2025 Coercive Control & Children - A Safe & Together Conference

At Home & Family we work across several fields of practice in Human Services in Otautahi Christchurch, New Zealand. From Social Workers providing parenting support for families on the edge of care, to Family Violence support for police call outs. Our small team works where families are in crisis or close to crisis.

We have brought Safe & Together into the agency in 2021 and have worked alongside many families and agencies to implement and support the growth of Safe & Together in Christchurch.

While all our frontline staff have been trained in Safe & Together we have found that our mission to embed this in the professional community has had both successes and challenges.

Internally, the journey of using Safe & Together to inform practice within Home and Family has strengthened both our agency position amongst the community as well as the practice of managing Family Harm work by our staff. However, the challenges of being able to do this for the wider professional community has been a journey with various considerations.

In our presentation we will discuss:

1. the implementation process we went through as an agency

2. how many trainings our Safe & Together presenter has provided in Christchurch

3. the professional community that has attended

4. the barriers to further interest

New Zealand culture is both unique and diverse and in this presentation we will explore differences between indigenous people (Maori) and other settled nationalities. These differences are often discussed and held in high esteem due to New Zealand having a standard of bi-culturalism. As part of this our government agencies also embrace these discussions of difference in practice, whether child-protection, education, or law. We will explore themes within this dynamic, including:

1. brief legal history of New Zealand and how this relates to decision making.

2. cultural promises that have been made in the Treaty of Waitangi

3. how do we understand success from more than one cultural perspective

Our hope by the end of this presentation is that attendees will leave having learned about the relevance of exploring cultural needs in the implementation of Safe & Together, that they will have a greater understanding of the history and function of bi-culturalism within New Zealand, and that they see how there can be success in the implementation of Safe & Together across cultures.

Part workshop, part presentation, this session focuses on the skills and lessons helpful for trainers and would-be trainers of the 4-day CORE training. We will not focus on the content, but rather on some of the learner contexts in the room that trainers must also navigate including a discussion focused on the ‘training as a trainer’ part. Sophie takes her collective experience working as a trainer for child protection, then for the Centre for Women and Co (NGO) in Queensland, as well as her per diem facilitation to reflect on key lessons helpful for other trainers and those looking into becoming a trainer. This presentation is an amalgamation of her knowledge working with adult

learners in the broader Australian context (Cert IV in TAE, RACGP-accredited training).

Key content will include:

● Common concerns in the classroom working with adult learners: building confidence as a trainer (especially for early sessions), finding your style, leaning on other resources to complement the Model content (i.e. podcast, book) to support different learning styles, highlighting the resources provided by the Institute on ‘myth busting’ around the Model and other common misconceptions about domestic and family violence more broadly

● Rolling with initial resistance to the model and skills: refocus on pivoting with professionals and some critical reflective tools on common roadblocks outside of the content learners might bring to the classroom

● Providing training to staff experiencing burnout and system fatigue: A conversation on ways to care for learners, ‘reading the room’, acknowledging the challenges of systems but also raising hope in the Model making the work more efficient

● Trauma-informed delivery: Highlighting some of the lessons learned supporting professionals who are also survivors

● Lessons learned in discovering people using violence in the classroom: Anecdotes on how people using violence have made themselves known in the classroom and some reflections on best ways to support a safe learning environment

Benevolent’s Centre for Women’s Children’s and Family Health in South-Western Sydney works to empower women and children who have experienced Domestic and Family Violence regain autonomy and increase their safety.

As an agency we have invested in myself and 3 staff members becoming Safe and Together trainers and a Partner Agency with the Safe and Together Institute. We have now been trainers for 2 years and have trained all staff at the service in the 4 day CORE training. The Safe and Together Model’s principles, critical components, multiple pathways to harm approach and perpetrator pattern mapping are now standard practice expectations in our service. All our policies and procedures are underpinned by these standard practices and all client assessments and reviews are completed aiming to be domestic violence proficient and competent at the least.

We have actively workshopped how we document to ensure perpetrator accountability and parenting choice is clearly visible in all our records whilst also highlighting the strengths of the non-offending parent and all her efforts to keep her children safe and family functioning around his pattern of violence.

The program is Managed by Roweena Moffatt, a Safe and Together Champion winner for 2024. Roweena has created a domestic and family violence common principles framework that is currently being rolled out across the wider organisation and over the next 12 months there is a commitment to have all child and family practitioners trained in the 4 day CORE and all other staff (administration, aging and disability) trained in the 1 day Overview training.

In this workshop we will explain how we support women and children accessing our services to rebuild and/or strengthen their relationships through the use of the Safe & Together Model as well as Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP).

This presentation will demonstrate and describe how we overlay the Safe and Together Model (S&TM), (David Mandel) and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), (Daniel Hughes) across our work with mothers and children.

Initially, we support families by building safe and stable relationship experiences with their counsellor that they will then go on and provide and foster for their children and use as a guide to identify and develop healthy relationships into the future.

This relational process commences by incorporating the key concepts of the S&TM

- CORE principles

- Critical components

- Multiple pathways to harm theory

- Adopting a perpetrator pattern-based approach to increase safety, create stability and nurturance and work towards understanding and healing.

We seek to support families with therapeutic counselling interventions that incorporate DDP to bring about relational healing between mothers and children using DDP’s:

- PACE attitude and Intersubjectivity theory

- Dyadic work

- Affective/Reflective dialogue

- Talking about & Talking for the child

Often children are provided child focused counselling on an individual basis however we found this often resulted in repeated presentations as work in isolation did not support relational change between parent and child. The DDP intervention initially works with the mother to create safety and trust in that relationship to role model the desired relational experience we are seeking to achieve between mother and child. Once achieved, the mother and child will commence dyadic sessions.

The counsellor’s approach to provide an intersubjective experience to the parent builds their capacity to respond to their child. Relational trauma such as DFV requires a relational approach to healing and DDP is a global model gaining much success in being able to achieve this.

Approximately 80% of matters filed in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA) involve allegations of family violence. In this context, with its commencement in 2021 the FCFCOA undertook to explore what more it could do to ensure that the Court was a safe place, and that families using the Courts had outcomes that were safe for families and children. As a result, the FCFCOA has introduced a number of world-first initiatives to enhance the Court’s response to family/intimate partner violence. These initiatives include:

● A confidential risk screen, to assist in identifying support needs of litigants, and determining suitable case pathways

● A comprehensive form requiring parties to provide information family violence, child abuse and other risk

● A specialist pathway for low value financial matters, in order to minimise the risk of the Court facilitating financial abuse

● The placement of officers from police and child protection agencies in family law registries, to facilitate the effective sharing of information between systems

● The introduction of Indigenous Family Liaison roles to support First Nations Australians accessing the Court

● The introduction of specialist lists for matters : ○ identified as high risk through the initial confidential screening process

○ in which parents or children are identified as being First Nations Australians

○ which have been brought about by a critical incident (e.g. one parent killing the other)

○ involving a contravention of orders

To support these initiatives, the FCFCOA sought to enhance the knowledge and skill of its workforce in relation to the identification, assessment and management of risk. With its focus on the wellbeing of children, and its objective, behavioural and pattern based approach to assessment, the Safe & Together Model provided a highly relevant framework that could be applied court-wide. A partnership was subsequently established between The Safe & Together Institute and the Court. What followed was a highly collaborative and robust exchange of ideas exploring how the Model could be integrated into the work of the Courts’ social scientists, registrars and judges.

 This workshop will provide an overview of each of these initiatives and outline how their design principles enhance the safety of families using the Court. The presenters will also articulate how each of the S&T Model’s principles have come to be embedded within practices across the FCFCOA, and the impact this has had on the broader family law system and, most importantly, on the outcomes for children.

Background
This work emerged from a critical need to address the lack of industry recognition of family and domestic violence (FDV) and its profound impacts. It focuses on bridging gaps in knowledge, capacity, and processes to better support customers and colleagues affected by FDV. Too often, disclosures of FDV are met with uncertainty, inadequate responses, or inaction, leading to further harm.

Scope of Work

Our approach centres on collaboration and systemic change. Partnering with individuals with lived experience of FDV, we engage in programs and discussion groups to inform our work. Collaborating with the Financial Counselling sector, Ombudsmen and regulatory bodies, we identify systemic barriers and develop strategies to improve business responses to FDV. Through these efforts, we aim to foster safer environments for customers and staff while driving social impact.

We support organisations in creating and maintaining robust FDV policies and processes, train staff to identify cues and indicators of FDV, and equip them to respond with respect and appropriate referrals. Our latest initiative involves piloting training to identify, and safely and appropriately respond to situations where FDV shows up in the workplace, whether it be a customer or staff member.

Insights

Our work highlights critical barriers to disclosure, including the lack of organisational identification and support. We provide insights into the tactics used to weaponise products and services to harm individuals experiencing FDV and share examples of sector-specific changes, designed to mitigate risk of exploitation and incorporate safety by design principles. Across banking, insurance, water, and telecommunications industries, our partnerships are fostering innovative approaches to addressing FDV and creating systemic change.

This presentation will outline practical strategies, share impactful case studies, and offer insights into the transformative potential of addressing FDV within industries to create safer and more supportive communities.

This workshop showcases how the Workplaces for Change program uses Safe & Together Model™ principles to help workplaces support employees affected by domestic and family violence. Through specialised training and trauma-informed support, the program equips workplaces to recognize DFSV, foster supportive cultures, and prioritize survivor safety and recovery. Key insights and data will illustrate how these strategies enhance workplace responses and outcomes.

Speakers: Laura Brooks & Marcia Friend

What are the values, principles and models that underpin culturally safe and trauma-integrated lawyering?
What does it look like to integrate those values, principles and models into our individual practice, our organisational policies, and the courtroom?Amanda will share her learnings from what her Churchill Fellowship, PhD research, international Trauma-Informed Lawyer training and her lived and professional experience.

Coercive control is a pervasive form of domestic abuse that extends far beyond physical violence. It involves a range of tactics used by a perpetrator to isolate, intimidate, and degrade their partner, leaving them feeling trapped and powerless. This presentation will examine the multifaceted complexities of coercive control within rural and remote families and communities. We will explore how factors unique to these communities can exacerbate the impact of coercive control and hinder access to support services. Finally, we will discuss innovative approaches and strategies specifically designed to support families in rural and remote areas, considering these communities' unique challenges and cultural sensitivities.

This presentation will be delivered by Stopping Family Violence (SFV), the peak body for perpetrator response in family and domestic violence in Western Australia. SFV works across training and workforce development, research, policy, and advocacy and drives change to create and enhance safety for all adult and child victim-survivors, whilst ensuring perpetrators are held responsible for the harm they cause.

Stopping Family Violence was an early adopter of the Safe and Together Model in Western Australia due to the alignment of the model with SFV’s vision, that everyone deserves to live a life free from the fear or threat of violence. Stopping Family Violence has delivered over 100 Safe and Together CORE trainings to over 3,500 participants, across multiple sectors including, Department of Justice, Department of Communities, perpetrator response, victim survivor response, counsellors and many more.

In recent years Stopping Family Violence have been supporting ACCOS to build their capacity and capability in the FDSV space. During a pilot to support ACCOS build capability in the FDSV work, SFV through co-design with ACCOS, have developed an ACCO Service Model and a Framework for ACCOS to integrate Aboriginal Healing and Behaviour Change work. The Safe and Together Model focuses on keeping children safe and together with the non-offending parent while holding the perpetrator accountable.

 When adapted for Aboriginal communities, the following principles are emphasised:

● Perpetrator accountability – prioritise holding the perpetrator accountable for their actions without blaming the victim or the family system. Addressing contributing factors like intergenerational trauma and substance misuse through culturally grounded rehabilitation and education programs.

● Keeping the child Safe and Connected to Culture – Focus on the well-being of the child by ensuring their connection to their cultural heritage, family and community. Recognise that removing children from Aboriginal families can perpetuate cycles of harm (eg Stolen generations): instead, prioritise culturally safe environments.

● Partnering with the non-offending parent (typically the mother) – Partner with and support the non-offending parent, emphasising their strengths and protective actions. Provide culturally safe service that affirm the parent’s cultural identity and healing journey.

In this presentation Stopping Family Violence will cover the following themes:

● How culturally aligned practices improve FDSV responses with Aboriginal communities

● Cultural Frameworks in Aboriginal communities

● FDSV context within Aboriginal communities

● Principles of a culturally informed FDSV practice

● Trauma-informed Practice in an Aboriginal context

● Strategies for Strengthening Practice through Culture

The family violence sector faces a critical challenge: workplace cultures that mirror the very patterns of coercive control and abuse we aim to address in our client work. This dynamic becomes particularly acute when professional practitioners with lived experience of domestic and family violence face bullying, discrimination, and institutional gaslighting after disclosing their survivor status.

In this transformative workshop, Cathy Oddie and Ruth Reymundo Mandel combine practice expertise and lived experience to examine how organisations can create genuinely professional, safe and inclusive workplaces for victim-survivors. Participants will learn specific domestic abuse-informed strategies for:

● Identifying victim-blaming and victim-harassing patterns in workers, and organisational and management practices

● Implementing HR protocols that prioritise accountability over institutional protection

● Supporting and retaining valuable staff with lived experience and expertise

● Developing trauma-informed leadership development programs

● Creating clear pathways for reporting and addressing workplace harassment

● Building organisational cultures that validate rather than weaponise or tokenize lived experience

Through case examples, interactive exercises, and practical tools, participants will gain concrete guidelines for transforming workplace responses to survivor-practitioners. This workshop is essential for HR professionals, organisational leaders, and anyone committed to creating workplace environments that truly embody our values as a sector.

The Western Australian (WA) landscape is vast and brings with it a host of complexities when working with families experiencing domestic violence, particularly in regional and remote areas. With limited resources or services to support safety planning and risk management, frontline staff often need to be creative in how they effectively partner with victim-survivors and intervene with perpetrators. In remote communities, English is not a first, second or even third language for First Nations families, and culturally responsive engagement and accessible communication styles are critical to promote safer outcomes.
In 2016, Legal Aid WA, in partnership with other legal services across WA and the Northern Territory developed a suite of visual resource kits for legal and community services providers working with Aboriginal families. The ‘Blurred Borders’ resource kits draw on visual art and storytelling to help explain key concepts for families across domains of legal, child protection, family violence and housing. These kits provide practitioners with a culturally accessible way to work collaboratively with families to increase safety, well-being and self-determination, and can also be utilised to land the principles and critical components of the Safe and Together Model.
The Department of Communities (Communities) have partnered with Legal Aid WA to embed and adapt the Blurred Borders resources to support implementation of Safe and Together, particularly when working alongside First Nations families and communities. The Safe and Together Model underpins the practice approach for preventing and responding to domestic violence within Communities, which comprises over 6,500 staff from Child Protection, Housing and Disability Services.
The Office for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence within Communities co-ordinate training delivered by 40 place-based Certified Trainers across WA. With a state-wide training roll-out commencing in July 2023, localisation of the Safe and Together Model remains a key focus. The partnership with Legal Aid WA will continue to embed and adapt the Blurred Borders resources kits to enhance implementation and localisation of the Safe and Together Model.
With a use of case examples, presenters will demonstrate the ways in which Safe and Together Model principles and critical components align with the Blurred Boarders cards, supporting a perpetrator pattern-based approach and promoting partnering with First Nations victim-survivors. The Blurred Borders kits are online resources available to other jurisdictions, and Communities are continuing to work alongside Legal Aid WA to expand the resources in focus areas of coercive control and the voice and experiences of child victim-survivors.

In this session, Professor Heather Douglas will introduce participants to the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book. Professor Douglas has coordinated the Bench Book since 2016. The Bench Book is an open access resource primarily designed to assist lawyers and judicial decision-makers in their work. However, since its introduction it has been utilised by many non-legal practitioners working in family violence and also by unrepresented litigants. The session will include a demonstration of how to navigate the Bench Book, it will show what resources can be found there and consider how this resource can be useful in the work of practitioners. Using a case study involving coercive control, participants will have an opportunity to take part in a guided exploration of the Bench Book.

By the end of this session participants will:

● be aware of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book

● know how to find the Bench Book online

● understand how to navigate and search the Bench Book

● understand how the Bench Book can be a useful tool in practice involving domestic and family violence

Honoring individuals excelling in the Safe & Together Model™, these awards celebrate outstanding achievements in two categories: Excellence in Systems Change, recognizing transformative leadership in domestic abuse-informed practices, and Excellence in Case Practice, highlighting exceptional application of the model in individual casework.