Season 2 Episode 20: Minisode Series on Worker Safety & Well-Being: Intro to the series

Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

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In the kickoff of their first ever minisode series, David & Ruth will introduce the theme of worker safety and well-being in the context of working on issues related to domestic violence. The goal of the series is to address the critical issues of worker safety and well-being as a critical aspect of domestic violence informed systems.

Since the inception of the Model, it has been central to know the perpetrators pattern, not only as it related to domestic violence-informed work with the family, but also as it related to the safety & efficacy of the worker. A worker, who is engaging a family where there is domestic violence, needs to know if perpetrator has a known pattern of violence or intimidation toward others outside the family. This is a basic domestic violence informed practice related to worker safety.
Since then our understanding of the organizational importance of addressing worker safety and well being has only grown. Worker safety may impact

• attrition and retention
• worker mental and emotional health
• worker performance
• the safety and well-being of workers who are survivors themselves.

As the Safe & Together Institute's work and our collaborations with Professor Cathy Humphreys has shown, when worker safety concerns go unaddressed child protection workers may be more blaming of survivors and hold perpetrators less accountable as parents out fear for their own safety;

This is a series for frontline staff across child protection, mental health and addiction, courts and other systems. We hope it will validate their experiences. This is also a series for human resources managers and organizational leadership. Setting policies and procedures to addresses worker emotional & professional safety in the context of domestic violence cases is essential to creating a domestic violence informed agency.

Topics in the series will include:

· When workers are targeted by the perpetrator of one of the clients

· The connection between worker safety in engaging perpetrators and mother-blaming practice.

· When workers are being targeted by their own perpetrator (through the workplace and at home)

· When workers own experience of abuse are triggered by their work with families

· Managing your own fears, as the worker, about the safety of the family.
We hope you join us for the other episodes.
Read the Safe & Together Institute's white paper on worker safety
Take an online course on worker safety related to domestic violence

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."