Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
This podcast is a series of conversations.
What started as a series of intimate conversations between Ruth and David that ranged from personal to professional experiences around violence, relationships, abuse, and system and professional responses which harm, not help, has now become a global conversation about systems and culture change. In many episodes, David and Ruth are joined by a global leader in different areas like child safety, men and masculinity, and, of course, partnering with survivors. Each episode is a deep dive into complex topics like how systems fail domestic abuse survivors and their children, societal views of masculinity and violence, and how intersectionalities such as cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, and unique vulnerabilities impact how we respond to abuse and violence. These far-ranging discussions offer an insider look into how we navigate the world together as professionals, as parents, and as partners. During these podcasts, David and Ruth challenge the notions which keep all of us from moving forward collectively as systems, as cultures, and as families into safety, nurturance, and healing.
We hope you join us.
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Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
Season 4 Episode 2: Coming “Out” as a Survivor in a Professional Setting: A Practitioner’s Journey
Listening to the voice of lived experience experts, aka survivors of all forms of abuse and neglect, is becoming more and more a part of the domestic abuse–informed professional landscape. At the same time, self-disclosure of being an abuse survivor in professional spaces can be fraught for some practitioners. It can be associated with fears of judgment and marginalization. Even though those survivor experiences can positively inform direct work with families, enrich organizational culture, and help guide policy, safety, and support for practitioner survivors is often not the articulated norm in many organizations.
In this episode, Ruth and David interview Aleigha Manski, the 2023 winner of the Safe & Together Champion Award for Systems Change in the Asia Pacific Region. Aleigha shares her journey as a professional and a survivor. She talks about how the Safe & Together Model impacted her self-perceptions as a survivor and assisted her in improving her ability to engage with families struggling with domestic violence. Aleigha reflects on how the process of partnering with survivors and the Safe & Together Model principles assisted her in self-reflection on the abuse she endured as a child and the organizational and system responses to that abuse.
Aleigha, David, and Ruth address the “elephant in the room” and how societal victim-blaming and internalized shame can affect professionals, even ones that are survivors themselves. Facing that reality head-on with a partnering framework not only helps to separate those personal realities from professional practice but also assists in healing and improving responses to victims of similar forms of abuse. The partnering concept can not only improve practitioner-survivor practice but also provide a pathway to healing and improve worker safety, satisfaction, and retention.
This is an important episode for any professional who struggles with talking about their own experiences of abuse and any agency that wants to be trauma- and domestic abuse–informed. The Safe & Together Model partnering process can offer a pathway to healing for professionals who are also survivors and are working with families experiencing domestic violence. Creating space in organizations for professionals to safely
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.