We are starting our 7th season and asking the question: "What if love wasn’t the soft side of this work, but the method that makes healing possible?"

We chat again with Nneka MacGregor—co-founder and executive director of WomenatthecentrE, survivor, advocate, and visionary—to explore how love, joy, gratitude, and community connection can transform responses to gender-based violence. Instead of centering punishment that rarely repairs harm or teaches nurturing protective behavior, we examine a path where boundaries are love, accountability restores dignity, and systems are redesigned to reduce violence at its roots.

Nneka shares the personal story of surviving an attempted femicide and the vow that shaped her leadership: to live with gratitude, choose joy, and build a world where women and children are safer. From there, we dig into transformative justice—what it is, how it works, and why carceral reflexes often disconnect people from community, dull empathy, and compound and reproduce harm. You’ll hear a clear case for accountability that tells the truth, makes repair, and supports real change without throwing people away.

Nneka also introduce three bold frameworks that flip misogyny and misogynoir on their heads: amourgyny (love of women, girls, trans, and gender-diverse people), amourgynoir (centering love for Black women, girls, and gender-diverse folks), and amourgenous (centering love for Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people). These ideas are already influencing policy in Canada, offering a practical language for institutions to move beyond retribution into more behaviorally grounded and care-centered design. Along the way, we redefine power as something you hold upright and share—strong, embodied, and unentangled from coercion, control, and violence.

If you’re a practitioner, policymaker, survivor, or ally, this episode offers a grounded blueprint: lead with love, pair it with firm boundaries, build accountability that repairs, and design systems that center those most harmed. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with your take: where should love show up first in your world?

Send us a text

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.

Mist, wind, the volcanic island of São Miguel, and a hard look at the words and jargon that decide families’ futures. We begin in the Azores, Ruth’s ancestral home, where arguments for European westward expansion took shape after Bartolomé de Las Casas reported the finding of two “dead” "Amerindian" bodies—and where mainland-imposed poverty, illiteracy, and family separation set conditions that still shape domestic violence today. From that grounding, we pull apart a label that quietly drives child removals, court outcomes, and professional blind spots: “denial.” Across child protection and domestic violence documentation, the phrase “mother is in denial of the impact of domestic violence” appears with alarming regularity—automatically shifting scrutiny onto women in records that determine custody and liberty, while the person causing harm fades from view. The result is compounded harm at both personal and system levels.

We trace how this term traveled from early psychoanalysis—where women’s reports of sexual and domestic violence were recast as inner conflict or sexual turmoil—into today’s case notes and court filings. Over time, denial and hysteria morphed into failure to protect and parental alienation, redirecting attention from perpetrators’ patterns of violence to mothers’ supposed deficits in “controlling” that violence or responding to it. Instead of centering victims’ reactions to harm, we argue for real behavioral evidence: name who did what, to whom, with what impact, and what has been tried with the person causing harm. This shift is not cosmetic—yet it changes documentation, supervision, and safety planning, and it guards against wrongful liberty removals and harmful system collusion with perpetrators.

You’ll hear practical questions that move practice quickly: What did she do or say that led you to that conclusion? What is your specific safety concern about that behavior? These prompts redirect focus from a survivor’s inner world to the perpetrator’s actions, choices, and behaviors—opening the door to mapping risk to children, cataloging incidents, and designing interventions that actually reduce danger. We also widen the lens to the ecosystem around survivors—family pressure, faith norms, small-island logistics, and economic traps—that make “just leave” dangerous or impossible for many.

We close by contrasting untrained AI use in social service settings—which often parrots victim-blaming narratives—with Safe & Together Model domain-trained tools that reinforce behaviorally specific evidence-gathering and perpetrator-focused practice. The invitation is clear: try a week—or a month—without the word denial. Replace labels with behavioral pattern facts. Partner with

Send us a text

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.

Rain on the windows, a century-old clock in the kitchen, and a plate of bacon by the coffee set: David’s 60th birthday set the scene for a raw, open conversation about vocation, love, and the future of domestic violence–informed systems. We pause to reflect on 40 years of David’s practice and what it means to be truly witnessed. Then we get specific about how to build safer families by changing how professionals see, measure, and respond to harm.

We dig into a strengths-first approach that starts with what’s going right and why that’s not soft—it’s real and nurturing of change. By centering survivors’ experiences and recognizing good practice in workers, we create solid ground for hard conversations about accountability. We talk candidly about the damage caused when systems remove children from safe parents because of a perpetrator’s behavior and how the Safe & Together Model reframes responsibility, documents patterns of coercive control, and reduces unnecessary removals. Along the way, we explore an ethic of care that holds multiple truths: refuse to demonize people, refuse to whitewash harm, and persist in naming impact.

Looking ahead, we outline three big moves. First, scale with integrity: more Safe & Together Model Certified Trainers, Partner Agencies, and outcomes data across child protection and community services. Second, bridge men’s mental health with male violence prevention—a silo-busting agenda that catches risk earlier, supports men in crisis, and protects partners and kids. Third, bring practice into the workflow with SafetyNexus, a model-guided technology that streamlines documentation, builds decision maps, reduces moral injury and burnout, and delivers real-time quality assurance. We also share how “credible experts”—survivors and cultural leaders—are paid, respected, and embedded in design so solutions are ethical, non-extractive, and truly useful.

If you care about domestic violence, child safety, survivor-centered practice, men’s health, or building humane systems that actually work, this conversation will give you tools and hope. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with one insight you’re taking back to your practice.

Send us a text

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.

What happens when men are finally invited to speak from the heart? We sit down with Kenneth Braswell, founder of Fathers Incorporated and author of Too Seasoned To Care, to explore fear as a learned behavior, anger as a secondary emotion, and why safety and healing must stand side by side. From Crown Heights to Sheepshead Bay, we trace how Brooklyn’s beauty and danger taught vigilance, how redlining and racial tension shaped daily life, and how those lessons echo through fatherhood, relationships, and community safety.

Kenneth shares the moment he shifted from powerless boy to accountable man and the simple progression that drives his work: Change how a man feels, then how he thinks, then what he does. We unpack the hard line that keeps families safe—no excuses for coercion or abuse—while still making room for men to tell the truth about abandonment, shame, and the fears that hide beneath control. This is not about shaming men. It’s about giving them an acceptable language for emotions, practical skills for conflict, and the courage to choose connection over domination.

We talk prevention that starts at home: more eye contact, softer touch, and everyday rituals that teach boys their feelings won’t cost them love. We also talk repair for adults: how to own fear without handing it to your partner, how to build trust after harm, and how to raise sons and daughters who know that boundaries are acts of care. Along the way, you’ll hear stickball and Scully, letters to a younger self, and the reminder that men need friendships that honor the grown man and the inner boy.

If you care about safer families, healthier men, and kids who thrive, this conversation offers a clear, compassionate path forward. Listen, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Then hit follow so you never miss an episode.

Send us a text

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.

The house looks perfect from the street—until you step inside and feel the air shift. We sit with survivor, campaigner, and author David Challen to trace the shape of coercive control through a child’s eyes: a mother’s world shrinking, a father’s rules governing every room, and a son trying to earn love by molding himself to a script that never fit. This is not a tidy true-crime arc. It’s the long echo of control on identity, mental health, and the stories boys are told about how to be men.

David unpacks how “small” acts—who can visit, when dinner is served, how money is spent—stack into a total system of power. He names what many miss: economic abuse as a lever, isolation as a tactic, gaslighting as the daily weather. We talk about the man box and the costs of belonging, from silence to self-erasure. We tackle the hard part too: accountability that goes beyond time served. Real repair means naming strategy and impact, especially on children who lived the consequences, and measuring change by consistent, relational behavior over time.

For practitioners, we get specific. Speak to children separately. Document patterns, not just incidents. See acting out, addiction, or stoicism as possible signals of exposure to domestic abuse. For schools, use relationship education to decode media, practice empathy, and give boys language without shame. For survivors—especially adult child survivors—claiming identity and community can turn a private burden into shared understanding and support.

Terms like coercive control, boys’ mental health, domestic abuse, economic abuse, restorative justice, and healthy masculinity thread through this conversation for a reason: They’re the keys to earlier recognition and real change.

If this resonates, share it with someone who needs language for what they’ve lived. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what does real accountability look like to you?

Find David's book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93021229-the-unthinkable

Send us a text

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.

The conversation opens with end-of-the-year reflections and personal milestones—international book releases, masterclasses, collaborations, and community work—and quickly moves to a timely, thorny question: Can we talk honestly about male violence without “shaming” men? We take a stand for courage, honesty, and clarity using global data, real cases, and practical frameworks to show how accountability, truth about behaviors and their impact, and compassion can live side by side. Our goal isn’t to score points; it’s to keep families safer, support children’s well-being, and help men find a way back into healthy connection.

We share insights from research in Australia, including applications of the Safe & Together Model in child and family services and in Aboriginal-led settings. That work underscores a core theme: organize around shared values, not shared trauma. We explain why labels and decontextual tags fail families and why pattern-based, contextual practice—mapping behaviors, impacts, and risk—succeeds. Along the way, we address restorative justice and carceral responses with nuance: Both can help or harm depending on how they’re used, and some people do require firm containment. The standard remains constant—what increases survivor safety, improves children’s stability, and creates the strongest opportunities for behavior change.

We also unpack the “shame” debate with care. Shame is a human emotion; the task is to guide it into inclusive responsibility, not silence the conversation. The facts are clear: Men are disproportionately perpetrators of serious violence, and boys growing up amid coercive control learn dangerous scripts about loss and power. Naming this is not man-bashing—it’s a necessary move toward balance, health, and prevention. We close with a story of loving confrontation that strengthened a father-child bond, offering a model for how accountability can deepen connection rather than destroy it.

If this resonates, subscribe and share the episode with someone who cares about safer families, effective practice, and honest conversations. Leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: what does accountable love look like in your community?

Send us a text

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.

A stadium’s worth of men—every year. That’s the scale of new intimate partner violence use suggested by Ten To Men, Australia’s landmark longitudinal study of male health.

We sit down with Karlee O’Donnell, a researcher with the Australian Institute of Family Studies, to unpack what the data really says about how depression, suicidality, paternal warmth, and social support shape men’s risk—and what actually works to prevent harm.

Across a decade of surveys, one in three men self-reported using some form of intimate partner violence. Yet within those hard numbers are practical levers. Men who strongly felt they received warm, respectful affection from a father or father figure were nearly half as likely to perpetrate IPV later. That’s not about father presence; it’s about the quality of care boys see and absorb. We translate that insight into real-world steps: father-inclusive perinatal care, concrete coaching on warmth and de-escalation, and programs that treat caregiving as core to men’s health.

We also dig into mental health pathways without reducing IPV to mental illness. Men with moderate or severe depressive symptoms were significantly more likely to use IPV later, and men with suicidal thoughts, plans, or attempts carried elevated risk independent of depression. We explore how anger, externalizing behaviors, and coercive control intersect with distress, and why services must protect partners while caring for the suicidal person. Clinicians get a roadmap: use screenings as early-warning signals, educate on escalation, build coping skills, and connect men to support before behavior hardens into harm.

Finally, we highlight the quiet power of social support, which lowered the odds of IPV onset, and we make the case for policy that rebuilds men’s community ties and includes fathers from day one. Healthier men mean safer families and stronger communities. If you care about preventing violence, ending loneliness, and improving men’s mental health, this conversation points to integrated solutions you can act on today.

If this resonated, follow the show, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find it. Have a question or a story to add? Drop us a note and join the conversation.

Send us a text

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.

A woman calls for help after being strangled in her own home. He shows a scratch; she leaves in handcuffs. From that moment, the system that promised safety starts to mirror the control she’s trying to escape. That’s the hard truth we face with researcher and practitioner Lisa Young Larance, whose new book, Broken, gathers the long-view stories of 33 women navigating coercive control, wrongful arrest, child protection, court, and probation.

We unpack how the victim-perpetrator binary distorts reality, how funding and mandates reward incident-based thinking, and why context, intent, and impact must replace “a hit is a hit.” Lisa explains the “web of power” that connects first response to courtrooms and case plans, showing how misidentification robs survivors—especially low-income women of color—of liberty, employment, and custody. We contrast gendered patterns of accountability: women who admit and take responsibility even while surviving abuse and men who deny, deflect, and mobilize institutions against partners.

Amid the failures are bright anchors of repair. A child protection worker who gives the “whole layout” changes a family’s trajectory. A probation officer shifts dates, protects parenting time, and quietly engineers safe relocation when threats escalate. We dig into documentation as a long-lived force—how a single line in a case note can shadow a mother for a decade, and how behaviorally specific, pattern-based records can be a lifeline. We also ask the question systems avoid: Did calling the police make life better over six to 60 months? If not, what will it take to make a “yes” the norm?

Told in first-person conversation with warmth and candor, this episode blends survivor voice, practitioner insight, and practical steps: Center coercive control, measure impact on functioning, build cross-agency flexibility, and write records that reflect reality. If you care about domestic violence, child protection, probation, or community safety, this is a clear-eyed guide to doing less harm and more good.

If this moved you, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—what would you change first?

Send us a text

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.