- My name's Marcus,
I'm the National Family
Violence Specialist
for The Salvation Army,
and I specifically hold the portfolio
of working with men who
choose to use family violence.
I've had over a decade
of experience working
in family violence
and work predominantly in rural
and regional areas, including
Inner and Outer Gippsland.
Being a man in this space of social work,
and specifically, family violence,
starts with acknowledgement.
The evidence is overwhelming
that family violence is gendered.
I worked with victims, survivors,
and children predominantly at the start,
and recognised that to make
potentially a larger impact
and to reduce the amount
of flow and effect
on the next partner and their next partner
or their next family that they impact,
working directly with the men
who choose to use violence
I saw as making the largest impact.
I think what's really, really
clear about working with men
who choose to use violence
is that they are people,
so they are fathers, they are brothers,
they are stepparents to other
children of new relationships,
so trying to find a way to
support them as a person
and not to see them for the violence
that they have perpetrated.
What were some of the things
that you think might have
led her to be scared?
In the Men's Behaviour Change program,
our goal is change, in their behavior,
their thought processes,
their principles that have
potentially caused them
to use violence against
women and children.
The female co-facilitator
plays a vital role
as it allows someone to sit in that space
and challenge the unconscious bias.
What it models is that
relationships should be respectful,
appropriate, and for
violence to never be a theme
in their relationships.
There is always peer
review and peer discussions
to talk about difficult
times, difficult phone calls,
but family violence is always a space
where if you communicate
about how you're going
and how you're feeling,
a care will always be provided.
What you'll often find in regional areas
is that the people who work in it
are a part of the community
in which they live in.
In essence, everyone has their
arm around each other trying
to achieve the same goal,
and that is to make a
positive impact on men
who are choosing to use violence,
and in return, we have safer
families and a safer community.
'Cause this is about learning
and actually changing
for the good,
and I think that's a really
important message to have.
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