The most useful conference debriefs aren’t about highlights, they’re about what shifts in you when you listen closely. From the Sydney coast, we wrap up a three-and-a-half-week Asia-Pacific tour and talk through the moments that changed the temperature in the room at our Coercive Control and Children’s Conference. We start with gratitude, acknowledgement of unceded Aboriginal land, and the reality that building safer systems means showing up with humility, not just expertise.

One of the biggest breakthroughs we share is our commitment to localized training and culturally responsive practice. We premiered a new Australia-based training film designed to teach coercive control as a pattern over time, centered in a perinatal scenario that follows a family before and after a child is born. With Australian actors, filmmakers, consultation from cultural experts, and survivor input, the film is built to help professionals recognize subtle tactics, see cumulative harm, and respond in ways that strengthen child safety and survivor safety rather than repeating harmful system habits.

We also get into the harder conversations that practitioners can’t avoid: men’s health, masculinity, and accountability. We talk about why supporting men and boys can’t come at the cost of women and children, and why we have to operationalize that promise instead of offering lip service. In the Australian context, we connect family violence practice with the impacts of colonization, racism, intergenerational trauma, and family separation, while staying clear that healing requires stopping abusive behavior. Along the way, we reflect on survivor voices, workforce wellbeing, and the need for non-extractive organizational cultures.

Finally, we dig into the practical lever that can change outcomes in family law: pattern-based documentation. We share why judicial leaders describe this kind of documentation as “gold,” and how the Safety Nexus tool supports workers with coaching, mapping, and better notes when stakes are life-or-death. If you care about coercive control, domestic violence response, child protection, and safer systems, this conversation gives you language you can use tomorrow. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review so more practitioners can find the work.

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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 realCheck out David Mandel's new book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence.

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Episode ID: 1000756701248

GUID: Buzzsprout-18890506

Release Date: 23/03/2026, 10:30:00