Relating with Dad: violence prevention through safe family connection- | Berry street

This workshop will explore ways of understanding and partnering directly with young children and their fathers who have used violence to increase child and parent safety and optimise child and family wellbeing.

Dr Mohaupt will present drawing on his research and practice expertise on how family violence can influence parenting and psychological development and how this understanding can inform ways of safely engaging with co-parents to platform children’s healing.

This will include, considering how a psychological understanding of family violence at the micro level can be integrated with an understanding on how destructive masculinity norms at a macro level contribute to men developing and reinforcing violent and dominant relational patterns. Understanding traumatic drivers for these patterns can be an important aspect of change and increasing family safety, especially when fathers are motivated by wishing for a better life for their children. Partnering with children and fathers together can be a potent vehicle for family recovery, when safe. The day will share considerations for how to determine when this form of work is safe to offer. This includes the central importance of how to provide equitable spaces for young children to share their experiences of violence with their caring adults and how to support children to lead the form and pace of their healing journeys.

These concepts and practical considerations will be illustrated through in-depth case examples with opportunities for small group activities and discussion, to support understanding of how interdisciplinary approaches to partnering with children and caregiving adults can support child and adult relational safety and family wellbeing.

Perspectives from local experts will be invited throughout the day to contextualise learnings and applications within an Australian context.

Register here