Safe & Together Institute

10/15/2026

What can someone do when they recognise that their behaviour is becoming controlling or abusive?

Our free Choose to Change Toolkit starts with a simple principle: changing your behaviour is your responsibility.

The toolkit helps men create a network of trusted people they can reach out to when they are worried their behaviour may escalate. Those people can check in, challenge excuses, and help keep the focus on what he can control: his own choices.

The responsibility for change never shifts to his partner or children. And having a support network doesn’t, by itself, mean the behaviour has changed.

But it can create opportunities to interrupt abusive behaviour and support accountability.
Recognising harmful behaviour matters. What happens next matters more.

Explore the toolkit: https://hubs.la/Q04Bdl110

The Choose to Change Toolkit describes a four-step process to assist men in developing strong, safe support networks to help them interrupt their violence and increase safety for other family members. It includes a professionals booklet, information for partners, and information for network contacts

10/13/2026

How do you know when someone who has used abusive behaviour has actually changed?

A perpetrator’s program completion might be part of the picture. But a certificate can’t answer that question on its own.

In “Perpetrator Intervention Program Completion Certificates are Dangerous,” David Mandel looks at what professionals should be asking beyond attendance or completion.

Can he name what he did without minimising it?
Can he recognise how his choices harmed his partner and children?
What is he actually doing differently?
And do the experiences of the people he harmed support that picture of change?

For professionals making decisions about children and families, those questions can tell us far more about behaviour change than a completion certificate alone.

Read the paper: https://hubs.la/Q04B0Vbj0

David Mandel of the Safe & Together Institute argues perpetrator program completion certificates can mislead courts and survivors—and proposes a better rubric.

10/12/2026

A survivor's hesitation to engage with child welfare services may be rooted in their family's or community's history with those systems.

A protective effort may go unrecognised because it happens within family or community networks rather than through formal services.

And a perpetrator may use culture, faith, or family expectations as part of their pattern of coercive control.

These are just some of the ways culture, history, and identity can shape what professionals see—and what they might miss.

In her latest blog, Leah Vejzovic reflects on insights from the APSAC Colloquium and explores how an intersectional lens can strengthen domestic abuse–informed child welfare practice.

Read the blog: https://hubs.ly/Q04zRxrT0

10/10/2026

Being invited to tell your story is one thing. Knowing that what you share will help shape the decisions that follow is another.

This World Mental Health Day, the World Health Organization is highlighting the importance of lived experience in shaping services and systems.

For survivors of domestic abuse, that matters when we think about mental health. Anxiety, trauma, and other impacts can’t always be understood separately from the perpetrator’s pattern of behaviour and its effects on the family.

Survivors hold important knowledge about that context—what is happening, what increases risk, how the children are affected, and what they are already doing to keep themselves and their children safe.

Partnering with survivors means making sure that knowledge doesn’t just get heard. It helps shape what happens next.

10/08/2026

Keeping perpetrators visible and accountable isn’t just about identifying their behaviour. How we talk about the person using that behaviour matters too.

When should a practitioner use the term “perpetrator”? What should inform that choice? And what support should they be able to expect from their organisation?

Next week, Rasha Hamid and Nic Douglas will take on those questions, sharing a practical framework for making confident, defensible language decisions and exploring why organisational backing matters.

📅 12 October 2026
🕙 10 a.m. BST

Join us: https://hubs.la/Q04yndlC0

10/05/2026

“Perpetrator accountability” can bring to mind a court order, a behaviour change program, or a consequence.

But this episode of Partnered with a Survivor takes a much wider view.

David and Ruth talk about the everyday practice of accountability—from the language used in case notes to keeping the focus on the person whose behaviour is causing harm.

They also look at what can happen when accountability is defined too narrowly, including how traditional approaches can contribute to racial inequity and reinforce “failure-to-protect” responses to survivors.

It’s a reminder that intervening with perpetrators isn’t one person’s job or one programme’s responsibility.

Listen to Season 2 Episode 17: https://hubs.la/Q04ynd7Q0

About This Episode Intervening with perpetrators, who are the source of the harm to child, partner, and family functioning, is essential for domestic abuse–informed systems. In this episode, David and Ruth talk about the third principle of the Safe & Together Model, which focuses on interve

10/02/2026

The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence's message for is a move from awareness to action.

For child- and family-serving systems, that means asking what actually changes in practice.
Are survivors’ strengths and protective efforts more visible? Is the perpetrator’s behaviour—and its impact on children—being clearly identified? Does that understanding shape how families are assessed, documented, and supported?

Recognising domestic abuse is important. Survivors and their children also need systems equipped to respond differently because of what they understand.

This October, we stand and support the call to turn awareness into action.

10/01/2026

What does accountability look like from the perspective of the people who experienced the harm?

It may look very different from the things systems typically measure.

In the latest Partnered with a Survivor, Ruth and David explore the gap between system responses—like program attendance, compliance, or consequences—and meaningful change in the lives of adult and child survivors.

What has actually changed? Is the behaviour different? Is the harm being acknowledged? Are children being listened to? And what would repair look like to the people who were harmed?

It’s a conversation about moving beyond whether an intervention happened to asking what happened because of it.

🎧 Listen: https://hubs.la/Q04yncXL0

10/01/2026

What changes when partnering with survivors is built into the system, not left to individual practitioner skill? That's the question driving next year's Asia Pacific Coercive Control & Children Conference.

Making survivors' protective efforts visible. Keeping the perpetrator's pattern of coercive control at the centre of assessment and documentation. Examining the system conditions that support—or undermine—real partnering. Centring First Nations, Torres Strait Islander, Pasifika, Māori and other cultural communities in defining partnering on their own terms.

David Mandel will open with a keynote challenging the field to stop fitting survivors into standardised solutions and build systems around the strengths they already hold.

Joined us in 2026? This is the next step. First time? There's a place for you too.

📅 16–18 March 2027
📍 Roundhouse, UNSW Sydney

Tag a colleague who should be in the room, and register now:
https://hubs.la/Q04v_w4N0

09/29/2026

There's no easy answer to whether you should call someone a "perpetrator."

Some practitioners say the word is essential—it keeps someone visible, keeps them accountable, and validates what a survivor has experienced. Others push back just as hard, worried the label can escalate risk, shut someone out of services, or brand them before the evidence is solid enough to back it up.

Both sides have a real point, and practitioners shouldn't have to sort through that tension entirely on their own.

Join Rasha Hamid, VAWG consultant and researcher, and Nic Douglas, our European Regional Manager, for a live webinar exploring a practical framework for approaching these decisions.

They'll discuss what should sit behind the language we use and why organisational guidance and support matter.

📅 12 October 2026
🕙 10 a.m. BST

And this is a live conversation, so bring the questions you encounter in your own practice.

Register here: https://hubs.la/Q04v7_dz0