Back in the old days Aboriginal men would gather round the campfire to discuss problems, bringing the entire community together.
An approach harking back to this old treatment of “men’s business” could fill a gap in the struggle against domestic violence that is endemic in indigenous communities in the Kempsey area and across Australia.
A pilot project is being launched in the next three months through the ATSIC-funded Many Rivers Violence Prevention Unit to temporarily remove men from their troubled families and sit them around a campfire to discuss their problems. These “group healing sessions” aim to make the men accept responsibility for their actions, seek the approval of their peers and the respected people in the community, and to say sorry.
“We are taking them out of town, getting them into information sessions over a weekend, teaching them anger management, life skills, communication, dealing with any issues they have,” said the project co-ordinator, Mr Drew Roberts.
The men’s program, which is in its infancy and has yet to be formally named, aims to be offered as an alternative sentencing option or bail condition, requiring participants to attend a two-day program followed up by two hours a week group therapy.
It also aims to make men feel comfortable enough to approach the services that are on offer, to ask questions about family law and seek help through the legal system services now largely accessed only by the women.
“Sentencing people to imprisonment hasn’t really worked and even then they aren’t necessarily taking responsibility for what they’ve done,” said violence prevention unit case worker Ms Annette McPhillips.
Mr Roberts said established programs aimed to empower women most often the victims of the domestic violence but nothing had been done to help the men, the perpetrators, to address the issues that had ignited their rage. Domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse were all indicators that something deeper was wrong with the menfolk in this community, he said.
“There’s no use empowering just one in the relationship. The women are empowered they are the ones with the education, they have more of a chance of employment, they are the head of the household when the men are in jail, and the men feel bad about it so they are doing all these things.”
Steven, a former alcoholic who bashed his wife for many years before being rehabilitated through the Many Rivers unit, also believes the key to addressing the problem of domestic violence lies in helping the men.
“We are the dominant ones but we have to learn to survive,” he said. “The men are the strength not in a violent way, not in a moral way; it just has to be a man that has to stand up and tell our kids when they are doing wrong and praise our kids when they are doing right.
“We have to get back the admiration of our children because we are losing it bad.
“The men need to be fixed. Thrust them forward a little bit that’s all they need and they can fix it themselves.”
The response to the idea has been encouraging. The unit thought it would start with 25 men, but has been approached by 100 wanting to take part including those who have not been through the legal system.
“The younger men thought they had been forgotten and nobody cared about their situation,” Ms McPhillips said.
“And I couldn’t believe how many had been through the system and hadn’t been offered any other options, no follow up, they’d just served their time.”
The Many Rivers violence prevention unit is one of 12 projects run by ATSIC to tackle indigenous domestic violence, and the co-ordinators of the men’s project hope that, if it proves successful, it will be extended to the other 11 centres around Australia.