Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Season 6 Episode 9: See the Person, Not Just the Problem: Kelly Daley's Award-Winning Approach

• Ruth Reymundo Mandel & David Mandel

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When Kelly Daley, Community Connection Practitioner at Upper Murray Family Care, stood to accept her Champion Award for case practice in the Asia Pacific region, she was not just celebrating professional achievement—she was honoring a deeply personal journey of healing and transformation. Working across three agencies to implement the Safe & Together Model framework with children and young people affected by violence, Kelly has pioneered practice that shifts focus from managing children’s behaviors to holding perpetrators as parents accountable for the trauma they’ve caused.

”It healed broken bits of me that I had no idea were broken,” Kelly shares about her own experience with the Safe & Together Model, revealing how recognizing her strength as a survivor now drives her passion for partnering with others. This personal connection infuses her work with authenticity and purpose as she helps both survivors and practitioners navigate complex family violence situations.

What makes Kelly’s approach revolutionary is her emphasis on documentation and collaborative practice. She demonstrates how properly documenting strengths, protective factors, and patterns of behavior transforms not just paperwork but actual outcomes for families. When child protection services can see a mother’s protective efforts clearly recorded, they’re more likely to hold perpetrators accountable rather than placing the burden on victims. This shift represents the Model’s principles in action: partnering with survivors while keeping perpetrators in view.

Kelly’s implementation work addresses practitioner fears head-on through toolbox sessions, phased learning approaches, and supportive supervision. She recognizes that many professionals haven’t been trained to engage with fathers at all—let alone those who use violence—creating a significant gap in family-centered services. By building practitioner confidence gradually, she ensures the model becomes embedded in everyday practice rather than dependent on her presence.

Whether you’re a practitioner seeking to improve your approach to family violence or a survivor looking for hope, Kelly’s journey illuminates what’s possible when we truly partner with survivors while keeping perpetrators in view. Join us for this powerful conversation about transforming systems from the inside out, one family at a time.

Upper Murray Family Care (UMFC) is a not-for-profit, authentically place-based community service organisation that operates across multiple jurisdictions and regulatory environments. UMFC provides support and capacity-building programs and services for children, young people, individuals, families, stakeholders, and communities throu

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

David Mandel:

and we're back, we're back. We were looking at each other like we're playing chicken. Yes, it's great to be back with you. We're doing a lot of these now. We're like back to back and putting out some great content well, really highlighting some amazing people yeah, I love that doing um and I don't love talking to you, just you and I alone.

Ruth Reymundo:

By the way, I want to be clear you and I talk a lot, so it's good to bring other people into the conversation.

David Mandel:

Yes, it is.

Ruth Reymundo:

So we are really excited today about our guests because they were the champion award winner of the Asia Pacific for case practice. Do you want to read a little bit about who they are.

David Mandel:

So we're not going to tell them who we are and what the show is this time.

Ruth Reymundo:

We're just, we're just gonna leave them hanging.

David Mandel:

Oh, you can tell them go ahead. This is this. You listen to? Partner with a survivor. Oh yeah, that's right, that's who we are. I'm just jumping ahead. You're just jumping ahead. Today I've got a lot of energy, you're always running ahead.

Ruth Reymundo:

Okay, I'm the energizer bunny today, you are okay and who are you? I'm ruth ramundo mandel and I'm david mandel traditions yes, exactly, I like traditions anyway.

David Mandel:

um, so we're. I'm really excited about this. You know, every year we at the safety to give out champion awards for a couple of different categories, and you know, this year, you know, we've got an amazing winner of the award this year, kelly Daly, and she won for case practice and implementation and she's a Safer Together certified trainer. She'll work primarily a lot of times, by the way, that folks have a formal role and then what they're doing above and beyond that. You know, it's sort of where we're always. I'm deeply moved, really, by how much passion people bring and say, yeah, so they've got their day job, and then safer together becomes their passion project and that's not even doing a dignity to it.

David Mandel:

So kelly is trained to save it together as a certified uh save it together, uh certified trainer, and she's taken on this substantive role which has produced amazing outcomes by implementing the Safer Together framework, predominantly with children and young people who use violence.

David Mandel:

And she's been able to use the Safer Together model to bring support and understanding to the care teams so that the child or young person's behavior is seen for what it is the impact of the trauma. And then Kelly works with the response practitioner and the safe parent and care to ensure the perpetrator is kept in view and held accountable for the impact that their violence has had on the child or young person, therefore shifting the response from one that's focused on child behavioral management to the perpetrator accountability, creating a safer, stable environment for the young person to heal. And this role is not implemented in one agency, it's across three agencies McKillop, vfprr, umfc, vfprr and VACA, which we've worked with AFPRR and supporting an average of 50 kids, young people and their families each year across local government areas of alpine, vanilla, indigo, to wong, mansfield, mongerata and and wadunga. And so we're, you know.

Ruth Reymundo:

So, with all that, you know, um, we're really uh, pleased and proud, and I'm just gonna say welcome, kelly yeah, welcome, and I know that you wanted to to tell us a little bit about the land that you're on with the land acknowledgement.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, I would like to first acknowledge the traditional custodians, elders, past and present, who have raised children, taught them about the world around them and gave them the gift of culture and language. We will recognise our part in bringing fairness to our Indigenous brothers and sisters and creating a community where all children, indigenous and non-Indigenous, can grow up strong. I would also like to acknowledge my mob, which is the direct mob from Barramundigal, which is in Parramudda, sydney, and, yeah, just a beautiful mob.

Ruth Reymundo:

So thank you, wonderful Thank you, kelly.

David Mandel:

And, as we always do, we're on Masako Tunxis land and you want to acknowledge the traditional custodians here as well, and it's also beautiful land as well where we are. So let's jump right in and let's just do formal congratulations.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah, congratulations.

David Mandel:

And you know. So you're up there, you got a little certificate and we should be in front of 400 people. What if you know you were nominated? Just so people know you had to be nominated by two people? Yeah Right, it wasn't just you kind of put it in. You know you had to have somebody nominated you and you didn't know this and then somebody validated and they spoke to you, you know, and then it was reviewed.

David Mandel:

So for anybody listening, this is a process, it's real. So what did this mean for you personally and professionally to get this award?

Kelly Daly :

I wasn't too sure about the process of it all. I remember when I first got the emails in a team's meeting with my team leader and my senior practitioner, and I was reading it and I could watch my face and I'm like, oh, she's just got the email, because they just got the call, and I'm like what is this? What is going on? So it was a very big shock, but I was deeply, deeply humbled by it, I think. Personally, I don't think much has changed, except I'm a carer for my nephew and when he's being cheeky I'm like you have to listen to me, I'm an award-winning practitioner.

David Mandel:

Now, okay, I'm a parent, does that work?

Kelly Daly :

because when I inevitably stuff up on something, he goes. That's not the attitude of an award-winning practitioner.

David Mandel:

I'm like you're right, yeah, that's that's. You know, my kids I, when I'm talking to them, I say to them you know, people pay me to talk to them. They're like yeah whatever I did.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, you get it for free. You get it, yeah. Yeah, he's a. He's a cheeky boy, but I adore him. Um, professionally, I think there's probably a standard I hold myself to now. I don't think it's coming from anyone else but me. I just want to continue making sure that I am worthy of the award. Also, like the support that Upper Murray Family Care has given me the executives, the leaders, my own team like they stayed right up to the end just to cheer me on to get the award. They're a beautiful team and I'm so honored to be a part of them.

Ruth Reymundo:

That is amazing. Now you had, you had spoken to us a little bit at the time about how, what it meant to you personally. You know, we find a lot of times a lot of practitioners come back to us and disclose that how the model has changed them or changed their life or help them through a process of identifying, acknowledging and then moving out of a very abusive relationship themselves, you know. So I don't know if you want to tell us a little bit about that, but it was very touching.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, I think being part of this well, this growth and the model and understanding the depth that it goes to help me connect to myself, to see that I am a survivor, that I am someone who's worthy to be partnered with and I am someone whose stories are worth listening to, and I take. What that gave to me I want to give it to the people that I work with as well is that it made me feel healed, like it healed broken bits of me that I had no idea that were broken. And when I think about that for myself, I think about that for the victim survivors that I work with, but also the children, because I feel like they're just the true victims of family violence and helping them, like truly partnering with them and making sure that they feel heard as well.

David Mandel:

That's amazing, that is something that means so much to me and I've heard it all over the world. Really, you know people saying things like I, looking at my mom in a different way. You know I didn't think she was protective, but now I realize she was and how healing that is. Or moms, you know who. You know I didn't think she was protective, but now I realized she was and how healing that is. Or moms, you know who you know.

David Mandel:

I'm thinking about one particular uh woman who's certified trainer said you know, I thought that whole period when I was parenting and being abused was a black hole and I did nothing right and you know, the model helped me really see how hard I was working, what I was doing right and so so, kelly, for me it's deeply moving to hear you share that and then also for you to give back, based on that, to really want other people to have that experience.

Ruth Reymundo:

So you know, I was in your workshop, I stood in the back, and I hope that was okay.

Ruth Reymundo:

Some people are always a little bit nervous and it was so incredibly moving to listen to all of the efforts you had made in your own community to really help people to implement good practice and I know that you're deeply involved in community-based work. And can you share a little bit about what that looks like when the Safe and Together model is truly rooted in community and not just in policy, not just in work, not just in practice, but to be really truly rooted in community?

Kelly Daly :

I think yeah with safe and together. It's not just a name, it's not like the name of an institute, it's a goal. It's the goal to be safe and together. Yeah, and how that looks is very individual to the community. Needs like um.

Kelly Daly :

In training we talk about localizing it, um. So that is what's so important is making sure that we understand that the model is flexible but it's so sturdy, but it's how we can grow as a community. It's how we can say you are here and that's okay, but I want to help you get to over here to proficient. I want to help you understand what it looks like to be partnering, what it looks like and feels like, because there is a lot of fear that comes with trying something new, especially for practitioners, and if the practitioners hold that fear, it doesn't instill confidence into the clients that we're working with.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, so if we can alleviate the fear in any way, which is where we come with the toolbox sessions and um, recently we've just done a perpetrator mapping tool training session and we've got three phases where anyone who has a case that has family violence or history of family violence they will talk to myself and my co-facilitators, we'll do the mapping tool with them, sit down, go through it all until they start feeling confident enough to do it by themselves.

Kelly Daly :

And then, phase two, they do the mapping tool with them, sit down, go through it all until they start feeling confident enough to do it by themselves. And then, phase two, they do the map by themselves, send it to us. We go through it, give back feedback. Phase three they do this in supervision, where they talk to the team leader and they talk about the struggles and everything that needs to happen through the mapping tool. So the idea is that we build them up so we can step back, and that's what I want, that's what we need and that's how we'll have that flow and effect into the community, where we can have these conversations, where people can stop saying why didn't she leave, instead of saying and now say I can see what she's doing to protect the children.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah, you said something about you want them to feel what it feels like to partner, and I'd love for you to explain what you mean by that to our listeners. I think it's actually really important.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, I think hopefully, people who are listening, like they know what it's like to work with clients or victims, survivors or whoever. But that engagement and that connection, once you hit that, I guess I can say that sweet spot in relationship building where they trust you, they know that you're going to do right by them. It can take a long time to get to that point, but partnering is the best way to do it to. It's that strength building, it's that understanding that I can see what you're doing, I can see how much of a toll his actions and behaviors are having on you and I can see that you're trying to put everything in place to make sure it's not as bad as it can be. I can see that and I want you to work with me so I can make that easier for you, so you can make it easier for your kids and we can work together. So that's like just that felt sense of we're not going to change the world, but I can change your world, we can change your world together.

Ruth Reymundo:

How does that change the practitioner's world to do it that way instead of some of the ways that we've been doing it? I think if we go, in there.

Kelly Daly :

I'm very understanding that when we go into people's homes, it's their homes, that's their safe place and when services come in, we need to make sure we're continuing that safety for them, because services can be scary. People have service fears, service fatigue, service trauma. I think if practitioners feel that they are connecting, they are continuing the safety that not every service is going to come in on a top-down approach and say you listen to me and you do what I tell you to do, or all of these consequences, whereas tell me what you're doing already, just which is the basis of the model, yeah, and it's just like the foundation is the most simplified way of saying tell me what you're doing already and we can work on this together I think that is where we get the best outcomes I love.

David Mandel:

I love everything you're saying. I'm wondering about any particular moments, aha moments. So I cause I remember that you know the practitioner journey we talk about. You mentioned domestic violence proficient and talked about being going from domestic violence destructive to proficient, and we talk about off at the systems level, but often it's the practitioner who's on that journey too and along that way, there's often a moment or a series of moments where they can not unsee. It oftentimes is the phrase or do you have a particularly one of those moments in your experience working with practitioners around implementing the model where you watched in real time, yes, can you tell us a little bit about that moment or a moment like?

Kelly Daly :

that. Yeah, I use this story in every training I have because it just works so beautifully. In my other role the family violence, child safety role I was working with a practitioner and there was a young mum who was really struggling with family violence and I had just finished my own training, not train-the-trainer, but my own Safe and Together training. So it was fresh in my head and I was like, oh, we should do the perpetrator mapping tool. So I started individually counselling this young lady and I used the map and I showed her like where her strengths were, where his impacts on family functioning were, where she's her protective strategies were, and it really connected with her in a way that she's like, oh, so it's not me, I'm not the problem, because he's telling me, if I just loved him more, he wouldn't hurt me as much. I'm like, no, no, let's look at this, let's look at this.

Kelly Daly :

And then, being able to see this physically and then working with the practitioner as well, who was working with the family, and using this, the mapping tool, she was able to really partner with the young lady and it got to the point where the violence was too significant for the children to be safely at home. So child protection worked really well with the mum because they had that mapping tool and they had our notes and they were very proficient notes and they had every step that we had where we showed the violence but we showed her strengths through the partnering and because of that they shifted the focus of you need to make sure that he's not violent to him saying you need to stop being violent and we're going to protect these children. They're going somewhere and we're making sure you can't follow them. And it was the best outcome I've ever seen, and so quickly too.

Ruth Reymundo:

Yeah, isn't it amazing how really proficient documentation can change the outcome of other services interventions and the way that they assess danger.

David Mandel:

It's amazing, it truly is amazing. So for that practitioner, what, uh, do you remember what the sort of their aha moment was, or sort of what their what that was like for them? I mean, it's so. I mean, and I'm not trying to take away from the experience of the mom and the kids, and the family. But it sounds like it must have been profound for the practitioner, a very different way of working at least.

Kelly Daly :

She's in my head, she's my little champion of safe and together. We all sit on the same floor together and I always hear her go oh, that's not safe and together language, and like she would be talking to herself or she'd be communicating like to her other colleagues. Like, oh, we can use this safe and together practice. I think for her, the aha moment was when child protection was able to work with her and with the young mum. Instead of saying you need to do all these things to make sure the kids are safe, it's like how can we keep them safe together?

David Mandel:

and I think that was where it was was the outcome so not only was the mum having a different experience, the practitioner particularly because you know NGO practitioners often can feel at odds with child safety and and the partnering happened across the board. It happened between child safety, the child safety and the partnering happened across the board. It happened between child safety the practitioner and the mom.

Ruth Reymundo:

And that's kind of your brilliance. You are working between a whole bunch of different organizational entities and creating collaboration and unifying their practice and you're doing a lot of implementation work, which is super cool. Practice and you're doing a lot of implementation work, which is super cool because it's all about helping people to step into the tools and the skills. Do you want to talk a little bit about that work, that implementation work that you're doing between things and the pieces that you've really learned are important for implementation?

Kelly Daly :

I think what I've learned most, especially with my co-facilitator is growing people's confidence because, like I said, if they go in there feeling like not confident, they're not going to be able to effectively use the tools or the um model in a productive way. So obviously we had our have our toolbox sessions where we pull apart themes and tools and we actually have documentation coming up soon. So I'm really excited about that because I feel like that's where a lot of change can happen when we work with other agencies. Yeah, because documents follow everyone.

Ruth Reymundo:

So if we can remove from victim blaming, yeah, it'll be awesome they don't call in an official record for nothing, but it's, it's so I just want to just say this.

David Mandel:

It is so on dramatic to say I know we improve documentation and things you know like, and things get better. You know, we, we just because when we explain it to people at the model, it changes the way you write things down and that changes everything people like.

Kelly Daly :

Yes, uh-huh, uh-huh and I'm like no, you don't understand. It really does.

David Mandel:

And and and part of the theory behind the model and the focus on documentation, by the way, was that if you get the documentation right, it means you did the interviewing right, it means you did the partnering right, it means you did the interviewing right.

Kelly Daly :

It means you did the partnering right.

David Mandel:

It means you did the collaboration right, do you understand?

Kelly Daly :

I just want to say that for everybody's purpose.

David Mandel:

The goal isn't to write it down correctly. The goal is to drive good practice and then capture it and memorialize it, so it does help that person when a new worker comes on or the case goes to her court, because what we saw was I saw a lot of workers doing amazing work, but when you looked at their case notes it almost looked like a different case.

David Mandel:

I was like you beautifully described to me her strengths and what you did to partner with her, but what you wrote down the case was mom, better make sure he doesn't come back into the house. I'm like that isn't what you just told me you did with her.

Kelly Daly :

Something's out of alignment here, yeah.

David Mandel:

And it was often they were just writing notes, the way they were told to write notes Right, yes, yeah, yeah.

Kelly Daly :

Facts only is how I was taught, whereas I didn't like that. So I will have creative liberties where I feel like it's important that I also note how the young people are presenting to me and what they're trying to say, because language isn't just verbal it's mainly body language and if we're only just doing what we hear, we're missing the story completely. We need to observe everything and everything around us.

Ruth Reymundo:

Absolutely being observant is important, and those behavioral patterns of information are absolutely facts. They are the groundwork which tell us what we're navigating and what dangers exist and how we can address, assess and intervene in those dangers to keep a child safe. Decontextualizing the information is very dangerous in that abusers use decontextual patterns or decontextual behaviors. They say they threaten somebody and they say it's a joke. They visually threaten somebody and they say it never happened, and so we have to actually rely on their pattern of behaviors in order for us to truly understand what the danger is. So that is so important and that actually leads into my next question, which is about collusion with perpetrators, which is a really big concern of a lot of systems, although, to be honest with you, those systems are completely colluding with them by not doing really behavioral pattern-based assessments. They're falling into collusion via not getting all of that information. So tell us a little bit about your frontline experience and what are some of the common ways professionals might collude and how you've worked to disrupt that.

Kelly Daly :

Okay, I think with colluding like, it is the number one fear practitioners have when working with perpetrators. And usually when we start in this industry, we do not start off working with perpetrators. We start working with families and victim survivors and people that we learn how to partner with like through our body language, through our nodding, through our minimal encourages and using the strength-based approach and trauma-informed care and being like. Your story is important, your story is valued.

Kelly Daly :

So when we now start working with perpetrators, turning that upside on its head is very difficult because people get worried that if I see them as a victim themselves and then I just now excusing the abuse, where it's this thin line of it's okay to see someone's trauma but it's not okay for them to use it as a way to hurt others. That's how we can hold them accountable as saying, I understand, but you're now doing the same thing to your children and if you hold the children to the forefront of them, it's how we make an insight change and I think that's it's very difficult because it feels wrong not to be so understanding to someone's story and to then say, I hear you, but what can we do to move forward, and not just sit with them and say, like your trauma is about valid, but you're, you're hurting those, hurt people, hurt people. Yeah, and that's the biggest fear.

David Mandel:

Of collusion is walk down that path with them, but then leading you towards where you don't want to go well, I think you know you, you speak to one of those big fears, because people do, can be very empathetic.

David Mandel:

They do see that somebody that they're sitting across experience child sexual abuse, physical abuse of a child, racism. You know the impacts of colonization, right, those are real traumas that need to be recognized and acknowledged and dealt with. And what you're saying is, it's a context, uh, it's a an experience, but not an excuse. And so you have to be really clear, and that's always been when I do men's behavior change work, it's always been really clear and I also would add in that, um, my continued abusive doesn't do anything to heal my trauma and often adds trauma to somebody else who's close to me who's experienced many, many of the other same experiences of trauma, whether it's colonization or racism or it's or it's community violence or it's or it's child sexual abuse. So, um, there's nothing trauma informed of allowing that to go on and, and oftentimes, my behavior even traumatizes myself.

David Mandel:

Sometimes, scares me and I mean so. I think we have this sort of I want to make this point, ask you a question, but we have this thing which is this weird, very limited view of trauma-informed work is like let me sit and listen quietly and not not point out anything you're doing wrong, or let me you know that's and that's how we're on your side. That's not the only way to be on somebody's side. What you just described in my mind is being on their side, right? I want to just expand it out for just a second. Kelly, for your observations.

David Mandel:

When I was doing more direct work, I found not only were people not trained or experienced in working with men, usually who had used violence, but they weren't trained to work with men or fathers in general and I'm but they weren't trained to work with men or fathers in general. I'm just wondering, like that, many people had never had a conversation with a male about how do you learn you're going to be a dad? Who taught you about being a dad? Um, what was your biggest excitement or fear when you found out you're going to be a dad for the first, like, like, so what's your experience in that space as well, around just practitioners and their experience of working with non-violent fathers I don't think I have like.

Kelly Daly :

The only real experience I have working with men is when I worked in um the prison, um for a short period of time uh, that was. I wish I had safe and together training before I walked into there. I think I would have been able to do a lot more impactful work with them, but it was a counselling-based AOD space for them and the theme that I definitely got from it was they just want to get out to be with their kids and that's where we focused. A lot of our work is how can you be the father that you want to be?

Kelly Daly :

when you leave Because they talked about how they weren't the best father. They weren't doing what they needed to do. They weren't. They were hurting their family, and the ones who could recognise that were great. I didn't have a lot of family violence experience under my belt. Obviously, family violence is in every role that we work in ever. This is my first role where I work specifically with it and they would move towards. If she didn't dub me in, I wouldn't be here, but then I would move towards unknowingly. Well, what are your actions saying that brought you here? How can we make sure this doesn't happen again and keep moving it back to their behaviors? And I think it's. Um, what I found is if we focus on the kids, because, no, no, father wakes up and says I want to be a bad dad no, no father yeah, no one right.

Kelly Daly :

And if we can help them be the dad that they want they needed when they were a kid and they want to be now that they have kids that's how we can make change and it's it's for practitioners. Um, it's difficult to work with fathers because it's naturally like the father's out of the home, therefore we can't have anything to do with him. So, like just policy-based, like if they're not in the home, we don't work with them. But so what can we do to help, like the kids and the mum feel safe.

David Mandel:

Yeah, I'm just going to say about that one.

David Mandel:

you know, I've heard that all over the world by the way what you just said, and I just going to say about that one you know, I've heard that all over the world, by the way what you just said and I just want to say, I want everybody who has been told what you know, the thing that, kelly, you've been told we can't, we won't work with them, we're not allowed to go back to your funding lines, go back to your contracts and pull out the language which specifically says you can't work with dads who are out of the home or you can't work and what I believe you're going to find and I'm not saying this to you, kelly, I'm saying this to everybody listening that you're going to find this is about culture and custom and not about financial and not about budgets and not about specific policies.

Ruth Reymundo:

And it's not even okay. It's not okay, You're working with only one half of the parental population, but also to you know, Kelly, to send a practitioner into an instance where they're going to be working with men and they haven't been given any tools to work with men or dads. Why are we doing that? What's going on?

David Mandel:

Where are we? Where are we, you know, in nonviolent perinatal situations? Where are we just training people to talk to dads? And talk to about new dads and we want to help you. Why are we waiting for them to be violent?

Ruth Reymundo:

and yeah, and incarcerated, and incarcerated. And why are?

David Mandel:

we talking to teenage boys about being dads, so I could stand on the soapbox one quick story then we're going to wrap up.

David Mandel:

But about this, because I think it's so important is working with this worker in the United States. So it was in Australia and she talked about beautiful work she did with the mom and I said, oh, you, did you work with a dad? And she said, no, I can't. I said, ok, can you explain to me? You have a whole family program, you have a child and family program you're working in. Can you explain to me why you can't? I wasn't trying to put her on the spot because she said it so strongly I can't. Can you explain to me the policy, the language, the funding? And she said well, there's no, there's no specific policy, there's no funding catchment limit. You know who we work with.

David Mandel:

I said so what you're telling me is that there's something stopping you. But it's not policy, it's not funding, it's not language, it's not this. I said go, continue to name what it is. She goes it's not funding, it's not language, it's not this. So go, can you name what it is? She goes it's just too hard. And I think in that statement it's just too hard is I haven't been trained. Yeah, I haven't been told it's important. I haven't seen the importance. I don't know how to fit it in with the way I work.

Ruth Reymundo:

I don't. I don't have the direct mandate from my supervisors managers. I don't have the support from my manager backup that practice. I don't have tools. So I didn't blame her and I don't blame any individual worker. Right.

David Mandel:

I just think this is really a systemic issue that we all really need to grapple with, that We've created family-based programming that doesn't work with all of the family. Right yeah, and then when you expect people to hold perpetrators accountable when they haven't even talked to a dad about changing a nappy? You know, like, like so now you got to go out there, kelly, and talk to this dad about violence, when you haven't had the practice to talk to dads about? What are they afraid of? About when?

David Mandel:

their kid has a fever, or your dad? Do you know who to call if you're a home alone? Watching a kid and there's something happens, do you call your mom, do you call your auntie? I mean just, we are not practiced as professionals in these conversations and that's where the system, the educational system, the training system falls down, you know, and I think it is so. Oh, we got, we're wound up, aren't we? We're both.

Ruth Reymundo:

I think I think it is so disrespectful to men To simply cut them out of the process. I'm sure that some men think it's great, because it means they don't have to do anything, to simply cut them out of the process. I'm sure that some men think it's great because it means they don't have to do anything, but it is ultimately, at the end of the day, it's disrespectful to men to not engage with them as parents.

David Mandel:

It is so wrong and we need to do better. This is cranky yeah, go ahead.

Kelly Daly :

Our organization, like my team, they've got some amazing practitioners like they do this, uh, caring dads program.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, they do work with dads and they, um, when the dad isn't in a home, they ask the questions why? They ask, like, how can we talk to him? Is it okay if we talk to him? They, they do what they can and it's so great to see them go. Not see them go. Oh well, I tried, like they actually do put in a lot of effort, and I think that comes a lot from, like the leadership that is done up in my family care, where they're just like you know what you need to do. We've got you. It's a brilliant place. Good, that's awesome. All right, so we're gonna move we're gonna wrap it up.

David Mandel:

What would you like to say to survivors who may be listening to this episode? You know, based on everything you've experienced and we're talking about, what's one message you want to give to survivors who listen to this show?

Kelly Daly :

I would like to say your experience is not a weakness, in no way. What you've gone through was not your fault. It is going to be tough stepping into a role that is family violence specific, and you need to make sure that you're taking care of yourself. You need to make sure you have people around you who understand you and don't be afraid to use your experience to lead your practice, because that's how you can make the change you, you actually answered two questions at once.

Ruth Reymundo:

At once, you're like the professional and the survivor question very efficient, very fully embodied.

David Mandel:

I say fully embodied, so kelly, thank you so much again want to appreciate um you as as being a safer dealer champion, and I want to kind of encourage your, your nephew, who you're caring for, to keep bringing it up to you.

Kelly Daly :

Oh yes, I want. What's his name?

David Mandel:

jamie jamie jamie, if you're listening. You know, jamie, if you're listening. David says good use of information. Oh, is that bad?

Ruth Reymundo:

that is hysterical, is that so anyway?

Kelly Daly :

no, it's great he will run with it I hope you know.

David Mandel:

You know just because it's what a parent and a caregiver has to deal with. Jamie, that's your job, you know my kids do the same thing to me. You know, uh, you know that's not consistent with your role.

Kelly Daly :

You know that, oh, my god, yeah, god forbid, I'm human exactly so, anyway, we really appreciate you and we're gonna have you on again.

Ruth Reymundo:

We're really excited to have you on again. We're gonna have other conversations. You know it's so important to us to stay connected to the people on the ground who are doing the work every day, and when you stood up and you were so like, this helps my community, I just hand a heart. That's exactly what we want, that's the goal, that's the mission, and we will always be connected to community in a way that is architectural, that drives what we do, because that's how you make the change that we want to make so we're just grateful to you, kelly.

Kelly Daly :

Yeah, thank you so much for having me and uh awarding me with the award. Uh it's. It's sitting on our uh curry table right in the center, so I'm quite um. Yeah, I made myself uh front and center for it. That's awesome that's great.

David Mandel:

That's Well. You've been listening to Partner with a Survivor and I am still David Mandel, ceo of the Safe Together.

Ruth Reymundo:

Institute. I'm still Ruth Ramundo Mandel, yes, of the Safe Together Institute, and you can check us out at safetogetherinstitutecom.

David Mandel:

You can take courses at academysafetogetherinstitutecom. You can follow us on social media.