Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
Partnered with a Survivor is a professional-focused podcast created and produced by Ruth Reymundo and hosted by the Safe & Together Institute. What began as intimate conversations between Ruth and David Mandel—founder of the Institute and creator of the Safe & Together Model—about violence, relationships, abuse, and the systems that respond to them has grown into a global conversation about systems and culture change.
Hosted by Ruth and co-hosted by David, the podcast features in-depth, professionally grounded discussions about how institutions respond to domestic abuse, gender-based violence, and child maltreatment. Many episodes also feature global leaders working across fields such as child safety, men and masculinity, perpetrator accountability, fatherhood, and partnering with survivors.
Together, these conversations examine how systems often fail adult and child survivors, how societal narratives about masculinity and violence shape professional practice, and how intersectional realities—including cultural and religious beliefs, racialised identities, LGBTQ+ experiences, immigration status, disability, and other structural vulnerabilities—shape responses to abuse and violence.
The podcast offers an insider lens into how professionals navigate systems not only as practitioners, but also as parents and partners. Through candid dialogue and critical reflection, Ruth and David challenge the assumptions and structures that limit meaningful accountability, safety, and healing. The goal is collective movement across systems, cultures, and families toward greater safety, nurturance, and sustained change.
Disclaimer: Episodes contain sensitive topics and occasional mature language that may be difficult for some listeners. The views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Safe & Together Institute or its staff.
Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
Season 4 Episode 2: Coming “Out” as a Survivor in a Professional Setting: A Practitioner’s Journey
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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 abuse–informed professional landscape. At the same time, self-disclosure of being an abuse survivor in professional spaces can be 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 Aleigha Manski, the 2023 winner of the Safe & Together Champion Award for Systems Change in the Asia Pacific Region. Aleigha shares 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 with survivors and the Safe & Together Model principles assisted her in self-reflection on the abuse she endured as a child and the organizational and system responses to that abuse.
Aleigha, David, and Ruth address the “elephant in the room” and 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 those personal realities from professional practice but also assists in healing and improving responses to victims of similar forms of abuse. The partnering concept can not only improve practitioner-survivor practice but also provide a pathway to healing and 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 abuse–informed. The Safe & Together Model partnering process can offer a pathway to healing for professionals who are also survivors and are working with families experiencing domestic violence. Creating space in organizations for professionals to safely disclose and no
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.
Visit the Safe & Together Institute website.
Start taking Safe & Together Institute courses.
Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events.