Season 3 Episode 5 Minisode on Worker Safety & Well Being: Managing Your Own Fears About the Safety of the Family

Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

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In this final installment of the minisode series on worker safety and well-being, Ruth and David discuss the importance best practice around the question of practitioners own fears about the safety of the family. Anyone who has worked with domestic violence cases has felt fear and worry for the safety of the adult and child survivors. Sometimes these fears are directly related to the facts of the perpetrator's pattern. In other instances they are artifacts of prior cases, overwhelm from crushing workloads, or lack of training working with perpetrators. In this minisode, Ruth and David explore the factors that can influence professionals' fears and some support strategies.
These factors include:

• Fears that that the professionals' actions might make the situation worse
• Being influenced by other cases where the adult or child survivors were seriously abused or murdered
• Being overwhelmed with a heavy caseload, making it more difficult to focus on the specifics of a case
• Feeling like the survivor is not acting as they "should"
• Being hampered by a lack of skill and confidence working with perpetrators

Strategies to help can include:

• Assessing perpetrators patterns-while it is no guarantee, getting history of patterns is one of the best ways to predict future behaviors
• Partner with the survivor who is the best source of information about the perpetrator’s pattern and give offer information on what on current protection efforts
• Get supervision from your supervisor or from peers.
• Bring the case to a Safe & Together Intersections Meeting or another collaborative meeting to discuss it
• Use the Safe & Together Institute Ally Guide to increase family and friend support for the survivor
• Use the Safe & Together Institute Choose To Change toolkit to increase positive support for the perpetrator
• Agencies should work to create an environment where workers feel comfortable talking about their worries about their case

To listen to other minisode of worker safety and health:
Season 3 Episode 3: Minisode on Worker Safety & Well-Being: When Workers Have Their Own Histories of Abuse
Season 2 Episode 23: Minisode on Worker Safety & Well-Being: When Workers Are Survivors Themselves
Season 2 Episode 22: Minisode on Worker Safety & Well-Being: The Connection Between Worker Safety and Victim-Blaming
Season 2 Episode 21: Minisode Series on Worker Safety & Well-Being: When workers are targeted by the perpetrator
Season 2 Episode 20: Minisode Series on Worker Safety & Well-Being: Intro to the series

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."