Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Season 6 Episode 10: A Champion's Journey to System-Wide Change: A Conversation with Kyra Feetham About Transforming Practice

• Ruth Reymundo Mandel & David Mandel • Season 6 • Episode 10

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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 Centre for Women & Co. in Queensland, Australia, we explore the power of language, values alignment, and relationship-building in creating sustainable change.

Kyra shares her journey of embedding the Safe & Together Model at the Centre for Women & Co., where a remarkable shift occurred through both top-down leadership support and bottom-up practitioner enthusiasm. One pivotal change happened at the documentation level: transforming intake questions from generic inquiries about children to specific examinations of “how the perpetrator’s behavior impacts family functioning.” This simple but profound shift refocuses attention on perpetrator patterns rather than survivor actions.

The conversation delves into the complexities of working with historically marginalized communities, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Kyra reflects on the importance of self-awareness when navigating systems that have caused intergenerational harm: “Anti-oppressive practice starts with you as an individual... understanding that as a white woman working in largely government-based systems, that equals danger for many communities.”

As coordinator for the Logan area’s High Risk Team, Kyra offers invaluable insights into how the Safe & Together framework helps practitioners critically examine prior system decisions and identify opportunities to repair relationships with survivors. She emphasizes how meaningful conversations with people using violence (“What kind of father do you want to be?”) create pathways to accountability that generic risk assessments cannot achieve.

For practitioners aspiring to become change agents themselves, Kyra’s advice resonates with wisdom: Build relationships throughout your community, understand what others have tried, and connect with values-aligned individuals who are ready for a better approach. Her message to survivors rings clear: I see you, I hear you, I believe you, and there are passionate practitioners working to improve safety and accountability, even if you’re not currently seeking services.

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

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

And we're back and we're back. Hi, hey, there how are you doing? I'm good.

David Mandel:

We are back for another episode of Partner with a Survivor. I'm David Mandel, CEO of the Safe and Together Institute.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

And I am Ruth Ramundo Mandel and I am the Chief Business Development Officer and the co-owner.

David Mandel:

And in a minute we're going to be talking to another Safe and Together Champion Award winner, which I love these episodes, we did one recently but first I want to do a land acknowledgement of where we are. We're on Masako Tunxis land and just acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and indigenous elders, past, present, emerging, and it's beautiful land, If you have ever a chance to come this way. We're in its peak kind of green early, you know, mid-spring, and we've had a lot of rain and it's just. The rivers are flowing and the temperature is perfect and it's just a beautiful place to be right now. And you just got back from California.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

I did. I was in my hometown of Santa Rosa for a week of vacation and meeting up with one of our chief operating officer, and we were having a great day together.

David Mandel:

That's great and I just came back from a conference in New Orleans talking to judges and others about technologically facilitated abuse.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Oh boy.

David Mandel:

Yeah, it was a pretty tough subject but so important because, basically, domestic abuse perpetrators find all sorts of ways to use new emerging technology Right. When it was pagers, it was pagers and cell phones and ring cameras. Now, and you know, now we're using AI and all sorts of things. So it's a very powerful, important session. So that's where we are.

David Mandel:

So, that said, a little bit of context, I am going to introduce Kyra Fadum, and Kyra is the at our Asian Pacific Conference and every year at our conferences we have champion award winners together, model champion award winners, and what that means is and oftentimes people, sometimes even the champions, don't even know this means they were nominated by two different people.

David Mandel:

They were nominated and validated by second person, uh, and their work was described and they submitted and a committee was reviewed and they're selected. And kyra was selected as a systems change champion and she's currently the high-risk team coordinator at the Logan High-Risk Team in Brisbane and she works for Center for Women and you know she's done a tremendous amount of work about embedding Safe and Together in a way that obviously the model is designed to do, which is really helps really keep survivors visible, help protect their relationship with their kids, look at perpetrators as parents. Kyra is also a certified safety certified trainer and we're going to be talking to her about her work herself, her experiences of safety to the practitioner, and we hope people get a lot from it. So welcome Kyra.

Kyra Feetham:

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

David Mandel:

So we're going to jump right in and talk about embedding and it just seems like a simple thing, but you've managed in your role. Like a simple thing, but, but you've managed in your role. And so much of what um systems champions do is often they.

David Mandel:

They not only do their formal role but they do so much more and I think that's part of your story, as I'm going to guess is that but you managed to get safer together, training mandatory inside your agency, and with that meant a lot of buy-in. It meant that it's, you know, really kind of there as part of the DNA of your organization. So I'd love you to tell us and our listeners a little bit about that journey, what it took, what you accomplished and why you were successful. Because, to be honest, others try it and don't always achieve the same kind of mandatory buy-in. So can you, can you give us a little bit of information?

Kyra Feetham:

absolutely can thank you, um, before I jump in as well, um, I'll just acknowledge that I'm currently on um yagura and yugambe land, um, so I'm currently in logan, um in Logan, near Brisbane in Queensland, australia, and we are just heading into winter, so it's a little bit chilly, and this morning when I woke up, I thought I would probably just want to stay in bed for a little bit longer than normal. But yeah, so that's where I'm coming from this morning, and it's nine o'clock in the morning, so feeling ready for the rest of today In terms of the embedding of Safe and Together in my agency.

Kyra Feetham:

I was thinking about this and I think I'm really fortunate in the fact that, and I think I'm really fortunate in the fact that I had a lot of buy-in before I even proposed this as an option.

Kyra Feetham:

So there'd been a trainer sort of before me that had worked at Centre for Women and had done some of the groundwork and then when I had become certified, yeah, the I guess, like the point I wanted to make was my superiors, so my CEO, my COO, were already just in love with the model and really supportive of everything safe and together.

Kyra Feetham:

So I actually you know we talk about barriers and challenges, but in this particular scenario I was actually really fortunate to have support from not only my upper management but also everyone on the ground. So really talking about that top-down and bottom-up kind of approach was really what made it seamless. So I think that was, yeah, like I honestly just feel so lucky that my upper management team was so passionate about wanting to keep children safe and together partnering with victim survivors, children safe and together partnering um with victim survivors. So, um, and then I I am aware of other challenges in other organizations, um, because I have worked elsewhere. Um, you know, and I think some of the barriers maybe to other organizations is not having that higher level buy-in from from management, or from your, your CEO, or from the director, or yeah.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Yeah, it's amazing because the fundamentals of the model are so pragmatic and so clear, right On a level that's really just you know, why would we not want to solve this problem altogether? Why would we not? So it's great to hear that. It's wonderful.

David Mandel:

So can you say a little bit about the values alignment you know between your, because you're getting this buy-in. I think oftentimes, like you said, the CEO, the board, maybe higher-ups they don't see the alignment or how this contributes or kind of helps, like Ruth says, move the mission along. Can you say a little bit of why that was so clear and what kind of clicked for the agency, between the agency and Safe and Together?

Kyra Feetham:

Absolutely. I think it was. You've hit the nail on the head in terms of value alignment. So I was also thinking about, you know, the people that we have in our organization and it kind of like it feeds back to me to recruitment and sort of the type of people that we're looking for in these roles in our organization. So in terms of, like our values, thinking about integrity, compassion, you know, feeling that, where I think the other thing is passion, like you know it's being able to really have those strong advocates to say you know, this is it's common sense, almost as you know you were saying, ruth, why would we not um?

Kyra Feetham:

so I think that's something that um yeah it was just really um seamless and, as I said, I just feel so um lucky that we were able to. It was just um, yeah, a simple sort of process in the end, but, um, I think it does come back to the people that you have in your organization.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Right, yeah, that passion for making sure that people have what they need right, that they speak what they need, that you're able to navigate with them and their real problems, their real challenges, is a real special quality and a real values alignment with partnering. So I love it. I love to hear that you found that in your organization and really being mindful of that. Values alignment is something that I really truly believe in, and organizations that are aware of that and do groom those values in their upper management are much more successful at collaborating inside the community with others to solve community problems. Do you want to tell a little bit about an experience you had where, once everybody was on board and you had started doing the model, practicing the model, that you really felt that alignment, even with partners in the community who may have in the past not worked with you or been adversarial, or something like that? I would love to hear that.

Kyra Feetham:

Yeah, absolutely.

Kyra Feetham:

I think one of the things for me is when you're in the training room with people that have that value alignment, where you're in the room of like-minded individuals, you're able to be really open and genuine and honest about, maybe, where you've come from as well, so, acknowledging that you know we don't all wake up one day as db informed practitioners, um, there's work that you have to do, um to really understand the complexities around domestic and family and sexual violence, um, so I think that's one of the things that I was able to see in the training room, like in my internal organisation, when you hear other staff sharing their experiences when they're working with clients, you know, partnering with victim survivors and I can hear that they're already doing some of this stuff.

Kyra Feetham:

So it's just being able to find the language around it sometimes. So, you know, they're often doing beautiful partnering work and they're just not calling it partnering, you know. So, yeah, being able to really highlight the great work that they are already doing. Again, I think that kind of feeds into what we were talking about values, right, and really sort of having that excellent, you know, really moving towards that DV proficient practice.

David Mandel:

Right.

Kyra Feetham:

If we're thinking about the continuum, um of practice, and yeah, I think, um, that's just something I've really um, yeah, really noticed in the training room is like, yeah, we're doing this stuff already. This is amazing, right, um, so that's really great. And then I think the other thing, um, if I'm thinking about language, is how powerful it is, and I really love how Safe and Together has been able to I can tell it was really intentional like the key principles, the critical components, just with the language, and that's really important because you know you should never underestimate the power of language. So I think by being able to have that shared language within the team, it's being able to, yeah, sort of bring us in a more cohesive, sort of, you know, bring us together more cohesively.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

That's amazing. So I think about, I know here in the United States the National Association of Social Workers has their values right and Australia as well right that respect for persons, social justice, professional integrity, human dignity, service and competence right. But it's really interesting because those are very broad words that unless you give people the tools to do and measure the outcomes Right, that you do a disservice to people who really know if you have that framework. But that's that's. I'm curious about your thoughts about how the language because you're talking about the importance of the language and the critical components how that really supports you in a concrete way to live the values, those broad values that are stated in even Australian social work contexts stated in even Australian social work contexts.

Kyra Feetham:

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's really being able to you know, understand, because I so, I think a couple of things. I think some people come into like the social work or human services field with really great intentions and those intentions sometimes, you know, maybe have unintended consequences. So, you know, some people who maybe fit the values of you know those broader values that we were just mentioning, maybe still fit within that value framework framework, but then in terms of doing the actual domestic and family violence, um, you know, improving safety, talking about safety planning, um, partnering, holding perpetrators accountable there is sort of that lack of understanding in that skill base um.

Kyra Feetham:

so I think that's where something like Safe and Together is so important, because I feel like that's where you can kind of bridge the gap. You kind of Safe and Together can identify those people that you know have those values, and then it's like adding that education piece to kind of bridge that gap really.

David Mandel:

So you know, when I think about what you're saying, I'm thinking about the work you do to. Not only you're a certified trainer, so you train on our core material and then you help, you know, support staff with implementation, with refreshers and other things you know. So we all know and I've come to say, while we want to produce great certified trainers and great trainings, the ultimate goal isn't that. The ultimate goal is to change behavior outside the training room so professionals are acting differently. Can you share with us sort of what you've seen as actual changes in your peers and how they do business with families, things they say differently, how they do business with families, things they say differently, that they do differently? We've been talking the term partnering, but even what is that? What have you seen that look like that's different than it was before the training happened with them?

Kyra Feetham:

um, I think one of the things that I see is these practitioners that you know there might be some level of like mutualizing sort of language. Um, you know things like um, oh well, mum said that you know it was kind of her fault as well, or you know that sort of yeah, the mutualising language, being able to see the shift to pivoting back to the perpetrator, in the way that the staff are running their case, consults. So when they're sort of engaging with whether it be like peers or you know, a team leader, they're able to really show accountability through their language when they're speaking about cases, when they're working with the clients. So we work a lot with women experiencing violence. So when working with the women, being able to really to validate, being able to understand, you know how intersections or intersectionality can play a part for that particular client. It's the broadening of the written practice as well, so it's being able to, you know, the case noting side of things in terms of our documentation has just really improved as well.

Kyra Feetham:

So one of the things we did was we changed we have like an intake template for when a client first sort of contacts the service. One of the things we did was make a few changes. So one of the questions was what is the impact of the perpetrator's behaviour on the family functioning? So that's sort of embedded in our risk assessment questions. So whilst we, you know, previously we might have had something to say, oh, what about the children? Or you know something just general about the kids. Now it's more intentional around. Okay, but how is the perpetrator impacting that family functioning Right?

David Mandel:

And I would say that you know. I would say accountability starts with language, and what you're describing is when you say what about the children? How have the children been affected? It's not the same thing as asking somebody how has the perpetrator's behavior about the children, how the children been affected. It's not the same thing as asking somebody how is the perpetrator's behavior impacts the children's daily functioning and I'm totally a form nerd, I know you are a second.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Everyone, ruth just put intake form change with multiple exclamation points because I'm a form nerd.

David Mandel:

I really am we both are oh my god, I got so excited, right so we're firm nerds and we know, we know that forms we know the power of the intake form dictate, um, dictate how people act, like I've had so many times and in uh, in my career.

David Mandel:

People say, david, I love this, but I don't have a place to write this down. Or I'll ask people well, you seem to know so much, have you written it down in your files? I go no, because I'm not expected to, and so we're often floating in the sea of the right information but we're not being expected to document it. And then we know if it's not documented, it didn't happen. So, I love that. One of the things you're able to do is change the form. So we're like form nerds together.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

We are absolutely form nerds together.

David Mandel:

And you made my heartbeat faster. Thank you.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Seriously Okay. So moving out of form land, because not everybody is that excited by them, their intersectionalities and I know that one of your nominations highlighted the deep commitment to improving your approach to working with intersectionalities, especially around systemic racism, bias and intergenerational trauma and we'd love to hear a little bit about that. How does the practice that you're doing now look different than what you were doing before and how has it helped to amplify those voices?

Kyra Feetham:

Yeah, thank you. I really loved listening to Jackie Ruck talk about sort of similar topics at the conference in Melbourne recently. Hi, jackie, if you're listening, when I think about you know, working with First Nations people, I think about the need to walk, gently, walk alongside, to listen, to hear, and I honestly think that anti-oppressive practice starts with you as an individual. And so I think my practice looks different now because you know the Safe and Together sort of. If I think back to my journey being exposed to the world of Safe and Together, it kind of started back with Invisible Practices back in. I can't even remember when that was 2012. No, no, wasn't that not?

David Mandel:

2012, it would have been. It would have been 2016 or 17, something like that so it would have been, so I don't remember it exactly. Yeah, he's referring to people don't know, visible practices, with a research project with the university of melbourne that was looking at how do you work with fathers who use violence in the context of systems, child protection and other systems. Anyway, just to kind of footnote this for people. So go ahead, kyra, you know, go back to what you're saying.

Kyra Feetham:

So that's where I kind of started and since then I've been able to.

Kyra Feetham:

I think, honestly, the self-reflective practice is really key in terms of being able to change the way that you practice.

Kyra Feetham:

I think a lot about how, you know, I'm a white woman Often. You know, back when I was working for community corrections, I was working with a lot of men who were using violence, who were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and just acknowledging that power dynamic, depending on what role I had, my gender, you know where I sort of come from. And so now, like understanding that you know, part of the high risk team which is largely, you know, a system, a white system, so we have police, we have child safety, we have these government agencies at the table, and understanding how, as you know, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, that's that equals danger, that is not a safe place for them to sit, and so acknowledging my place as a white woman working in largely a government sort of base system, I think that sort of being able to really reflect and I feel like Safe and Together has been able to help me do that. Um, because that's, um, you know, really, when you really unpack intersectionality, um, you have to know where you sit.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Yeah, you do, yeah, absolutely do. You know. It's interesting because I I I know there's a lot of emotional dynamics in addressing this issue, a lot of history and a lot of emotional dynamics. But one of the places that I have always thought about the way that we engage with different peoples and how they have experienced the systems that claim to serve them and I'm really going to say that's a claim not proven by science nor a double blind study, my friends and that is is that we just need to get the right information. We need to get the information, we need to know the story of that person and their experience of the world, because that information tells us how best we can partner with them. And there's, you know, many different experiences all around the world of what I would call focused upon populations, populations that are historically focused upon I would also call them targeted populations by services and they have real intergenerational experiences and those experiences need to be acknowledged.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

We need to say that's real. We know that that's the nut of the hesitancy to engage with us, and if we are people truly of goodwill who want to assist people to be safe, to be well, to be together with their children, to be with their culture safely, then we need to get the information. That's our job, and hearing the stories of those people that we're working with is getting the information. It is actually the information. It is actually that simple. It doesn't need to be emotionally complex. We just need to start with the mandate that we all have these different experiences and we have to get the information. And that's part of the partnering thing that I love and it sounds like you see that as well and I love it that I love, and it sounds like you see that as well, and I love it.

David Mandel:

So I want to weave this together, if I can, because you're, I'm not only a nerd around forms, but I'm actually a high risk team nerd. I don't think I've ever said those words out loud.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Is this a real? Is there a? Is there a club of?

David Mandel:

people, and what I mean really, I mean what I mean by that is I'm really oh no now we're gonna hear from people. People are gonna be like I'm part of the high risk team nerd as well you know, you're gonna form a whole thing, you know, but I'm really, and there'll be shirts, yeah we'll get you swag some swag I would like.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

I would like an uh, an official like emblem as well okay, thank you, we, that's AI to create it.

David Mandel:

Um so, um, well, I'll explain this. I don't think you just, it's just I can't. I can't leave that hanging. So I'm really interested in what high-risk teams do and don't do. Well, I'm really interested in how safety other can help those teams be better. I have real sense in my mind about what the safety data model offers. That's different, because we don't.

David Mandel:

You know there's a lot of people who've done work around lethality and lethality markers. That's not what we lean into, you know, and we're about pattern-based looks at behaviors, their impact on harm, and I'll give you kind of my you know, kairos sort of my thoughts, and then I want to hear what you've done with it. You know in your work because this is what you do day in day out that those teams historically haven't always been and I think you pointed to this partnering in the way they work, that often they pathologize survivors by making things that are really impacts on them risk factor markers and tick boxes Well, she's got substance abuse or you know she was assaulted while she was pregnant, you know and those things become legitimate risk markers non-lethal strangulation. They become legitimate risk markers for managing for lethality and recidivism. That's important. I want, like I want people to hear that I'm not suggesting we stop doing that but risk markers don't tell you how to work with someone.

David Mandel:

They don't tell you to work with them they don't tell you how, what the harm is, they don't. They don't tell you the context, they don't.

David Mandel:

They kind of can disconnect yeah those things from therator's behaviors and and and they often don't increase those risk teams in my experience could lead to referrals to child protection. On the victim right survivor yeah, because they didn't do what the risk team wanted them to do, which is leave or get a IVO or DVO. So it's a really complex picture of a system that's designed to do good things manage lethality, manage recidivism, coordinate around perpetrator accountability and interventions. You know these are the stated objectives. Tell us about your experience, about why you thought bringing Safe and Together to the Logan high-risk team, multi-agency high-risk team was a good thing and what the effect has been of doing that.

Kyra Feetham:

I think yeah, you've made some great points, David I think one of the things that we don't do well is the harm is identifying. We're really good at risk assessment, but then, you know, when we're looking at closing a file, we're kind of like, oh, all of these risks have been mitigated, let's close. And then we still have a victim survivor, most likely with children, who is still very much needing, you know, support, and it is really like that well-being piece is not part of the high-risk team sort of work. That's really hard, you know. We're kind of we're designed to work at that pointy end, and when that pointy end has sort of, you know, just flattened a little bit, yeah, it's like, okay, let's close. And then what?

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Can you imagine, though, if medicine replicated I always go back to medicine replicated that there was just, there was just EDs emergency departments. There was no critical care afterwards. There was no. There was no step down care. There was none of that stuff. Can you imagine? That's not. That's not how you support people who are in crisis or who are traumatized or who may have, you know, critical ongoing issues because of the abuse they experience. That's not how you do it.

David Mandel:

So how did Safe and Together change the way the team worked, or how did it help communicate, coordinate, you know, implementing it there. What does it look like? And what's different, maybe a little bit because of Safe and Together.

Kyra Feetham:

Yeah sure, little bit, because it's happened together. Yeah sure, um. So I think one of the things that um we do well um is we have a. So, at the center of women and co, we have a healing and recovery team. Um, this is new, so this is um some new funding um that has come through and in terms of our, you know, when we're thinking about our higher risk team you know clients that may be sort of closed we're kind of we're finding that there was this gap and you know what do we do? What do we do next?

Kyra Feetham:

So one of the great things that we do have now is this healing and recovery team and that is designed to, yeah, support those women on their their healing journey um and that's that's really exciting because, um, yeah, as I said, it's only a new um, it's only a new program, um, and but that again that sits outside of the high-risk team, right. So again we have all of these, you know, criteria, eligibility, sort of requirements for these different programs, and thinking about external services as well. Some services might not accept referrals, oh, because it's too high risk, and then so I think I am sort of, um, yeah, probably talking about what we. I'm not really answering your current question.

David Mandel:

No, it's okay, it's. It's all right, it's just it's. You know I wonder about you know again being high risk team nerd. You know I'm just going to keep owning my nerd nerdiness on this podcast. You know what I've seen in other locations. Is it giving a common language? You know where, where it might not have been as much a common language before? Or you know that kind of shared focus on, like you said you'd seen in practice, like reducing mother blaming and and doing more pivoting to the perpetrators of father in the multi-agency team.

Kyra Feetham:

I'm just wondering if you've seen those kind of impacts, you know, in your role as the high-risk team coordinator? Absolutely so. I think one of the things we still see is, you know, before a case is referred into the high-risk team, obviously we might have a few agencies involved, we might have child safety involved, we might have, you know, other services and decisions might have already been made prior to it coming to the high risk team, and I really love that my team in particular can really critically reflect on those decisions and why. Maybe a system has made a choice which maybe we assess as wrong, depending on the circumstances, and then being like, okay, so this has happened. This is where we're at now. How can we keep these children safe with the non-offending parent? How can we um make sure that we're doing a bit of repair work with mum because, um, you know, this has happened over here and now, um, potentially, the kids have been taken um by child safety, child protection.

Kyra Feetham:

So one of the things that I have noticed again is that value alignment and having the right people in the right role at the right time. Yeah, the language as well, like you said, david, being able to even just understand when we say you know, how are we holding dad or the perpetrator, the person using violence? How are we holding them accountable? Um, and one of the really great things that I see in the high risk team is um, particularly community corrections is a great example when we're able to have conversations with dad, so with or with the person using violence around. What kind of father do you want to be? How you know, how are you impacting the life of your son, your daughter, your child? What do you want your kids to say about you in five years? Like having those meaningful conversations again. It's just so valuable and I don't think practitioners in services can really understand the value of that and I see that a lot.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Well, what I'm hearing from you, and what we hear a lot from a lot of other practitioners, is that the model gave you a framework to be able to look at prior decisions that were already in that case file and look at them with a critical eye, considering that that family was still struggling in the system correct, and gave you the ability to get the information again, to not just accept that everything that was in that case file was exactly the way that that person's reality was, but that you, as a practitioner, now have the tools to go and talk to that family in a different way and get information that was vital to the safety and wellbeing of that child.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

And that is so much about the language and the tools, the tools of being able to have the confidence to say I recognize this pattern of intervention and there's critical gaps here that we need to fill in information. And having that skill is a really great high-level skill for people who are working with cases that have multiple interventions and lots of information in them already, which sometimes are the most dangerous and critical cases for kids. So that's what I'm hearing. I don't know if that's what you were reflecting towards us, but that is an amazing thing to have. So I'm really, I'm really happy that that's the way you're experiencing it.

David Mandel:

So I just have a few more questions, kyra, you know that may help our listener connect to you and the amazing work you've been doing. If you were going to give one message to other people who want to be champions in their system, to kind of create this sticky quote, unquote, change you know, change that really is embedded, which is what we're going for.

David Mandel:

We talk about domestic violence proficient. It's a system that really structurally embraces safe and together. If you had one message for somebody who wanted who's listening to goes I want to do what Kyra has done. What would it? Where would you tell them to start?

Kyra Feetham:

Yeah, great. I think one of the key things is relationship building, and maybe not necessarily inside your own organization. I think it's really important to understand the community that you're in, to understand other services that have maybe come before you, and really connect in with those people, those services, to really understand what they have done, what's worked for them, and then those relationships that you build. Um, that's what you can really sort of, um you can really leverage and bring that into your own organization as well.

David Mandel:

Um that's yeah, I think that's been really key for me is just understanding, um the system that you're in in your local community right and if I going to ask you one last question, based on all this work that you've done, all this experience, whether it's the high-risk team, whether it's being a Safer Together trainer, whether it's helping your colleagues embed Safer Together in day-to-day practice we have a lot of survivors who listen to this show. What's one thing you want to take away them to take away from you know your learnings about being a systems change champion yeah thank you.

Kyra Feetham:

I, first of all, I I see you, I hear you, I believe I think I would love other victim survivors to know that there are some really good-hearted, passionate people working in the sector to support them, even if they're not looking for that support at the moment in their journey. If they're not looking for that, just knowing that that is available, knowing that services are, you know, able to collaborate and work together to improve, you know, safety, to improve accountability.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

But, yeah, I think it's just about understanding that there are people out there that, yeah, that can support, and I'm going to go back to the very beginning, where we started, because I'm really energized by this conversation. I want to say, kyra, thank you. And the reason is that giving people the tools that they need to do their jobs in a way that keeps kids safe and together with their protective parent and their community and their families and their cultures is so important to all of us. And you picked up that tool and you looked around for the people who resonated with it. Right, you went out in the community, you made those relationships and that is really the fire in the system is really understanding who those values aligned people are, and you'll find them.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

Who those values align people are, and you'll find them. You'll find them. They will be relieved by hearing your language, because they don't really want to practice the way they're practicing right now. It doesn't feel good to them. They want to help people and what feels so much better is having the tools and the agreement we're all going to help people and then doing it in a way that actually does so. I'm very, very grateful for everything you've done and for your work and sharing it with us. It really I hope it energizes our listeners. I hope all the intake form change nerds and the high risk team nerds are very, very, you know, supported by this conversation and thank you so much for being on. We really appreciate it.

David Mandel:

Thank you so much, kyra, and you've been listening to Partner with Survivor and I'm still David Mandel.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel :

I'm still Ruth Ramundo Mandel, yeah.

David Mandel:

And if you want to learn more about the Safety Other Institute, go safetyotherinstitutecom. If you want to take an e-course like right now on demand, like right this. Second, if you've got an itch to take a safety other course, you can do our core. You do a lot of different modules, uh, working with men as parents at academysafetyotherinstitutecom. We hope you go follow us on social media like this show.

David Mandel:

You know, tell a friend, subscribe all those buttons there on social media there for you to use and, uh, we hope you use them to promote this show and we'll, uh, we'll, be hearing you again soon in the future, we're out we're out no-transcript.