Now 12,000 Petitioners Strong, we're sharing one of the elements of our complaint we're making to the Vic Ombudsman, regarding the lack of the Vic government's progress on the Royal Commission recommendation "to provide an integrated model of advocacy and support and counselling to children and adults who experienced childhood sexual abuse in institutional contexts."
To-date, the Vic government in response to this recommendation, has continued to fund dedicated services, "19 agencies across the state to provide trauma-informed, specialist sexual abuse counselling and advocacy."
We know ~65% of Australians experiencing mental illness do not seek the help of professional mental health services, and this is considerably higher for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse seeking help with childhood trauma, due to the myriad of barriers to disclosure. We also know that male survivors experience high levels of disadvantage due to illness, which translate to vulnerabilities associated with unemployment, disabilities, homelessness and financial disadvantage.
It therefore makes no sense to concentrate funding in specialist service centres, that male survivors are unlikely to directly access Especially when there's other social, justice and health services they are already receiving. And these services should be funded to have the capability to be a safe place for disclosure, and therefore referral, to trauma informed specialist services.
"Among survivors participating in private sessions for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 57% said they did not disclose about the abuse until they were an adult. Further, survivors took, on average, 23.9 years to disclose the abuse, with men taking longer to disclose than women (25.7 years for men and 20.6 years for women). Some survivors (10%), most of them male, reported that they were disclosing for the first time to the Royal Commission (Royal Commission, 2017).
As with disclosure, access to support services following experiences of child sexual abuse is frequently delayed or does not occur at all. Research with adults in England and Wales who self-identified as victims and survivors of child sexual abuse found that most (73%) victims and survivors had not accessed support services. Recent research reviewing studies relating to disclosure of child sexual abuse has shown that barriers to disclosure continue to outweigh facilitators.
A study of the perceptions of therapists specialising in treatment of men with histories of child sexual abuse showed that barriers to men’s disclosure of child sexual abuse fell into three categories:
intrapersonal experience (difficult feelings such as fear, shame, embarrassment, guilt and self-blame; and
lack of language to articulate the abuse and their feelings, and/or lack of self-engagement), social milieu (internalised social stigma including myths, misinformation and stereotypes; negative responses to previous disclosures; fear of social loss or judgement; and masculine identity dissonance) and
the health care environment (structural barriers limiting successful therapeutic disclosure; relational challenges with therapists; and unhelpful therapeutic strategies)."
https://bravehearts.org.au/what-we-do/research/child-sexual-abuse-facts-stats/disclosure-of-child-sexual-abuse/
"Men who have been sexually abused in childhood are twice as likely to be out of work due to sickness and disability, a major ESRI study reveals. It is the first research into the economic impact of abuse on the lives of adult survivors and confirms the knock-on effects for household income are "real and substantial".
The results showed:
* 17pc of men who were abused were not working as a result of being sick or permanently disabled. This compared to 8pc for those who were not abused.
For men, the results suggest that survivors are three times more likely to be sick and disabled compared to other men, even when accounting for the impact of psychological difficulties. The findings on household incomes showed they were 34pc lower for men who were abused in childhood. They were also twice as likely to be living alone compared to other men who were not abused.
"Our analysis was based on people aged 50 and over and the abuse occurred before they were aged 18," they said.
"Hence, it has been at least 32 years since the abuse was experienced. This suggests that the impacts of childhood abuse are complex and multifaceted."
To every one of our fellow 12,000 Petitioners, thank you. Together we will create change for all Victorian survivors of childhood sexual abuse.