Season 4 Episode 2: Coming “Out” As A Survivor in a Professional Setting: A Practitioner’s Journey

Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

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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 violence-informed professional landscape. At the same time, self-disclosure, in professional spaces, of being an abuse survivor can be a 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 Aliegha Manski, the 2023 winner of the Safe & Together Champion Award for Systems Change in the Asia Pacific Region. Aleigha shares with them 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 and the Safe & Together Model Principles assisted her in self-reflection on abuse she endured as a child & the organizational & system responses to that abuse.In this interview Aleigha, David & Ruth address the “Elephant in the Room,” 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 out those personal realities from professional practice but assists in healing and improving responses to victims of similar forms of abuse. The Partnering concept can not only improve practitioner-survivor professional practice but also provide a pathway to healing, 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 violence-informed. The Safe & Together Model Partnering process can offer a pathway to healing for professionals who are also survivors & are working with families experiencing domestic violence. Creating space in organizations for professionals to safely disclose, not be blamed or professionally harmed by the fact someone else chose to abuse them, is vital to having a truly domestic violence informed organization & to professional competency & worker satisfaction.

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."