Domestic Violence - A Systemic Therapy Approach to Risk, Responsibility and Collaboration

The systemic safety methodology has emotional, physical and relational safety as the highest priority. It works within a working triangle of the connections between the risks of further violent behaviour, helping people to take responsibility, and collaborative practice. The work is never without risk – we know what we know and we know what we don’t know, but we don’t know what we don’t know. We will consider the management of risk in the context of possible further violence.

The work is based on Arlene’s collaboration with Jan Cooper a social worker and systemic therapist and the “Reading Safer Families”, an effective independent family violence intervention service. An integration of trauma, attachment, narrative, and feminist theories with systemic theory and practice, it develops safety plans to help people stop the violence, and then explore the potential for repair, safe contact and safe separation as needed. Most of the family members Arlene and colleagues work with are living with the intergenerational legacies of violence and chronic fear and danger.