Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Season 6 Episode 5: Coercive Control and Children 2025: Conference Insights from Melbourne

• Ruth Reymundo Mandel & David Mandel • Season 6 • Episode 5

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David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel share highlights from the 2025 Safe & Together Asia Pacific Coercive Control and Children's Conference in Melbourne, Australia. Listen in as they reflect on key moments and the impact of bringing together over 400 practitioners from across the region. Here are some of the highlights: 

• Commitment to equity through a hybrid format that allowed participation from remote locations despite the technical and financial challenges
• First-ever family law track showcasing four years of work with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
• Launch of e-learning resources for independent Children's Lawyers that will reach over 1,200 practitioners
• Focus on decolonizing practice and centering indigenous perspectives through keynote speakers like Aboriginal lawyer Amanda Morgan
• Workshop on ethically including survivor expertise in organizations without exploitation or tokenism

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."

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Check out Safe & Together Institute upcoming events

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And we're back.

David Mandel:

And we're back.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Hello Hi, how are you?

David Mandel:

I'm good. Who are you? I'm David Mandel, the CEO of the Safe and Dealer Institute.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And I am Ruth Ramundo-Mandel and I am the co-owner and business development officer.

David Mandel:

Okay, and we are on Wurundjeri land, which is part of the Kulin Nation, which means we're in Melbourne, australia, right now and we are just finishing up a week for our conference here, and I just want to acknowledge the land we're on. We're outside, or really near, the beautiful Yar River.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Yeah.

David Mandel:

And South Bank Melbourne, it's a gorgeous day and it's fall time down under. Fall time down under and I just want to acknowledge any Indigenous elders, past present, emerging who are listening to this podcast and really a shout out to all indigenous people everywhere.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Yes.

David Mandel:

Many of you sitting on colonized land and often facing escalating threats, as we were talking about, you and I, this morning.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Yeah.

David Mandel:

So we are doing our traditional Wrap-up of the conference.

David Mandel:

Of our conference, and this was our first asia pacific coercive control and children's conference, and even though we've been doing a conference in this area for about eight years, yeah we have rebranded the conference um course of control and children to really widen out its audience and to really highlight that we've been doing work in this space for about 20 years around course control and as people are moving into legislation and and different areas with it, we we have tremendous background and experience in this area and and the other thing that stands out about the conference just jump into it this is the first time we've done a family law track. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

So and the other thing that stands out about the conference is that ruth ran 13 miles in wedges all right, okay, come on let's talk about everything you can do. I can do better, but in wedges baby and backwards and backwards like ginger rogers.

David Mandel:

Well, well, let's talk about actually seriously, um that you are the events manager. I really mean this, I know, I mean this Manager in the loose ends, but I'm really proud of our teams.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I'm really proud of I just touched David and might have triggered the mic there Really proud of our teams because we look huge but we're actually small but mighty, and everybody at the Institute had a hand in helping this event happen.

David Mandel:

Everybody. It was intense and the team is working across multiple time zones, across two major regions. So we had our US team backing us up here. And we had our in-person event and our virtual event.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Up here we had, and we had our in-person event and our virtual event.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And we had people back home that were like eyes on the ground in communication with me about tech problems and I'd sprint off in the middle of something and try to manage a tech issue, just to try to give our virtual people the best experience possible. Because this information, the sharing that happens at the conference, in particular with diverse practitioners, about how the model changed their work and how they strategized to implement the model in their context, is really important. Sharing it's really important information and I really wish that all of you could have been in the room because the energy around it, the nourishment it brings people, is palpable.

David Mandel:

It is, and for us, doing a hybrid event is more complex, is more costly. It is.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And it's our commitment.

David Mandel:

It's our commitment to equity because what that means is people who can't travel for resource reasons, family time, money disabilities, whatever that's right yeah, um, uh, they can participate and we had maybe around 150 people participating online. It was our biggest conference ever yeah over 400 people participating online and in person. We had people coming in remotely or in person from Singapore, from New Zealand islands off of Northern Australia that took three or four flights to get here. People from Western Australia. And one of my favorite stories is about a general practitioner.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Can we name them? Yeah, I think so.

David Mandel:

Dr. Oh yeah, that's a great story, you know, is about a general practitioner.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Can we name them? Yeah, I think so. Dr Casey Sullivan. She was a proud Aboriginal woman From Tamworth, from Tamworth.

David Mandel:

And she was online and there were some glitches the very first morning of the master class, which we apologize to people around the sound, and she said I need to be be there, I can't miss any of this she got in a car yes while being online and then flew to melbourne with her partner to be there the whole time, and that was one of the highlights for me.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I know it was for you as well.

David Mandel:

It was pretty cool but just to feel that energy. But that energy was multiplied over and over again by people talking about the implications of the model in Tasmania or bicultural lenses for New Zealand. There was a tremendous focus on culture and I want to say that's both a result of the model and something we've actively cultivated from the beginning of the model. We cultivate in context and in place, and so for instance one of our keynote speakers was an aboriginal woman, amanda morgan, a lawyer, talking about trauma-informed human rights lawyer yeah, trauma-informed lawyering and how we can decolonize and depathologize domestic abuse work and I really love.

David Mandel:

for me it's wonderful finding diverse voices where there's alignment with the model, because that lens of decolonization and depathologizing is so intrinsic to the model. Like I said, from the beginning, the model was meant to reduce over-representation. The model started in the United States but to reduce over-representation of families of color, black, brown, indigenous families in the United States who were over-represented in the child protection system.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And Hispanic people. I'm going to keep including you know, yeah, what I said, because in the USA those are one the hispanic people are the targeted uh group, and particularly now right, and I think I appreciate you saying, because I'll say brown and you know yeah no, I, I don't I. I hispanic people are such a diverse group of people in terms of I have a lot of issues around those terms, those political, yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that saying that.

David Mandel:

So it was designed for that from its inception, but it needs to be brought preferred deliverer of services specific services maybe domestic violence services or child and family services by the government.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I asked them what they thought of the conference and they said well, it's very safe and togethery. And I should have asked them to expound on what they meant. But what I feel like they probably meant was that, in an environment where there is a lot of cold analysis and filtered through the carceral and judicial lenses about domestic violence, that what the Siphon Together model does is, it humanizes. It humanizes the person who's experiencing the violence and the children in that home. It tells of their experience. It allows for the practitioner to see the human cost of what's happening to that family, that something is being perpetrated upon them. And it humanizes workers, that workers aren't just things with these high caseloads and that they need support and that they actually need language and tools to be able to speak about the perpetrator and the perpetrator's violence. And it humanizes men.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I want to just pause there for a second. Men. I want to just pause there for a second. It humanizes men. Where men have been assumed to be violent and they always will be, we say, hey, hold on a second. Fathers and their behaviors truly matter to child and family functioning, to the stability of families, to their wellness and their resources, and we must see men as parents. It humanizes.

David Mandel:

That's right and I think for me that decolonizing land, the depathologizing land, particularly as it relates to survivors, which is again really important when we're talking about women who may have been put in a box based on gender, but then also in a second or third or fourth box based on other characteristics, you know, racial or ethnic or religious or cultural don't just see them as trauma survivors, but see them as being in their resilience and their choices and their complicated balancing acts, the way they work hard and how we often well-meaningly for many people sort of look at them and go, oh, this is how they've been harmed, but can't go the next yard to see, oh, but this is what they're doing right, as a parent and the systems that make big decisions about child custody or where children end up need that information yeah need to hear what survivors are doing well, particularly as parents, and I think I'll use that to pivot to the to.

David Mandel:

One of the big highlights, I think, of the conference for me but for many people, was the family law track.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Yeah.

David Mandel:

And, as many of you know, the Safety of the Institute has been working in that space for years, whether it was guardians at Lytton in Ohio or parenting evaluators in Michigan or other courts in North America. But the last four years we've been working heavily with the Federal Circuit of Family Court of Australia, which has done numerous things legislatively, practice-wise, to improve their response to domestic violence, and Safe and Together has been part of that effort Training judges, registrars, court child experts, reg 7s, who are the contracted workers doing evaluation, and there's been a deep commitment on the court side to that work and to the model. I've met with judges and justices spoken at their conferences. We do training and it's not one off and one at a time, but it's it's every induction, every new person coming into the court and with their support and encouragement we created a family law track. We did work with the independent children's lawyers and launched that there, some e-learning for those who advocate for kids in court, which is a voice that's really listened to by the court, and we had speakers from the court.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

We had Judge Beckhouse speak.

David Mandel:

We had Judge Beckhouse speak, and one of the most important pieces of feedback for me was for people in the sector who had been doing this work for 30 years saying we're seeing things happen in this space that which has been really horrible to survivors that we never thought was possible, and I really that means a lot to me personally, because that's what this is about for me. Yeah.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Well, it's amazing to see the uptake of a behaviorally patterned model. Right, this is not about moving goalposts around policy and law although it is in some sense but it's really about staying centered on the real tangibles, the concrete behaviors happening in that family, you know, being perpetrated potentially by a person who's choosing violence. The concrete behaviors of protection of the parent who's trying to protect the well-being and safety of that child and their other children and themselves and their families, and really us all stepping back to ask ourselves how we can respond more appropriately to that threat that's happening. That's a real, tangible impact to that family and to society and really, if we need that underscored, all we have to look at is what's happening now. So it was amazing.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

As Americans, we felt a little filled up by the love we got all around from people. Everybody's concerned about us in the United States appropriately, you know. We're concerned about everybody as well as this really masculine, male violence gets magnified out into the world globally and it will impact us all, um, you know, and so we we were grateful for a little bit of respite, a little bit of of australian love, and we loved seeing jackie ruck, our regional manager, and spending time with her and and deb nicholson, who's one of our people here in australia as well. So you know, I don't know. We're leaving Australia full and happy and my knees are a little sore and I'll be icing them probably for a few weeks.

David Mandel:

But you did amazing, you did a workshop.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I did with Kathy Addy. Yeah, we talked about. We talked about how to ethically and safely bring people with credible expertise I'm not saying lived experience anymore Credible expertise into your organizations, because so many survivors really are just being pegged for their trauma. Their trauma is the one that organizations want to lead the way with, rather than their skills and their knowledge, because a lot of us are being exploited in the industry, underpaid, undervalued, abused and silenced. A lot of our stories are being used for fundraising without actual change, which is really traumatic for us to tell our stories over and over again and have people raise money off of them but not actually make the changes that we need to make together.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

So for me, presenting with Kathy was a moment to help organizations embed better HR policies and practices and identify better when people in their organization who have been hired on for their lived expertise are being abused and undermined by others in their organization. And you know, we just we want to see survivors thrive. We believe, I believe that survivors are, are are deserved compensation for what has been taken from them, especially if they were institutionalized in foster care or in other institutions because of the violence and the abuse, and part of that is making sure that they're well resourced, that they have the resources they need. So underpaying survivors, exploiting them for their stories, is just a continuation of system abuse of survivors. So Kathy and I really feel passionately about that and it was a great presentation. There was a lot of people in the room and I think people took a lot of concrete things they could do in their organizations with their HR policies to help them do better.

David Mandel:

It's. One of the things I love about our conferences is that it brings together diverse groups of people and it gives them a framework and an approach that makes it easier to have these conversations. That's what I really believe. So, you know, whether it's survivors talking about how do they fit into organizations and demanding or expecting certain treatment, or it's about us talking about documentation and avoiding finger pointing, you know, one of the things that's big for me is to and one of the messages I really tried to emphasize in the family law track was, while we can all point to really horrible examples of decisions or treatment of survivors in courts, it's really and because it's really easy to point the finger at courts, at judges, at lawyers, that I really tried to say look, this is a collective endeavor. And all those folks who feel downstream, who are downstream the NGOs, the survivor advocates, the lawyers- child protection, and this was reinforced by the court personnel, which is how they document what they write down.

David Mandel:

If you don't write down survivor strengths, if you don't name the perpetrator's behaviors and the harm to the kids, or if you just accept the perpetrator's story about the survivor. That's right and that becomes the narrative that gets documented perpetrator's story about the survivor. That's right and that becomes the narrative that gets documented. That will make, or can make, a profound impact on judicial decision-making, because judges cannot rule on evidence they don't see.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Or they can't rule on evidence. That's incorrect.

David Mandel:

Or victim-blaming, or victim-blaming, or they can rule on it, they will. They'll just rule on it in a crappy way, yeah, and so.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I think that that was a technical term by the way.

David Mandel:

What's that crappy, crappy way, crappy judicial proceedings? That's right. So I think that you know, and that was really that kind of message is practical, it's accurate.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And it's actionable.

David Mandel:

And it's actionable.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And it really says to everybody we can do better together because if the court gets better information they can make better decisions with families who are all experiencing domestic violence is that they all think their job is very siloed when they are working within a family in a holistic manner and their practice is having a holistic impact on that family that they may not see. That's right, you know. They may document something in a way that's they. The perpetrator may say she's crazy, See here, she had to go get this diagnosis of PTSD that proves she's a bad parent. Somebody will write that down. It becomes official documentation. What that person said, what a perpetrator said with no merit or evidence becomes the evidence, and that is unacceptable.

David Mandel:

And I think it all falls under this category of from my mind or it can be associated with a word I probably said maybe 100 times over three days decontextualization.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

You might have said it more than that.

David Mandel:

More than 100. Maybe I said contextualization and then decontextualization.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Do we link them together?

David Mandel:

Yes, but one of the biggest failings is how survivors' experience adult and child survivors' experience gets decontextualized from the perpetrator's pattern, and that's what you're talking about and how it shows up in the documentation, because all of a sudden we're talking about a heterodiction issue separate from what he did to get her hooked on drugs.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Right.

David Mandel:

Or talking about the children's behavioral issues separate from what he did to create them. And that's so critical, particularly in the post-separation period. Again, the family law environment, because people will say, oh, the abuse is over. And my keynote was really attacking this idea that domestic abuse is historic or irrelevant in family law matters, which is often the argument that's made. And what I was so excited about is that keynote not only went out to the audience that was in the room or on our conference website, but because we tied it to our independent children's lawyer e-course launch. We had around 400 lawyers, yeah, across the country amazing, who heard that keynote. Yeah, about how domestic abuse is not irrelevant and historic when it comes to family matters, right, and, and now they're going to have access 1200 plus, uh, family law independent children's lawyers will have access to hours and hours of safe and together training for free through the New South Wales and legal aid commissions across the country.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Yeah.

David Mandel:

And that's who we developed this in partnership with. So this again speaks to one the impact the Institute's work is having, but how we're working in collaboration with these organizations is having but how we're working in collaboration with these organizations, In this case legal organizations, to produce bespoke training for them that really meets the needs of their professionals and helps them better serve adult and child survivors and families.

David Mandel:

Now, just an aside we're really hoping to take this same material global, For those of you listening anywhere else this is not just meant to be siloed to Australia, it's really we're looking to take these same efforts globally and so, if you're interested, reach out to us because we don't want to just stop. And I had a very powerful moment for me at the end of the conference when I said this is amazing, you're all amazing, we're doing so much and it's not enough.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

It's not enough, yeah, it's not enough. More people, more more, more, more.

David Mandel:

Yeah, so I was excited about that and so much more yes okay, so we're gonna leave you with that information and we're not gonna. This is gonna that information and we're not going to.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

We're not going to overwhelm you. Yeah, we were going to try to keep this to a half hour, but you know we're almost there, Almost there. Hey, look at us.

David Mandel:

We're doing well, so you know. Check out our website about information about upcoming events. We're planning our event strategy for the rest of 2025, into 2026. We're really looking at those events. Check out our Uncovering Coercive Control Toolkit.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Which was also just launched.

David Mandel:

Yeah, I can't even keep up with ourselves sometimes I know. We also announced that I'd hit 3,000 book copies sold, so check out Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers how to Transform the Way we Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence available for you online. I won't say where, but you can just go to our website and check it out there.

David Mandel:

And is there anything else you want people to know about to kind of visit and look at after the conference? I just want to thank Australia for having us. Is there anything else you want people to know about to kind of visit and look at?

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

after the conference. I just want to thank Australia for having us and always being so welcoming and wonderful. You know, before I came out here you went up to go do a keynote up in Washington State and I was in California in Santa.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Rosa in my hometown and you know I'd gone out onto the Susquehanna intertribal council lands and was participating in some controlled burns and really it nurtured me and just filled me up to be there in community and I just I know that we're at a moment in time where there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of, uh, trepidation about the future and I just want to to to send the love that we got here, you know, to everyone listening to this podcast and and and just let you know that you're not alone. We are all working towards this goal of making a future where our families are safe and together and well-resourced and not under threat from male violence in particular, but also just from violence in general, and keep going.

David Mandel:

Yeah, and I just want to shout out to our other asia pacific colleagues and friends, whether in new zealand, yeah whether in singapore, they're in japan and from there outward to the rest of the world. You know we're going to keep plugging along, we're not going anywhere no and this work is so important to me and I know it's so important to you yes and every single person there at the conference. I looked out to the crowd of people and just saw so much passion, yeah, so much knowledge.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I got so many hugs. I got so many hugs.

David Mandel:

You did.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Oh, it was wonderful.

David Mandel:

And I'm loving the post-conference LinkedIn, particularly posts from people of selfies and events and people just shouting out. So again, check out Safety Institute LinkedIn page if you want to sort of see, if you want to at the conference but get a feel for the energy, check out our Facebook page. And again, if you want to get access to our Uncovering Coercive Control Toolkit, go to our virtual academy and keep following us and keep following this podcast.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

And keep your hearts about you.

David Mandel:

Keep your hearts about you. Yeah, I like that. Did you just make that up?

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

I make up a lot of things that's wonderful. I love that.

David Mandel:

Keep your hearts about you.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

Alright, okay, and you are.

David Mandel:

I'm David Mandel still.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel:

You are still David Mandel, I'm still Ruth Raimundo Mandel, and we are out.