The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry is appealing for information from survivors who reported the abuse they suffered while in faith-based care and sought redress either directly from the Church or other Faith-based Institution or by filing civil proceedings in Court or the Human Rights Review Tribunal.
Published in Scoop
New South Wales has one of the largest incidences of youth homelessness in Australia, and one of the leading causes is domestic and family violence. For Alex* home life reached a point of no return during the pandemic. But knocking on the door of youth homelessness services has led to finding a place where he can be himself — without needing to wear a mask.
Published in SBS News
Male survivors of sexual trauma have been working with rescued horses to help them develop trust and to manage post-traumatic stress.
Ken Clearwater of Male Survivors Aotearoa introduced the concept to the group. Many of the men have never been around horses.
Published in TVNZ
In 2020 an invisible assassin has swept across the world, creating chaos, confusion and uncertainty. Covid 19 has taken many people’s health, some people’s lives and the lives of loved ones. It has destroyed livelihoods and put the financial futures of billions at risk. We are helpless, there is nothing to fight back with. We are trapped, we have to stay in our homes. We are physically isolated, our usual freedoms and way of life suspended…
By Louise Byrne & Til Wykes
23 May 2020
Isolated, lacking support and not able to see his children Ryan* didn’t know where to turn.
Suicidal thoughts had started to creep in with isolation compounding the issue.
Family members encouraged him to reach out for help and gave him the number of a free counselling service provided by Male Support Services Waikato during lockdown.
Published in Sun Live
One in four people experience sexual assault in their lifetime, but 94 percent of those assaults are not reported to the police, the largest survey of crime in New Zealand shows.
Published in Radio NZ
Earlier this year Erin Delaney revealed on Facebook a secret she’d kept from almost everyone.
As a child she suffered physical and emotional abuse and severe neglect. The neglect had significant consequences, including a fractured skull from falling – which was only picked up when, after she vomited at school the next day, a member of her extended family intervened and took her to hospital.
Published in The Guardian
The Catholic Church is facing hundreds of civil claims by victims of clerical sex abuse, bolstered by the royal commission’s findings about Cardinal George Pell’s role in the “catastrophic failure of leadership” in the Ballarat diocese.
The royal commission’s finding that Cardinal Pell knew nearly 40 years ago of the church’s practice of shifting notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale to different parishes to avoid scandal is likely to bolster the cases of abuse survivors who must demonstrate a breach of duty of care to successfully sue the church.
Published in Sydney Morning Herald
In 2015, 60 Minutes presented damning new evidence against Pell. He has always argued his intervention on behalf of child abuse victims was innovative, independent and compassionate. But now, secret documents reveal it as a cynical smokescreen designed to protect the Catholic Church at all costs.
By 60 Minutes
25 Feb 2020
This is the portrait of a deceitful man. We have waited over two and a half years but now we can read the unflinching verdict reached by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Cardinal George Pell.
With its last findings made public, it’s clear that no senior figure in any church who gave evidence to the commission has emerged as damaged as Pell.
Published in The Guardian
For more than 1,400 days, they waited.
Little kids but now grown up, the childhoods they’d left behind stained by trauma. They waited to discover what a Prince of the Church knew.
From those four days in 2016 when George Pell gave evidence from Rome via video link because his Vatican doctor declared him unable to fly to Australia; through the rest of the royal commission; through his trials, his appeals, and through a final month of delay.
Published in ABC News
If you’re a manager or workplace leader you can have a direct impact on the welfare and wellbeing of your employees.
The latest resource from the Mental Health Foundation will help workplace leaders to create work environments where people feel safe, calm, connected and hopeful throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Download Workplace Guide (PDF)
By Mental Health Foundation
Published in Mental Health Foundation website
19 March 2020
Shery Mead’s keynote address at the Experts by Experience Conference 2011.
April 2020
Mike Holloway’s team in the Waikato (Male Support Services) congratulated by the Mayor for “providing an extremely valuable service, for which our city is very, very grateful.”
1 May 2020
Most people have heard about “honour abuse” of women but men can be hidden victims too. Coming from conservative religious communities, they can find themselves having to hide anything from sexual abuse to domestic violence to their being gay, because to speak out could dishonour their families. Newsnight’s Katie Razzall has been speaking to men trapped in this predicament. If you need support with forced marriage or honour violence, help and support is available bbc.co.uk/actionline
By BBC Newsnight
11 April 2020
Leaving covid behind should not mean leaving the homeless out in the cold again, advocates say.
Director and founder of the Male Room Philip Chapman said while the lockdown response had been excellent, he worried the support would dry up after the crisis passed.
Published in Stuff