Safe & Together™

This experiential training provides participants with an introduction to, and overview of, the Safe & Together™ Model. It gives the foundation for domestic violence-informed practice by focusing on cross-cutting themes, a pattern-based approach and survivor strengths. The presentation includes:

• Information about creating a domestic violence-informed child welfare system.
• Principles and components of the Safe & Together Model.
• Information about the framework behind competency-building in child welfare around domestic violence.

Objectives

• Introduce a perpetrator pattern framework.
• Introduce and understand the Safe & Together Model principles and components and how those guide practice in various roles.
• Introduce how to use the Safe & Together Model as a way to enhance good practice in various roles.
• Share information about the range of activities and offerings from the Safe & Together Institute.

Key Topics

• Cross-cutting themes
• Perpetrator pattern-based approach
• Domestic violence-informed documentation
• Holistic assessment of survivor strengths

Target Audience

• Child welfare professionals
• Domestic violence liaisons
• Domestic violence advocates and counsellors
• Law enforcement
• Attorneys
• Guardians’ ad litem
• Community service providers
• Mental health providers
• Batterer intervention providers
• Substance abuse providers and others are welcome to attend

Domestic violence-informed child welfare practice requires competencies in assessment, interviewing, documentation, and case planning. Safe & Together Institute’s CORE Training offers four days of experiential classroom training covering each of these foundational skills.

• Day 1 is focused on Assessment
• Day 2 is focused on Interviewing
• Day 3 is focused on Documentation
• Day 4 is focused on Case Planning

CORE Training explores the importance of:

• Identifying the impact of domestic violence on children and family functioning.
• Fact-based assessment of the perpetrators’ behaviour patterns.
• Partnering with adult survivors of domestic violence.
• Intervening with perpetrators.
• How domestic violence intersects with complicating factors like substance abuse and mental health.

Participants of the CORE Training will: 

• Learn to use practice tools, such as Mapping Perpetrators’ Patterns, Multiple Pathways to Harm and Pivoting that can be implemented right away to improve assessment of risk, impact on children, survivor protective efforts and essential case decisions. 
• Practice interviewing perpetrators, survivors and children through modelling, role play and videos.
• Improve their domestic violence-informed documentation through individual and group exercises. 
• Be discussing their own current or past cases and explore how the Safe & Together Model could be implemented. 

Also included in CORE Training:

• Participants will develop their own Action Plans to implement the Model into their day-to-day practice, as well as begin to influence their communities and family service systems to become more domestic violence informed. 
• Participants will complete a pre- and post-test to reflect learning, as well as a training evaluation. Participants who attend all four days and take the post-test will receive a certificate of completion, which indicates they participated in 22 training hours. 
• A prerequisite to becoming a Safe & Together Model Certified Trainer and/or Coach includes an 80% or higher on the CORE Training post-test.