Last week we brought together participants in our Transform programme to share their work. Duncan Craig, CEO of Survivors Manchester, shared his work on promoting professional, specialised support for male survivors of sexual abuse.
In this guest blog, Duncan tells us why the launch of the Quality Standards for Services Supporting Male Victims/Survivors of Sexual Violence will improve support for men and boys.
On 31 January 2018, an historic event occurred in the House of Lords that many people may not be aware of.
It might not have been significant for some but is for others it was, one person in particular… me! This is the day that I stood in a small meeting room in grandiose Palace of Westminster, in front of an invited audience that included; sexual abuse charity leaders; decision makers and policy leads from across government; representatives from many of the Police and Crime Commissioners and the NHS; and some male survivors of sexual violence; and I told them a story. My story from just over 12 years ago about being sat in Manchester desperately scrabbling around for any kind of support, ethical or unethical, that would help me deal with the disclosure I’d just made – that I was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
I was speaking at the launch of the Male Service Standards. A new set of quality standards for organisations delivering services to male victims and survivors of sexual violence.
Funded through Lloyds Bank Foundation’s Transform programme, these new standards were developed by working with my colleagues Neil and Martyn from Male Survivors Partnership; all those male survivors and service providers that participated in our research; and LimeCulture CIC. They provide all of us working in this area a real chance to ensure that boys and men looking for support after experiencing sexual abuse, can go somewhere that he will understand their trauma and recognise them as male survivor. That younger Duncan would have given anything for that back then.
At present, support for male survivors of sexual abuse is mixed.
There are approximately 100 organisations across the UK delivering amazing services for women yet only around six specifically supporting men. Of course, there are others that support both men and women, but they often do so with varying degrees of equality. If a service is supporting men, then it shouldn’t be as an after-thought.
Don’t our husbands, fathers, sons, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, fiancées, boyfriends, colleagues, or best friends deserve to have a quality service that is designed to meet his needs? A service developed with him in mind?
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that men and women have different needs when it comes to support. Women and girls need women only spaces to explore their issues in a safe and supportive environment. Men and boys need their own safe spaces too. Spaces that give them the freedom to explore their experiences of vulnerability, how that impacts on their own masculinity, and the shame and guilt they carry as male survivors. Those spaces have to be designed with an understanding of the male psychology.
Healing from trauma needs to be facilitated by people that know what they are doing, people with the knowledge and expertise to help.
That doesn’t mean that a brew and a chat isn’t important because it absolutely is, but therapy needs to be trauma informed, otherwise reliving their experience can do more harm than good.
Last week, LimeCulture announced the names of the 10 organisations that they would be moving forward with as part of the Wave 1 accreditation of these new standards . These are organisations that will go through the accreditation process, testing it to make sure it works and paving the way for more services to make sure they are meeting the needs of boys and men effectively. Over 30 organisations applied, which goes to show in some way, just how important this is.
Maybe this time next year I can stand up and talk about how amazing it is that there are now 10 accredited organisations supporting male survivors and a further 10 about to start their accreditation process.
We know this is only the start but hopefully it means one day, the standard of support offered to all male survivors will be the same wherever or whoever they go for help.
Now, how amazing would that be!
Lloyds Bank Foundation Blog 