Training Overview
Domestic violence frequently co-occurs with substance use and mental health challenges, creating complex family dynamics that are often misunderstood by the systems responsible for safety, treatment, and accountability. When these issues intersect—particularly in families involved with the child welfare system—they can obscure patterns of coercive control, complicate safety planning, and result in responses that unintentionally increase risk for both survivors and children.
This training examines how domestic violence, chemical dependency, mental health illness, and child welfare involvement interact within individuals, families, and service systems. Participants will explore how trauma affects both adult and child functioning; how substance use, and mental health diagnoses may be misinterpreted as the primary cause of abuse; and how survivor coping strategies, including substance use, are often viewed through a deficit-based or punitive lens. The session also addresses the ways coercive control directly impacts parenting, child safety, and family stability, as well as how system silos and conflicting mandates can undermine effective intervention and family-centered outcomes.
Using a trauma-informed, victim-centered, and child-focused framework, this training encourages critical analysis, challenges common assumptions, and promotes coordinated responses that enhance safety, stability, and accountability. Participants will leave with practical strategies to strengthen professional judgment, improve cross-system collaboration, and support more effective decision-making in complex cases.
Learning Objectives
1. Explain how domestic violence, mental health challenges, substance use, and child welfare involvement intersect and influence risk, parenting capacity, and system responses.
2. Distinguish the impacts of trauma, chemical dependency, and mental health conditions from patterns of coercive control, particularly in the context of child safety and family functioning.
3. Apply trauma-informed, multidisciplinary, and child-focused strategies to improve assessment, referrals, and cross-system collaboration to enhance safety and long-term outcomes.
Register through the Minnesota Judicial Branch