The First National Australian Migrant and Refugee Women’s Alliance (AMaRWA) Conference with the theme “Eliminating all forms of Violence against culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) women” was held in Canberra from 28-30 April, 2013. The objective was to bring experts together to formulate a national policy framework on violence against women.
One
of the sessions “Men, Criminal Justice and Community Responses” explored the
current work on men’s engagement to address the mitigation of violence against
women.
The
first presentation by Dr. Mel Irenyi, Program Facilitator at the Marngoneet
Correctional Centre, outlined the findings of the Inside Parenting Program to
incarcerated men. Adapted from the Parenting Inside Out program of the Children
of Incarcerated Parents Project, a working group of the Oregon Department of
Corrections in America, the Australian program was a personal development and
parenting skills program for men, in order to break their cycle of violence toward
their children, as well as their partners.
The
12-week Inside Parenting Program provided cognitive behaviour therapy for
participants that focused on family roles, problem solving, effective
communication, emotion regulation, positive norm setting, emotion coaching, and
empathy development strategies (using pregnancy suits and lifelike baby dolls).
Over the past two years, 70 men have completed the program, and the results are
beginning to show its potential as another tool, as an additional strategy, to
combat violence against women.
The
second presentation, by Tom Griffiths, family therapist at the Brotherhood of
St. Laurence in Victoria, was a discussion on their Men’s Behaviour Change
Program. The focus was on the men’s internal struggle to accept responsibility
for their use of violence and presented strategies for engagement. The third
presentation by Dr. Michael Flood, researcher at the University of Wollongong,
also focused on the engagement of men.
Stating
that there were few primary prevention initiatives in Australia directed
specifically at men and boys, both presentations stressed the need for
engagement. The reasons include: (1) men are largely the perpetrators of
violence against women; (2) constructions of masculinity play a crucial role;
and (3) men can have a positive role in helping to stop violence against women.
The principles used for men’s engagement were: (1) pro-feminist; (2) enhancing
boys’ and men’s lives; (3) acknowledging diversities and the spectrum of
prevention strategies; and (4) addressing men’s experiences of changing gender
dynamics at home, at work, in society, and between diverse countries.
www.amarwa.org
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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