Imagine a world where survivors are not blamed for the actions of perpetrators, where child welfare and courts have objective ways to assess the impact on children and hold perpetrators accountable, and where efforts are focused on keeping children safe with their non-offending parent in their own homes. Join us for three sessions to explore the Safe and Together™ Model and learn how it addresses these issues. Discover what the model entails, what it promises, and how it is being implemented in New York State.

Session Details:
August 7th, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Advocate Only Listening Session, facilitated by NYSCADV.

August 16th, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. or August 29th, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.: Safe and Together Model Overview, Panel Discussion, and Q&A/Discussion *
Conducted in partnership with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and the NYS Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence.
*These are duplicate sessions; please register for only one.

About the Safe & Together Model
The Safe and Together™ Model is a perpetrator pattern-based, child-centered, and survivor strengths-based approach to working with families experiencing domestic violence. It embraces a whole family approach, supporting a comprehensive assessment of risk, safety, and protective factors. The model's name reflects its core belief: children are best served when we strive to keep them safe and together with the non-offending parent/survivor.

This model focuses on the perpetrator's behaviors as a parenting choice, while highlighting the survivor's protective efforts and strengths in promoting child safety and well-being. By shifting the focus to assess perpetrators' patterns of abuse and the actions survivors take to keep their children safe, the model moves away from a "failure to protect" analysis that often blames victims and puts the responsibility on them to control the perpetrator's behavior.

Originally developed for child welfare systems, the Safe and Together™ Model has policy and practice implications for various professionals and systems, including domestic violence advocates, family service providers, courts, evaluators, community collaboratives, and other stakeholders. It aims to improve competencies and cross-system collaboration, serving as a systems change framework that offers common language and practices for all child and family-serving systems.

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has partnered with the Safe and Together Institute on a multiyear pilot project to support FVPSA-funded CPS/DV Collaborations. The positive feedback and measurable impact on collaboration and practice have led OCFS to commit to statewide implementation of the Safe and Together model. Since October 2020, OCFS has been planning for statewide implementation, and in 2022, expanded this effort with a 5-year partnership with The Safe and Together™ Institute, the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, and NYSCADV. This partnership aims to provide training, coaching, and technical assistance across the state, transforming practice and serving as a springboard for broader systems-wide transformation. We look forward to your participation and engagement in these vital sessions.

*Please Note: You must use your Coalition Manager login information to register for this event. All staff of primary-purpose domestic violence programs in New York State are eligible for a Coalition Manager account. Please contact your supervisor or program administrator to set up a coalition manager account. If you need additional assistance, please complete a CM Support Ticket.