Survivors West Yorkshire: Support for Male Victims of Sexual Violence

Picture posed by model | Survivors West Yorkshire

placeholder image — Picture posed by model | Survivors West Yorkshire

How Survivors West Yorkshire is helping to support men aged 16+ who have been affected by sexual violence, as well as female rape victims.

Survivors West Yorkshire is raising the profile of those affected by sexual harm and empowering victims to get the help they need to improve their lives.

SWY founder and CEO Rob Balfour, who is himself a survivor of early childhood sexual exploitation and sexual violence in the care system of the Seventies, wants to take away taboos of male victims and support them to seek help.

With World Mental Health Day in October and the independent inquiry into grooming gangs underway, the service is providing a platform which shows: ‘You are not broken, you have an injury, and that can be healed.’

Rob has commissioned and co-authored academic research looking at the service needs of sexual violence victim-survivors. This means he has the personal experience and empathy to help, but also the professional qualifications.

He has particular interest in research which shows men are often perceived as either perpetrators of sexual violence, or allies to women, but not victims themselves, and that deep-rooted belief can make it hard for men to seek help.

Men aged 18+ can self-refer to the service, or be signposted via NHS professionals, family members or friends. By raising awareness SWY hopes to free men to be able to talk.

We are striving to help people and in their communities using technology – offering counselling and advice, we support survivors to help themselves.

Rob

SWY wants to continue to raise the profile of support available to empower victims of sexual harm.

Their West Yorkshire public awareness campaign, which focused on its Ben’s Place free counselling service across TV, radio, buses and billboards, made it arguably the largest-ever multi-channel UK advertising campaign to raise service support awareness for male victims of sexual violence. The campaign coincided with the 20th anniversary of the service’s first public awareness campaign.

They lobbied West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin to commission a scoping report and independent Expert Advisory Panel to co-design a framework with partners to address the safety needs of men and boys in the region.

SWY strategic work in Leeds ( pan West Yorkshire) includes collaboration with projects like The Visible Project and its mission to make Leeds a CSA survivor-responsive city, plus working with Victorious Voices to bring survivor-led creative projects to Leeds https://placesnowhere.com.

Victorious Voices is developing a project which highlights survivors in a creative photography portrait project, which challenges the shame, silence and stereotypes that continue to shape how childhood sexual abuse is understood.

Meanwhile, a new campaign by two mothers of survivors is lobbying the Government to mark the issue with a nationally recognised day.

Rob adds: “SWY believes that survivors are not limited by their sexual violence experiences, and they just need safe and specialist-informed services to explore their individual possibilities of recovery and growth.”

Find out more

To find out more about SWY, or if you’re a male survivor of sexual harm and want to know more about the help they can offer, visit www.survivorswestyorkshire.org.uk .