The movie Boys and Men Healing, which has been screening in various places, and gotten pretty rave reviews from the male survivor community, is now available on DVD. You can order it over on the Big Voice Pictures website.
If you’ve seen the movie, or get the DVD and watch it sometime soon, let us know what you think!
Whilst it’s good to keep track of the new survivor websites opening up for both genders, it’s also important to mark the end of an era where one particular site is concerned. The Foundation of Survivors, backed up and run by the author Joe Peters, reached its 10th Anniversary last Saturday, 24th July, but has had to massively scale down its activities for the moment due to the recession.
As this webmaster has found with the Ning situation at the Community site, the recession is forcing people to think about service delivery in the face of the collapse in donations. The Foundation was partly operated using proceeds from book sales. The fact that his publishers will sit on his new book until the Autumn season is par for the course in the book trade, but unfortunately doesn’t help the Foundation at all. During the hiatus Mr Peters is mulling over different options for the future. In my opinion I’d always advocate balancing out your own health and wellbeing with the zeal for helping other victims and survivors – and a decade of such work is an excellent legacy which we’d hope could form the basis for another book to aid the fundraising.
The announcement details are here.
- CBG
Got an email from the admin about a new site specifically for male victims of childhood sexual abuse, Betrayed Boys. Looks like they are just getting started over there, but if you’re interested, go check it out!
There’s been an ongoing debate about the memory of child sexual abuse and whether it would be better to have forgotten entirely and never have remembered after shutting down the initial trauma, compared to processing the experiences through therapy.
The Guardian newspaper ran a Weekend magazine article today about a survivor whose memories had to be recovered by his siblings following an accident, which provides one viewpoint on the subject. You can read that here.
- CBG
Survivor Island is another resource aimed at male survivors of child abuse with a members-only section to the wider forum. However the initial concentration started with teenagers though the site is open to all ages. Further resources are planned in future. The link is as follows;
http://forum.survivorisland.org/index.php
Meanwhile, back in the UK, AMSOSA, formerly Survivors Swindon continues in the same vein as SI, though it’s essentially members only by default and the UK definition of adult starts from 18 with less of the grey area that arises with American sites. We mentioned it earlier but didn’t link a few articles back, so should you wish to post at the latter forum the password would have to be requested. Follow the instructions on the index page at the following address;
- CBG
From my email today, thought it might be of interest to our UK readers:
Tackling Child Abuse Conference
Prevention, Investigation and Prosecution
Monday 27th September 2010 – Central London
The police and partner agencies are under heightened pressure and scrutiny to effectively crack down on child abuse following a series of damaging high profile cases. Capita’s Tackling Child Abuse Conference is tailored to address the needs of those working in, and with, criminal justice agencies to ensure the safety and protection of all children.
This event takes a holistic view of the pressing issue of child abuse, from prevention to investigation, prosecution and multi agency learning. With input from the key stakeholders including the Association of Chief Police Officers, Police Forces, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, the agenda will cover crucial issues including:
•Joined up working to identify and manage risk
•Engaging local communities to raise awareness and prevent harm
•Detailed guidance on investigating child homicide
•Insight into the forthcoming changes affecting the prosecution of child abuse
•Embedding learning to improve processes and enhance partnerships
This conference provides essential guidance on collaborative working between agencies within and outside the field of criminal justice work to prevent children from experiencing abuse. Safeguarding children is a priority across all agencies in the public sector. Ensure that your organisation is best equipped to meet your duty to protect.
For more information please visit the website: http://www.capitaconferences.co.uk/public-sector-conferences/police-criminal-justice/full-conference/article/tackling-child-abuse-conference.html?code=MKRG
Or contact richard.goddard@capita.co.uk or 44 (0) 20 7960 7719
There are two further good message board-based support sites out there for male survivors of child sexual abuse. Since the first one launched itself only a week ago, we’ll wait for permission to come back to link up to them.
The other one is MenThriving.org ,which was founded, built by and for adult male survivors of sexual abuse over the age of 21. To balance the walled-off nature of the site there is a Facebook section as well which can be viewed without an invite. We could view it without signing in but to become a fan of the page as you can with this portal and see their updates and announcements, you will need to be logged in to your own Facebook account. The location is;
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=168051679862&ref=ts
- CBG
The Rally which we reported on this year is not taking place, however Steve Bevan of AMSOSA made us aware of a different gathering event in Trafalgar Square in London, with the general organisation taking place by means of facebook.
The general note follows; the organiser’s group is open (second link) but for more details of the rally you’ll need to sign in to your Facebook account. We haven’t shortened the links in case you need to copy and paste. The press flyer reads as follows.
“Hello,
We thought your organisation might be interested in attending an event we are organising, it’s a peaceful rally against child abuse being held in Trafalgar Square, London on 7th August 2010.
This is the link to the event on facebook:-
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121663397854205&ref=ts
I have also attached a copy of the flyer/leaflet with more information and if you would like us to send you some hard copies, please don’t hesitate to ask, we will be happy to send them.
Your support would be greatly appreciated!
Kind regards
Against Child Abuse
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118986584797562&ref=ts
I received this email earlier, and thought I would go ahead and post it here. Obviously, being in the US, this isn’t something I can take part in myself, but I thought I would pass it along to any of you in Australia who might be interested!
Hi.
I just want to let all those interested know that a group of people
called FAVAG (Forgotten Australians Victoria Action Group)has been
protesting each week…
Sunday morning 10am – 12pm outside St Patricks Cathedral, Cnr
Gisbourne St & Cathedral place, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
We are protesting against former and current child abuse from the
catholic church.
Crimes committed unto children are the worst crimes.
The catholic church is the richest church, and is the one church who
refuses to prove that they are sorry for their sins unto children, and
pay for their crimes, as other churches are beginning to.
They must be also brought to the table!
I believe if we are truly concerned about child abuse, then we should
do all we can to stop it happening at all!
While people, especially the churches and government get away with it
and allow crimes like abuse to happen to children, it will continue to
grow! 
The churches and the government are huge powerful influences in this
country, and they should not be permitted to set bad examples to the
people of this land.
We must show them that this is not acceptable.
We hope that maybe members of your group will be able to join us,
or in the very least forwarding this information to anyone who may be
interested in attending, we would be so grateful!
After the next month or so, protests may be likely to change venue,
for more information pleas go to the FAVAG website:
http://forgottenaustralians.com/
Thankyou for your time.
yours respectfully
Sherrin Caird
The NY Times has published another interesting article, this time about the level of detail people tend to reveal or conceal when either blogging or social networking, and how this level may differ among the generations. The long comment role is also insightful.
Read the article here.
- CBG
