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.
Episodes
131 episodes
Season 7 Episode 10: The Assumptions That Put LGBTQ Survivors at Risk
If your picture of domestic abuse is still “bigger person equals perpetrator,” that assumption can derail safety planning in minutes, especially in same-sex relationships and LGBTQ families. In this episode, Ruth and David sit down ...
Season 7 Episode 9: When Systems Fracture Identity: A Métis Perspective on Belonging and Accountability
Systems don’t just “break” on their own. They do what they were designed to do, and too often that means extracting money, labor, and dignity while claiming to keep us safe. In this episode, David and Ruth sit down with
Season 7 Episode 8: Shifting Domestic Violence Practice in Japan with Professor Kanako Masui
Ruth and David are recording from Okayama, Japan, and the shift you’re about to hear is bigger than language. Professor Kanako Masui of Nihon Fukushi University joins David and Ruth to explain why so many domestic violence and child...
Season 7 Episode 7: Coercive Control and Children: What Systems Miss | 2026 Asia Pacific Conference Wrap-Up
The most useful conference debriefs aren’t about highlights—they’re about what shifts in you when you listen closely. From the Sydney coast, Ruth and David wrap up a three-and-a-half-week Asia Pacific tour and talk through the moments that chan...
Season 7 Episode 6: Domestic Abuse in Queer Relationships
Domestic abuse gets dangerously easy to miss when our systems can only imagine one story about who victims are and what abuse looks like. David and Ruth sit down with Luke Martin, a UK-bas...
Season 7 Episode 5: AI in Child Protection: Can Technology Make Social Work Safer?
Artificial intelligence is already in social work and child protection, and its use is deepening. The question is: How safe, effective, and equitable is it? In this episode, David and Ruth talk with Dr. LaSharia Turner and Dr. Helen...
Season 7 Episode 4: When Violence Hides In Plain Sight: Expanding Clinical Curiosity to Protect Children with Dr. Norell Rosado
What if medicine is trained to see bruises and fractures—but misses the injuries that leave no visible mark?In this episode of Partnered with a Survivor, David and Ruth speak with Dr. Norell Rosado, child abuse pediatrician at t...
Season 7 Episode 3: How Systems Become Tools of Coercive Control and What Professionals Must Change: An Interview with Valerie Frost
We start with a snow-bright morning and end with a sharper lens. We sit down with advocate and system analyst Valerie Frost to explore how systems built to protect families can become tools of coercive co...
Season 7 Episode 2: 7 Years of Partnership: Survivor Leadership, Systems Change & What Comes Next
What happens when David turns the tables on Ruth and interviews her—seven years into their shared body of work?In this special anniversary episode, David marks seven years since Ruth joined the Safe & Together Institute by ste...
Season 7 Episode 1: No, You Can’t Arrest Your Way to Healing and Healthy Relationships with Nneka MacGregor
We are starting our 7th season and asking the question: "What if love wasn’t the soft side of this work, but the method that makes healing possible?"We chat again with Nneka MacGregor—co-founder and executive director of
Season 6 Episode 24: If “Mother Is In Denial About Domestic Violence” Had a Buzzer, We’d Smash It!!!
Mist, wind, the volcanic island of São Miguel, and a hard look at the words and jargon that decide families’ futures. We begin in the Azores, Ruth’s ancestral home, where arguments for European westward expansion took shape after Bartolo...
Season 6 Episode 23: Being Seen at 60: A Birthday Conversation About Vocation, Violence & Hope
Rain on the windows, a century-old clock in the kitchen, and a plate of bacon by the coffee set: David’s 60th birthday set the scene for a raw, open conversation about vocation, love, and the future of domestic violence–informed systems. We pau...
Season 6 Episode 22: Real Talk, Real Dads: From Brooklyn to Boyhood to Fatherhood with Kenneth Braswell
What happens when men are finally invited to speak from the heart? We sit down with Kenneth Braswell, founder of Fathers Incorporated and author of
Season 6 Episode 21: David Challen on How Growing Up with Coercive Control Warps Childhood and Manhood
The house looks perfect from the street—until you step inside and feel the air shift. We sit with survivor, campaigner, and author David Challen to trace the shape of coercive control through a child’s eyes: a mother’s world shrinking, a father...
Season 6 Episode 20: Shame, Love & the Truth About Male Violence
The conversation opens with end-of-the-year reflections and personal milestones—international book releases, masterclasses, collaborations, and community work—and quickly moves to a timely, thorny question: Can we talk honestly about male vi...
Season 6 Episode 19: Inside Ten To Men: What Male Health Reveals About Partner Violence
A stadium’s worth of men—every year. That’s the scale of new intimate partner violence use suggested by Ten To Men, Australia’s landmark longitudinal study of male health. ...
Season 6 Episode 18: Broken: Women Who Survive and Cause Harm with Lisa Young Larance
A woman calls for help after being strangled in her own home. He shows a scratch; she leaves in handcuffs. From that moment, the system that promised safety starts to mirror the control she’s trying to escape. That’s the hard truth we face with...
Season 6 Episode 17: From Boys to Men: Dr. Kate Fitz-Gibbon on Coercion, Misidentification & Real Prevention
A clear map beats chaos when lives are at stake. We sit down with Dr. Kate Fitz-Gibbon to draw a sharper line between “losing control” in life and being coercively controlled by a partner, and we keep children at the center where they belong. T...
Season 6 Episode 16: Centering Survivor Voices: How Scottish Services Shift Blame, Raise Fatherhood Standards & Heal Families
Blame doesn’t make families safer—clarity does. We sit down with Scottish survivors and practitioners from Equally Safe Falkirk to explore how a survivor-centered, perpetrator-focused, child safet...
Season 6 Episode 15: When Seeking Safety Makes You More Vulnerable: Migrant Survivors' Dilemma
The weaponisation of immigration status has become a powerful tool in the arsenal of domestic abusers. For migrant survivors, the choice between enduring abuse or risking deportation represents an impossible dilemma that traps them in dangerous...
Season 6 Episode 14: Violent Crime & Religion: How Religious Teachings Are Used as Justification for Child Abuse
Religious teachings wield profound influence over family dynamics and human behaviors, sometimes enabling abuse under the guise of spiritual teachings and guidance. This raw and revealing conversation confronts the troubling legacy of religious...
Season 6 Episode 13: Your Pet Is Not Safe When You're Not Safe: Understanding Animal Abuse in Coercive Control
When a perpetrator targets a family pet, they're sending a clear message about what they're capable of—and revealing a dangerous pattern that threatens everyone in the home. This eye-opening conversation with Maya Badham, founder of the
Season 6 Episode 12: Power and Pulpits: The Truth About How Religious Leaders Groom Adults
When churches call clergy sexual abuse “moral failings” or “affairs,” they obscure the truth: Predatory pastors groom adult congregants using tactics that mirror coercive control and intimate partner violence.Counselor and researcher Jai...
Season 6 Episode 11: We Are Not Our Trauma: Exploring Post-Traumatic Growth Beyond Deficit Models in Therapy with Oli Doyle
Surviving trauma isn't evidence of brokenness—it’s proof of extraordinary strength. Yet traditional therapy approaches often miss this crucial reality, focusing instead on deficits and pathology while forcing survivors to relive painful experie...
Season 6 Episode 10: A Champion's Journey to System-Wide Change: A Conversation with Kyra Feetham About Transforming Practice
What does it take to transform domestic violence practice in an organization? In this illuminating conversation with Safe & Together Institute’s Systems Change Champion Kyra Feetham from the Cent...