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>View discussions about this entry Country: United States
Organization: Battered Husbands Support
Focus of activity - Community Involvement
Year the initiative began - 1998
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
Description of Initiative - What is the main focus (products, services, etc.) of your initiative and how does it contribute to ending or preventing domestic violence? What principal aspect of domestic violence are you addressing? What activities does it involve for your organization? Who are your primary beneficiaries and target groups? Battered Husbands Support provides direct peer support to men who are victims and/or survivors of battering by their female partners. We help men move from being victims of domestic violence to survivors, by peer support and guiding them to the few resources that are available to men.
Innovation - Demonstrate how your approach differs from other programs in the field? Which specific components of your initiative are particularly effective, novel, or unique (e.g., the products and services, the technology used, the delivery, or financing mechanism)? Battered Husbands Support was the first internet support group for battered men, and remains the only one that will accept any man who can access email and communicate in written English. Every other group either requires a higher level of technical resources (such as web access) or is more narrowly focused (such as providing a religiously-biased form of support). Our group is the only one which is accessible to anyone who can read English email, regardless of where, how, or what their personal religious or political views are.
Delivery Model - How does your initiative reach its target populations? What communications mechanism(s) do you have in place? How do you measure their impact? Our name ensures that we will appear in any search for online resources for battered men. Since we are an email-based support group, our members communicate constantly through the group, providing each other with a continuous flow of ideas and feedback. Our impact is measured by the men who have told us that our existence has made it possible for them to escape from abusive situations or even to escape death or serious injury at the hands of their female abusers.
Key Operational Partnerships - What key partnerships have you established to make your model possible or more efficient? Who are your partners (business, social, government, other) and what are their roles? How central are these partnerships for your initiative. When Battered Husbands Support was founded, there were no other groups to partner with. Since then, we have had representatives of Shattered Men and Stop Abuse For Everyone join the group as active members, but their role is the same as every other member - peer support.
Financial Model - Which mechanisms do you have in place to ensure that your beneficiaries can afford your products or services? Do you have financial schemes or arrangements for low-income and marginalized populations? Our program is entirely at no cost to any member. All of our members voluntarily assist each other, without any fee of any kind.
Effectiveness - What has been the concrete impact of your project to date? How many people have benefited from your program in total? What policies, communities, or institutions have been influenced to make fundamental changes because of your work? At least 648 people have directly benefited from Battered Husband Support, with at least as many indirectly, due to the children whose fathers have been helped by our support. Unfortunately, the cultural attitudes regarding domestic violence are still too anti-male for our support to have changed any policies, but because we exist, more men have been enabled to speak out about their experiences and give a voice to the destruction of their lives.
Scaling up Strategy - What is your priority for the next 3 years and please describe why. Our first goal is to organize as a nonprofit corporation, so that we can organize more effectively, rather than relying on ad-hoc actions to bring about the support activities our members need.
Origin of the Initiative - Tell the personal story that will help people connect to your work. How did the initiative start? Was there a particular individual or event driving the idea? Tell the reader the story behind the innovation. In spring of 1998, I had finally come to recognize (with the help of several friends, all of whom told me that if I had treated her the way she treated me, I would be in jail) that my wife's treatment of me was abusive, and fled over 2,000 miles to get away from her. Once I had managed to get away from her, and was helped by a friend into getting a room where I could stay because there were (and still are) no shelters available for battered men in the city I fled to, I sought help from the local domestic violence agencies, only to be repeatedly steered toward programs for abusers, because they not only had no programs for abused men, but directly told me that there was no such thing as an abused man - only abusers trying to conceal their guilt. I realized then that I couldn't be the only man in my position, and so created Battered Husbands Support.
Main Obstacles to Scaling Up - List the two (2) main obstacles to scale up your innovation (policy, legal, organizational, people, financial, etc.)? The two main obstacles to scaling up my program are:
Organizational: converting from an ad-hoc peer support group to a non-profit corporation that could expand into other areas, in addition to our central peer support focus, and People: bringing together people who are able to devote more time and energy to the operation of the organization than we have to this point, so that it can expand its reach and effectiveness. Main Partnership Challenges - What are your major challenges with partnerships? (E.g., identification of partners, implementation of partnerships, relationship management, etc.) Our primary partnership challenge is that there are so few potential partners available, and we already have association with most of them, so we will have to work on managing our relationships with those partners so that we can support them while still focusing on our own central purpose.
Contact Information:
William Hartwell
Founder Battered Husbands Support (Support Group) Discussions about this entry |
Battered Husbands Support
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I know I am a battered husband, but I don;t know were to start. My wife is half Korean and half American, from the Korean War. Put in an orpanage, sexually abused, verbly battered. We were married in 95 ,at our wedding she got smashed and battered her adopedparents,my children from another marriage and me.We had to leave the wedding, force her into a van.We got to hotel had to force her to the room. We had to force her to stay in the room. She kept saying she was going to sleep with the Mexicans. Next day me and my kids went to take her adopedparents to eat, and to apologizes to them , they flew out at 5-30 am .They disown her for over a year and a half. The next day i went a AAA meeting it was on Forgiveness so i forgave.P.s. We both met in aa. I stayed sober she did not. I will leave this for now . This is the start of my night mare ,there is 14 years of verbal abuse Bubbalou
As a Victim/Child Advocate, I endorse this support group, as an ethical, and morally based support for those in need, ESPECIALLY those that do not normally have a voice in society. I have seen and been involved with this advocacy for many years now, and know that they are making a huge impact with not only male victims of domestic violence, but also all that are lead to seek help in many, many situations.
Tami Pepperman
tamikay23@hotmail.com
I have been involved with Battered Husband Support for several years. Although I am involved with Shattered Men, I do not see us as competing. I see BHS and SM as being complimentary to each other. There are some that have come to Shattered Men for help but do not like the approach we have so we do refer them to BHS. Others have gone to BHS and have needed a bit more of a faith based outlook which we are able to do. In short, we are both working together to help those who are victims of abuse to move from being a victim to being a survivor. It is an honor to work with Bill and although I would love to see both Battered Husband Support and Shattered Men win, it would also be an honor for me to see BHS win.
Pastor Kenneth Deemer
Director Shattered Men
P.O. BOX 166
MARION INDIANA 46952-0166
shatteredmen@earthlink.net
JUNE is Domestic Violence Against Men Awareness Month
Web site: http://www.shatterdmen.com
Interactive Group: http://health.gro
I agree fully with Ken. Shattered Men provides a complementary program, based on the Christian Faith, which is highly effective for many.
In fact, if groups other than Shattered Men provided similar programs for those whose Faith is other than Christian, it would enhance our ability to help battered men, as we could refer those whose Faith is a central part of their lives to groups that would both support their Faith and their ability to survive and recover from domestic violence.
Ideally, the ultimate outcome of a process like this would be a network of complementary groups that would support each other as we support our members.