsibility for the damage they cause; how structural inequalities and cultural norms sustain patterns of abuse; and the complex role of substance abuse and mental health issues, which require treatment but should never excuse a perpetrator's choice to harm their partner, children, and family.

David also outlines how practitioners, family members, and friends can use this psychological profile to guide their interventions with perpetrators, offering practical approaches for addressing abusive behavior at its source.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

This special episode features the lived experience experts highlighted at the Safe & Together Institute's third annual Asia Pacific Conference in partnership with Berry Street. 

To start, David and Ruth discuss experiences and recommendations for systems change with the Y-Change experts from Berry Street. Their insights bring depth and context and keep systems accountable to the reality that child victims of abuse need to be heard by systems in order for true nurturance and safety to be met.

Then, the Safe & Together Institute's survivor keynote speaker, Ryan Hart, speaks about his experiences of coercive control and how it impacted him and his family. He creates insight and clarity around the harm that non-physical forms of violence bring to families and individuals and gives us perspective on how society is failing to recognize the dangers of coercive control. Ryan and his brother, Luke, are tireless advocates for systems to recognize coercive control as a serious and dangerous crime.  

We hope you enjoy this lived experience podcast. Safe & Together honors the experiences and reflections of victims and survivors and believes that true systems change can only happen when we honor their voices and their experiences are reflected back to help systems do better. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, Ruth and David discuss how family and friends can be effective allies to loved ones living in abuse. Victims often first disclose to friends and family members, but even with the desire to be supportive, kin can respond with judgment and victim-blaming. These responses can have the effect of silencing the survivor, increasing their isolation, shame, and sense of being trapped. 

David and Ruth offer practical tools, strategies, and language for friends and family to partner and support a loved one navigating domestic abuse and coercive control. Definitions of "coercive control" and "domestic abuse" are outlined to help friends and family identify and understand non-physical forms of abuse and the risk and harm associated. 

Drawing from the Safe & Together Model's partnering framework, which is used to train professionals in the domestic violence and child protection fields, Ruth and David discuss the importance of affirming, asking, validating, collaborative planning, and documentation. Ruth and David touch on diverse topics such the unique barriers to disclosure faced by survivors in same-sex relationships, how cultural beliefs about gender encourage victim-blaming and increase the ability of perpetrators to entrap survivors, and how to really listen to a loved one who is being abused while maintaining a behavioral focus on the perpetrator's choices to harm and abuse. Ruth shares her own experiences as a survivor who faced judgment and disbelief by friends and family and how it impacted her safety and healing.  

This podcast does not represent legal advice and is not intended to replace accessing formal services.  

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, Ruth and David start their Sunday morning with a discussion of male parental development, a concept that David coined to help professionals work more effectively with men and families. In many ways, societies fail in how we prepare boys to be parents. While girls' education and preparation for parenting may start with her first doll, our first discussion with boys about parenting usually comes much later and often is focused on how to avoid unwanted pregnancy.  

How does our failure to address boys and men as a vital part of nurturing children harm men and families? How does this cultural blindness to the impact of men's behaviors—both positive and negative—affect the safety and nurturance of children? 

The conversation covers numerous topics including research on the "mothering center" in the brain, the need for equal assessment of parenting across same-sex and heterosexual relationships, and the relevance of better work with fathers for women and children. David speaks directly to men around how to reflect on their preparation to be a father and provides tips for professionals about how to engage males better around fatherhood. Ruth speaks to how stereotypes around men as violent are harmful to men, women, and children.   

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, Ruth and David explore the common and entirely normal trauma responses experienced by victims and survivors—and how those responses are often weaponized against them by perpetrators and by systems charged with ensuring safety. Ruth shares personal reflections on the trauma responses she experienced and witnessed growing up in an abusive cult alongside more than 50 other people, offering a powerful lens on how prolonged coercion shapes behavior and survival strategies.

Together, Ruth and David examine how perpetrators exploit trauma responses to create a culture of fear around disclosure, and how professionals too often misinterpret survivors’ self-protective strategies as pathology. They discuss how these misinterpretations are then used against victims in courts, child protection, and social services, further compounding harm.

Ruth describes a pivotal “aha” moment that emerged while studying the KUBARK interrogation method used in military SERE training for U.S. Special Forces. She draws compelling parallels between the physiological and psychological responses seen in torture victims and the internal responses produced by domestic abuse and child abuse—particularly when perpetrators, or systems, use threats, force, or coercion under the guise of “safety.”

David offers concrete practice insights on how to reframe trauma and torture responses not as deficits, but as evidence of protection, adaptation, and even strength. He reflects on where systems and practitioners have gotten this right, and where they have caused further harm. Throughout the episode, Ruth and David share specific language, strategies, and tools to support more effective partnering—approaches that honor trauma responses as normal physiological reactions to prolonged danger, alarm, and harm, rather than signs of dysfunction.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, David and Ruth continue their conversation on masculinities and their relationship to power, gender, and abuse. They unpack the limits of the term “toxic masculinity,” explore how men’s positive—and harmful—impacts on family functioning are often underestimated, and reflect on where our current conversations about gender may be falling short.

As they examine how culture has framed masculinity and femininity as opposing or dichotomous forces, David and Ruth discuss how qualities often labeled as “classically male”—such as power, courage, and progress—can be understood and expressed without defaulting to domination, violence, or control. They consider how men’s behaviors and choices matter deeply to their partners, their children, and the wider culture, and what it means to truly operationalize men as a vital part of the fabric of a healthy society.

The conversation also turns to the importance of supporting men in developing their internal emotional world, not as a soft add-on, but as a foundation for stability, accountability, and safety within themselves and their families. Ruth shares her long-standing concern with the widespread and mistaken belief that masculinity and violence are inherently linked, and how this narrative normalizes control and violence by framing them as inevitable outcomes of sex, gender, or biology.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, David and Ruth explore how professionals’ emotional safety and trauma intersect with working in domestic abuse and child maltreatment systems. They discuss how all professionals bring personal experiences, histories, and biases into their work—including lived experiences of violence—and why acknowledging this reality is essential to safe, ethical, and sustainable practice.

The conversation examines how trauma can shape judgment, engagement, documentation, and the protective strategies professionals develop over time, often impacting worker well-being and retention. David and Ruth emphasize that addressing trauma is not just an individual responsibility, but a systems issue—one that directly affects outcomes for adult and child survivors.

Ruth reflects on how trauma overlays both personal and professional experiences, and why creating psychologically safe workplaces requires keeping perpetrators and their choices clearly in view as the source of harm. Together, they highlight the importance of organizational cultures that allow professionals to reflect on their experiences without judgment, recognizing that trauma can deepen empathy as well as create risk when unsupported. The episode highlights Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky as a key resource for individuals, professionals, and systems seeking to build sustainable, trauma-informed—and trauma-responsible—practice.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, Ruth and David discuss gender double standards and how they impact the work with families. David shares some of his personal experiences as a male becoming engaged with the issue of male violence against women and explores how the understanding of men’s behaviors can help end victim-blaming. The conversation also considers how marginalized men have been denied their importance as fathers.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In this episode, Ruth and David take a look at commonly used professional and mental health terms that hide perpetrator responsibility for patterns of abuse. They discuss how this impacts victims moving through systems that are not grounded in a practice of pivoting to focus on the perpetrator's patterns of behavior. 

David and Ruth also discuss viewing the effects of abuse only as a pathology or a deficit in victims and how this does not honor the full reality of how bodies respond to abuse and harm and how this leads to victim-blaming. They examine mental health and psychological diagnoses that are commonly used by reporting agencies with the intent to help the victim heal but are often used poorly by systems to the detriment of safety, nurturance, and healing. Ruth shares her personal experience in navigating mental health systems for her own healing as well how words can be used to hide the realities of abuse in personal relationship.  

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

What happens when men are finally invited to speak from the heart? We sit down with Kenneth Braswell, founder of Fathers Incorporated and author of Too Seasoned To Care, to explore fear as a learned behavior, anger as a secondary emotion, and why safety and healing must stand side by side. From Crown Heights to Sheepshead Bay, we trace how Brooklyn’s beauty and danger taught vigilance, how redlining and racial tension shaped daily life, and how those lessons echo through fatherhood, relationships, and community safety.

Kenneth shares the moment he shifted from powerless boy to accountable man and the simple progression that drives his work: Change how a man feels, then how he thinks, then what he does. We unpack the hard line that keeps families safe—no excuses for coercion or abuse—while still making room for men to tell the truth about abandonment, shame, and the fears that hide beneath control. This is not about shaming men. It’s about giving them an acceptable language for emotions, practical skills for conflict, and the courage to choose connection over domination.

We talk prevention that starts at home: more eye contact, softer touch, and everyday rituals that teach boys their feelings won’t cost them love. We also talk repair for adults: how to own fear without handing it to your partner, how to build trust after harm, and how to raise sons and daughters who know that boundaries are acts of care. Along the way, you’ll hear stickball and Scully, letters to a younger self, and the reminder that men need friendships that honor the grown man and the inner boy.

If you care about safer families, healthier men, and kids who thrive, this conversation offers a clear, compassionate path forward. Listen, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Then hit follow so you never miss an episode.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Victim-blaming is a persistent feature of systemic and individual failures to respond effectively to violence and safety. It appears consistently across countries, cultures, and professional systems—no matter where the work is done. Why does victim-blaming endure so universally, and what purpose does it serve within systems meant to protect?

In this episode, David and Ruth explore how victim-blaming undermines victims’ and survivors’ willingness to engage with helping systems, and how fear-driven system responses can mirror forms of coercive control. They examine how efforts to “force safety” often come at the expense of well-being, nurturance, and healthy parent–child bonding, ultimately recreating harm rather than reducing it.

Drawing on both personal and professional perspectives, David and Ruth unpack the different pathways through which victim-blaming shows up in practice. They offer concrete guidance for shifting away from blame and toward true partnership with survivors—approaches that increase safety, accountability, and trust while keeping responsibility clearly focused on those choosing violence.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

In the premiere episode of Partnered with a Survivor, Ruth Reymundo Mandel and David Mandel, partners in their personal and professional lives, have a far-ranging and personal conversation about the relationship between coercive control and consent. From the defense strategy used by Harvey Weinstein to the re-victimization of a British national in a Cyprus rape case to the founding principles of the United States, David and Ruth dive deep into the topic of how coercive control shapes our understanding of consent and harms our ability to support survivors. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

The house looks perfect from the street—until you step inside and feel the air shift. We sit with survivor, campaigner, and author David Challen to trace the shape of coercive control through a child’s eyes: a mother’s world shrinking, a father’s rules governing every room, and a son trying to earn love by molding himself to a script that never fit. This is not a tidy true-crime arc. It’s the long echo of control on identity, mental health, and the stories boys are told about how to be men.

David unpacks how “small” acts—who can visit, when dinner is served, how money is spent—stack into a total system of power. He names what many miss: economic abuse as a lever, isolation as a tactic, gaslighting as the daily weather. We talk about the man box and the costs of belonging, from silence to self-erasure. We tackle the hard part too: accountability that goes beyond time served. Real repair means naming strategy and impact, especially on children who lived the consequences, and measuring change by consistent, relational behavior over time.

For practitioners, we get specific. Speak to children separately. Document patterns, not just incidents. See acting out, addiction, or stoicism as possible signals of exposure to domestic abuse. For schools, use relationship education to decode media, practice empathy, and give boys language without shame. For survivors—especially adult child survivors—claiming identity and community can turn a private burden into shared understanding and support.

Terms like coercive control, boys’ mental health, domestic abuse, economic abuse, restorative justice, and healthy masculinity thread through this conversation for a reason: They’re the keys to earlier recognition and real change. 

If this resonates, share it with someone who needs language for what they’ve lived. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what does real accountability look like to you?

Find David's book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93021229-the-unthinkable

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

The conversation opens with end-of-the-year reflections and personal milestones—international book releases, masterclasses, collaborations, and community work—and quickly moves to a timely, thorny question: Can we talk honestly about male violence without “shaming” men? We take a stand for courage, honesty, and clarity using global data, real cases, and practical frameworks to show how accountability, truth about behaviors and their impact, and compassion can live side by side. Our goal isn’t to score points; it’s to keep families safer, support children’s well-being, and help men find a way back into healthy connection.

We share insights from research in Australia, including applications of the Safe & Together Model in child and family services and in Aboriginal-led settings. That work underscores a core theme: organize around shared values, not shared trauma. We explain why labels and decontextual tags fail families and why pattern-based, contextual practice—mapping behaviors, impacts, and risk—succeeds. Along the way, we address restorative justice and carceral responses with nuance: Both can help or harm depending on how they’re used, and some people do require firm containment. The standard remains constant—what increases survivor safety, improves children’s stability, and creates the strongest opportunities for behavior change.

We also unpack the “shame” debate with care. Shame is a human emotion; the task is to guide it into inclusive responsibility, not silence the conversation. The facts are clear: Men are disproportionately perpetrators of serious violence, and boys growing up amid coercive control learn dangerous scripts about loss and power. Naming this is not man-bashing—it’s a necessary move toward balance, health, and prevention. We close with a story of loving confrontation that strengthened a father-child bond, offering a model for how accountability can deepen connection rather than destroy it.

If this resonates, subscribe and share the episode with someone who cares about safer families, effective practice, and honest conversations. Leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: what does accountable love look like in your community?

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

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A stadium’s worth of men—every year. That’s the scale of new intimate partner violence use suggested by Ten To Men, Australia’s landmark longitudinal study of male health. 

We sit down with Karlee O’Donnell, a researcher with the Australian Institute of Family Studies, to unpack what the data really says about how depression, suicidality, paternal warmth, and social support shape men’s risk—and what actually works to prevent harm.

Across a decade of surveys, one in three men self-reported using some form of intimate partner violence. Yet within those hard numbers are practical levers. Men who strongly felt they received warm, respectful affection from a father or father figure were nearly half as likely to perpetrate IPV later. That’s not about father presence; it’s about the quality of care boys see and absorb. We translate that insight into real-world steps: father-inclusive perinatal care, concrete coaching on warmth and de-escalation, and programs that treat caregiving as core to men’s health.

We also dig into mental health pathways without reducing IPV to mental illness. Men with moderate or severe depressive symptoms were significantly more likely to use IPV later, and men with suicidal thoughts, plans, or attempts carried elevated risk independent of depression. We explore how anger, externalizing behaviors, and coercive control intersect with distress, and why services must protect partners while caring for the suicidal person. Clinicians get a roadmap: use screenings as early-warning signals, educate on escalation, build coping skills, and connect men to support before behavior hardens into harm.

Finally, we highlight the quiet power of social support, which lowered the odds of IPV onset, and we make the case for policy that rebuilds men’s community ties and includes fathers from day one. Healthier men mean safer families and stronger communities. If you care about preventing violence, ending loneliness, and improving men’s mental health, this conversation points to integrated solutions you can act on today.

If this resonated, follow the show, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find it. Have a question or a story to add? Drop us a note and join the conversation.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

A woman calls for help after being strangled in her own home. He shows a scratch; she leaves in handcuffs. From that moment, the system that promised safety starts to mirror the control she’s trying to escape. That’s the hard truth we face with researcher and practitioner Lisa Young Larance, whose new book, Broken, gathers the long-view stories of 33 women navigating coercive control, wrongful arrest, child protection, court, and probation.

We unpack how the victim-perpetrator binary distorts reality, how funding and mandates reward incident-based thinking, and why context, intent, and impact must replace “a hit is a hit.” Lisa explains the “web of power” that connects first response to courtrooms and case plans, showing how misidentification robs survivors—especially low-income women of color—of liberty, employment, and custody. We contrast gendered patterns of accountability: women who admit and take responsibility even while surviving abuse and men who deny, deflect, and mobilize institutions against partners.

Amid the failures are bright anchors of repair. A child protection worker who gives the “whole layout” changes a family’s trajectory. A probation officer shifts dates, protects parenting time, and quietly engineers safe relocation when threats escalate. We dig into documentation as a long-lived force—how a single line in a case note can shadow a mother for a decade, and how behaviorally specific, pattern-based records can be a lifeline. We also ask the question systems avoid: Did calling the police make life better over six to 60 months? If not, what will it take to make a “yes” the norm?

Told in first-person conversation with warmth and candor, this episode blends survivor voice, practitioner insight, and practical steps: Center coercive control, measure impact on functioning, build cross-agency flexibility, and write records that reflect reality. If you care about domestic violence, child protection, probation, or community safety, this is a clear-eyed guide to doing less harm and more good.

If this moved you, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—what would you change first?

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

A clear map beats chaos when lives are at stake. We sit down with Dr. Kate Fitz-Gibbon to draw a sharper line between “losing control” in life and being coercively controlled by a partner, and we keep children at the center where they belong. Through careful research and straight talk, we unpack why men’s and women’s experiences of intimate partner abuse often look different in impact, fear, and loss of liberty—and how that difference should guide courts, police, and service providers in mapping patterns and identifying who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.

We dive into male self-reports of coercive control, exploring cases that include humiliation, verbal abuse, and financial restriction, as well as accounts driven by entitlement to control over partners or children. Then we widen the lens: Pattern mapping across time exposes the primary aggressor more reliably than incident-by-incident thinking, prevents misidentification under new coercive control laws, and creates a direct line to child safety by holding domestic abusers, prevalently fathers, accountable as parents. If you work in child protection, probation, or family courts, you’ll hear practical ways to separate counter-allegations from documentable behavioral patterns.

The stakes rise when we talk about boys. Australian national data shows high rates of childhood maltreatment among both girls and boys, with domestic abuse often at the center. When boys’ trauma goes unrecognized or untreated, the risk of later violence, school disengagement, and mental health crises increases. We argue for prevention efforts that help boys navigate rejection, loss of control, consent, and emotional vulnerability—while unlearning coercive patterns used to manage relationships and life stress. This must be paired with services truly designed for children. Add culture change that dismantles the “man box,” and you begin to connect the dots between men’s health, family safety, and the prevention of future homicides.

Listen for a practical, compassionate framework that respects male victims, safeguards women and children, and helps systems stop guessing at who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague who needs a better map, and leave a review with one insight you’ll use this week.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Blame doesn’t make families safer—clarity does. We sit down with Scottish survivors and practitioners from Equally Safe Falkirk to explore how a survivor-centered, perpetrator-focused, child safety–driven approach changes practice, confidence, and outcomes. You’ll hear how validation replaces tick-box culture, how naming protective parenting restores mothers’ confidence, and how raising standards for fathers reframes accountability as a set of concrete parenting choices.

Nicolla and Emma walk us through building a service with lived experience at its core—co-designing groups like Serenity and Women Unite, challenging harmful language. While survivors Steph and Lita share raw, powerful stories of experiencing moving from professional and systemic victim-blaming and invisibility to being believed and partnered with. Their accounts reveal what happens when professionals consistently pivot back to the perpetrator’s behavior, document survivor strengths, and stay curious instead of prescriptive. The result isn’t just better engagement; it’s safer children, stronger parenting, and more effective multi-agency work.

We also dig into the tough stuff: working with fathers who cause harm without colluding, addressing trauma and substance use without excusing abuse, and building the skills to challenge, contain, and guide change over time. Tools like the Choose to Change Toolkit help dads interrupt escalation, but the heartbeat is consistent messaging: Your behavior is a parenting choice with consequences for your child’s physical and mental health. Leaders will hear a clear call to invest in rigorous training, align language across agencies, and normalize accountability for fathers as a core child protection standard.

If this conversation challenged you or gave you a new tool, share it with a colleague, subscribe for more survivor-centered practice, and leave a review with the one insight you’ll use this week.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Systems don’t just “break” on their own. They do what they were designed to do, and too often that means extracting money, labor, and dignity while claiming to keep us safe. 

In this episode, David and Ruth sit down with Trisha McOrmond, a Red River Métis systems thinker, to explore what it means to navigate belonging when it’s been fractured by family separation, colonisation, and institutions. They talk about the tension of feeling responsible to advocate, serve, and tell the truth without speaking for an entire community. They dig into why speaking from “I” and lived experience isn’t selfish, it’s accountable, and how the “royal we” can obscure harm in leadership, training, and professional spaces.

Trisha shares what decolonising thinking means to her: shifting from a scarcity worldview—where you “arrive here wanting” and must prove your worth—to a relational one, where you “arrive here wanted,” and community organises around care, children, elders, and basic needs. That shift reshapes how we understand capitalism, business as service, and the subtle ways institutions protect capital, property, and liability over people.

They also connect these ideas to domestic violence and child welfare systems. David, Ruth, and Trisha explore how deficit-based frameworks get weaponised against victims and targeted communities, how DARVO shows up at scale, and why asking “what will make this better?” can sometimes open doors that “what will make you safer?” closes.

If you care about systems change, targeted communities, First Nations perspectives, institutional trust, and building safety through relationships, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe, share this with someone doing hard systems work, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

The weaponisation of immigration status has become a powerful tool in the arsenal of domestic abusers. For migrant survivors, the choice between enduring abuse or risking deportation represents an impossible dilemma that traps them in dangerous situations.

Meena Kumari, a domestic abuse practitioner with 21 years of experience in the UK, shares how the situation for migrant survivors has deteriorated rather than improved over her career. Where once migrants needed to wait two years before applying for indefinite leave to remain, they now must wait five years—creating a dangerous window where abusers can exploit immigration vulnerabilities through coercive control. This pattern isn't unique to Britain; similar dynamics play out across the globe. 

The conversation explores how "honour-based abuse" is often misunderstood and racialised, with certain communities facing heightened scrutiny while similar patterns of violence in white Christian contexts go unlabeled. This structural racism compounds the challenges facing migrant survivors who must navigate not only their abuser's tactics but also systems that may report their immigration status rather than prioritise their safety.

Most disturbingly, we examine how the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and far-right activity weaponises concern for women's safety while ignoring that most violence against women occurs behind closed doors, perpetrated by someone known to the victim. These movements position themselves as "protectors" while creating conditions that make migrant survivors less likely to seek help.

The episode concludes with hope through Kumari's work with perpetrators from South Asian communities, demonstrating how accountability and cultural competence can work together effectively. Through programs that acknowledge cultural contexts while firmly challenging harmful behaviours, practitioners are creating pathways to meaningful change.

If you're working with survivors across cultural contexts or seeking to understand the complex intersection of immigration and domestic abuse, this episode offers essential insights for creating more effective, equitable responses. Share this episode with colleagues committed to survivor-centred practice that truly meets the needs of all communities.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Religious teachings wield profound influence over family dynamics and human behaviors, sometimes enabling abuse under the guise of spiritual teachings and guidance. This raw and revealing conversation confronts the troubling legacy of religious parenting methodologies that promote violence, rights removal, and coercive control rather than nurturing safe, consensual connection.

Ruth shares her personal experience growing up under the influence of James Dobson's parenting teachings, exposing how these "Christian" parenting strategies actually originated from eugenicist theories of the 1930s. David and Ruth dissect how these methodologies create detailed systems for child abuse by advocating for escalating physical punishment, demeaning, demanding affection after violence, and treating children as inherently manipulative or "demonic." Most disturbing is how these approaches specifically target vulnerable children, with neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ youth suffering disproportionately under these regimes of violence and control.

The conversation explores how religious justifications for violence extend beyond parenting into marital relationships, where men are positioned as divinely appointed authorities with the right to abuse and control women. This creates intergenerational patterns where violence becomes the primary coping tool for men and women for managing anxiety, fear, and situations where one feels out of control. David and Ruth challenge these distortions of faith, emphasizing that "coerced faith is not faith" and that true spirituality requires free will and personal dignity.

For professionals working with families, this episode highlights the importance of going beyond trauma-informed approaches to understand how religious values shape family dynamics and entitlement for coercion and abuse. For those currently practicing these methods because they believe them spiritually necessary, there's an invitation to question whether these approaches truly reflect deeper values and support healthy, long-term connections to partner, parent, and pastor or simply perpetuate trauma and harm.

Join this eye-opening discussion on how we can recognize, resist, and heal from religiously justified abuse while creating healthier spiritual environments for ourselves and future generations. Visit safeandtogetherinstitute.com to learn more about domestic abuse–informed approaches that create safety and dignity for all family members.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

When a perpetrator targets a family pet, they're sending a clear message about what they're capable of—and revealing a dangerous pattern that threatens everyone in the home. This eye-opening conversation with Maya Badham, founder of the Centre for Animal Inclusive Safeguarding, explores the deeply troubling intersection of animal abuse and coercive control.

The weaponization of animals extends far beyond physical violence. Perpetrators systematically use pets as tools for economic abuse, stalking, isolation, and emotional manipulation. Maya shares striking examples of how abusers mirror their tactics across all family members (e.g., if non-fatal strangulation is used against human victims, similar methods often appear in their treatment of animals). This pattern recognition is crucial for effective risk assessment and intervention.

Most troubling is how our systems force survivors into impossible choices. "I can't leave you home alone with my dog," Maya explains, highlighting how perpetrators create entrapment through a victim's attachment to their pet. With limited animal-inclusive refuge options, many survivors delay leaving or return to abusive situations because they have nowhere to go with their beloved animals.

The conversation reveals a critical intervention opportunity: Survivors frequently disclose concerns about their pets before discussing their own abuse. By asking about animals in the home and showing genuine concern for their welfare, professionals can build trust and gather vital information about risk factors that might otherwise remain hidden. Yet these opportunities are often missed because domestic violence and animal welfare professionals operate in separate silos.

Maya's Animal Inclusive Safeguarding Practice Blueprint aims to bridge these gaps by integrating animal welfare considerations into existing domestic violence responses. This approach recognizes the human-animal bond as a crucial protective factor—especially against domestic abuse–related suicide—and works toward solutions that keep both humans and animals safe from harm.

Ready to improve your practice? Subscribe to our podcast for more insights on creating truly trauma-informed, domestic abuse–informed, whole-family approaches to domestic violence intervention that protect all family members—including those with paws, claws, fins, feathers, scales, and tails. 

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

When churches call clergy sexual abuse “moral failings” or “affairs,” they obscure the truth: Predatory pastors groom adult congregants using tactics that mirror coercive control and intimate partner violence.

Counselor and researcher Jaime Simpson joins us to dismantle myths about consent in faith settings, drawing from her study Broken, Shattered & Spiritually Battered: Groom Pastors Who Prey on Adult Congregation Members. Focusing on evangelical and Pentecostal communities in Australia, her findings reveal systemic grooming—romantic, therapeutic, and spiritual deception—layered with isolation, boundary violations, and theology-based coercion and systematic collusion with perpetrators to hide their criminal behaviours and shield them from accountability with the use of spiritually based forgiveness rituals. 

Simpson shows how purity culture, male authority, and loyalty to leadership prime congregations for collusion, silence, and exploitation, while institutions minimize sexual violence but act swiftly on financial crimes. Her message to survivors: “You weren’t complicit. What happened to you was not your fault.”

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.

Surviving trauma isn't evidence of brokenness—it’s proof of extraordinary strength. Yet traditional therapy approaches often miss this crucial reality, focusing instead on deficits and pathology while forcing survivors to relive painful experiences without first creating safety.

In this powerful conversation, therapist and trauma survivor Oli Doyle joins David and Ruth to challenge conventional therapeutic wisdom that keeps trauma survivors stuck in cycles of shame and self-blame. Together, they explore how true healing begins with recognizing the remarkable resilience that allowed survivors to endure seemingly impossible circumstances.

“How the hell are you sitting in front of me still alive, still breathing? How have you done that?” Oli asks his clients, shifting focus away from pathologizing trauma responses toward honoring the ingenuity that enabled survival. This perspective represents a radical departure from approaches that ask, "What’s wrong with you?" instead of, “What happened to you and how did you survive it?”

The discussion delves into how trauma lives in our bodies, requiring more than verbal processing for healing. Ruth explains, “You can’t talk your way out of a body response. You have to use body-based strategies to help the body get through that moment.” This embodied understanding of trauma recognizes that memories live in our tissues, manifesting as behaviors that once served protective functions but may now cause suffering.

Beyond individual healing, the conversation challenges the cultural narrative that personal choices determine outcomes regardless of context. As Oli notes, “What we’ve been taught in colonial cultures is that contexts and structural factors don’t matter. If you just make the right choices, you’ll have a good life.” This individualistic perspective serves systems of power while obscuring how structural inequities shape trauma and limit options.

For mental health professionals, this episode offers a powerful invitation to examine implicit biases and deficit-focused approaches. For survivors, it provides validation that survival itself represents an extraordinary achievement worthy of recognition and respect. And for everyone, it illuminates how honouring survivor strengths rather than focusing on brokenness creates pathways to genuine healing and post-traumatic growth.

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Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.

Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.

Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.