About the Men's Advice Line

Background

Devon MALE started in March 2003 as a pilot project with an initial twelve month funding stream from Devon County Council.

The project started with very modest objectives:

• To offer a range of support, information & counseling services to men who are experiencing or have experienced domestic violence and abuse from intimate partners
• To provide a telephone advice line for a minimum of 28 hours per week
• To provide face to face outreach work
• To liase with other relevant service providers from the statutory and voluntary sectors

The projects aims have been:

• To safeguard and support men who are experiencing domestic violence and abuse at the hands of an intimate partner, regardless of age, ethnicity or sexuality
• To raise awareness about male victimisation
• To develop a county-wide resource
• To conduct on-going research both in terms of existing provision and prevalence/severity/context of abuse
• To contribute to the understanding of male victims of domestic violence and abuse, both locally(Devon) and nationally

What do we know?

Men do experience physical and emotional abuse, may be financially controlled and have their children used as part of the abuse against them. We also know that when children are caught up in the cycle of abuse they experience harm.

Men who experience abuse from female partners can feel angry, ashamed, depressed, humiliated, helpless, isolated and in some cases, fear.

Some men may find themselves homeless, experience mental ill-health, drop out of work or lose their job, or have reduced contact with their children.

We also know from research that gay, bi & trans men experience domestic violence and abuse at similar levels to heterosexual women ie 1 in 4 within their lifetime.

Men experiencing domestic violence and abuse often want legal advice, emotional support and/or counseling, parenting support and information and help and guidance in finding and securing alternative accommodation. Many also feel overwhelmed with the whole Family Court system and many of those who have already have a solicitor often simply want information as to how the 'system' works and what will happen in a court case- particularly around the issue of contact and residence of children.

It is hard for any man or woman to leave a violent and abusive partner for multiple reasons, both practical and emotional. Issues such as work, children, finances, humiliation, shame and fear. Some 20% of all reports to Devon & Cornwall Constabulary are from men reporting as victims and this number is similar with men reporting to the Metropolitan Police. What data does not show is how many incidents men experience before they report. More work is required to why and when men seek help and also what was the response by the police. Currently the response is not as uniform and consistent as it perhaps should be.

There are a wide range of statutory and voluntary organizations across the country which men can access for limited help and support - Police, Social Services inc Vulnerable Adults & mental Health teams, Housing departments, G.P. 's, Victim Support, Shelter, CAB's, solicitors, Samaritans as well as more specialized services such as Sure Start, alcohol and drugs projects etc. What is lacking is a wide network of specialist services that exist specifically for men that are staffed by trained workers.

MAL also receives many calls from professionals who want information, advice and assistance in their approach to supporting or working with individual male victims. Consequently Scottish Women's Aid, the National Domestic Violence Helpline, Victim Support, Terence Higgins Trust, GMFA, various hospitals, NHS Direct, Portsmouth Naval Welfare Support Services, numerous Police Domestic Violence Units across the country, Refuge, Relate, Citizen's Advice Bureaux, psychiatrists and community mental health teams and others now have details of the project on record and pass on our details to their individual service users where appropriate.

MAL has always been based in the belief that it is essential that in this work, the approach within the context of domestic violence must be based on pro-feminist and male positive principles. Men are trained to be masculine in a way that confuses self-worth(NOT self-esteem), intimacy and power with domination and emotional repression. Isolation and violence is the result of social conditioning rather than an inherent part of male nature. Similarly, closely linked to issues of violence and power are the issues of homophobia and racism. Men often resort to violence and domination to try and control underlying feelings of fear, isolation and powerlessness. Men are both perpetrators and victims of violence and abuse. Similarly, they are both privileged and damaged by traditional masculinity and sexism. Rather, men should be pro-active in dismantling sexism and building alliances with the feminist movement and other men to challenge all forms of oppression and dehumanization.

Many men fail to realize that the only reason that we have an awareness of domestic violence at all is due to the struggle of women to bring an end to men's violence towards women. Part of our role is to educate and raise awareness not only about male victims but also the gendered nature of violence against women and to play an active part in bringing about social change where equality is a reality and not simply some form of nebulous concept. The experience of the last three years would seem to indicate that there is a huge lack of understanding about the needs of men today and specifically when looking at their emotional needs coupled within a pro-feminist and male positive framework.

This is true of most professionals as well as most individual male callers. Without a pro-feminist and male positive approach progress will be limited as the old myths and stereotypes will simply be reiterated and perpetuated. The range of issues that callers have brought would appear to contradict the commonly held assertion that men simply won't talk about their feelings and emotions. For most men, like the whole of society, domestic violence is generally understood to be something that is done by men to women and in the majority of cases it is.

As a consequence the added belief of men is that existing domestic abuse services are only be available to women. Thus, for men experiencing domestic abuse, be they straight or from the GBT communities, their personal experience or perception does not equate to the general view and dynamics of domestic violence. Many men, prior to calling MAL have been unable to make sense of their situation, or experiences or find others that have had similar experiences. Not having a framework leads to feeling alone in the experience, fear of imagining it and blaming oneself. Without an 'external model' (like a 'reality check') to gauge their experiences by, the effect is to simply increase the feeling of isolation of victims and increases the power of the abuser.