Safe & Together Model in Australian Child Protection — Perpetrator-Pattern-Based Practice (Thin Outcome Evidence)

The Safe & Together Model, developed in the United States, trains child protection and family violence workers to focus on the perpetrator's pattern of coercive control, its effect on children, and the non-offending parent's protective efforts. In Australia it has been implemented in several states and is being piloted in the ACT.
Evidence: the ANROWS evaluation of the PATRICIA project (Queensland, 2017) found a significant contribution to a more ethical and appropriate approach to child protection cases involving domestic and family violence; it relied mainly on document review and stakeholder interviews. STACY for Children (Queensland, NSW, Victoria) found practitioners reported greater recognition of perpetrator patterns and of impacts on children, and interviewed families reported more positive experiences with trained workers. A 2018 case-reading tool measured how well domestic violence was identified and documented in files.
Caveats: a systematic review of interagency models (publications 2018–2022) found that most evidence on this model came from one Australian research team and that none of the included studies reported outcomes for children and families. The ACT pilot's evaluation results were not found. Published developer briefings are advocacy, not independent evaluation.

Read the full analysis: https://safeandtogetherinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AU_SOCIAL-WORK-JOURNAL_CASE-READING_2018.pdf