Monday, October 4, 2010

A Lonely, But Truly Necessary, Journey Toward Men's Emotional Wellness

A couple of weeks ago, I was involved in a landscaping project at my Unitarian Universalist church. While we were working together, I got into a conversation with a female congregant about 'what we did for a career'. For my part, I noted that I had been working on a nonprofit devoted to men's emotional wellness for the past 7 years, but that it was, frustratingly, an unfunded organization. She replied "why don't you work on women's and children's issues; there's funding for those issues."

Which, of course, struck me as a rather odd suggestion. I mean, I know she meant well enough and I consider myself to be a devoted 'equality feminist' who supports those issues. But, given that the focus of my nonprofit is on men -- and I personally have been involved in the men's movement since the early 1980's -- why would I want to completely change my focus to working on the issues of women and children?

Indeed, she was quite correct that the present funding, to the extent that funding is available (less so in this long-term recession), is for issues relating to women and children. To the extent that there is any funding for issues related to males, there are some Department of Justice grants for working with male sexual abuse perpetrators. The trouble is that the primary model for working with that male population is to shame the men into changing their behavior, which is a profoundly counter-productive methodology. After all, very often the very reason for criminal sexual molestation is that the males were, themselves, swimming in a sea of shame in their childhoods [from their own incest experiences]. Shaming them into changing their behavior simply reinforces the primary problem.

What gets left out of the 'mix', in either of these funding streams, are the 95% of males who don't 'act out' criminal sexual behavior. Men in whose lives there are often problems that are in need of intervention, but for whom no services are available, such as the 1 out of 7 boys who are sexually abused as children, or about 20 - 25 million males in the United States [and several hundred million more worldwide].

Back in the mid-1990's, I was the Success by Six Coordinator at the New Mexico Advocates for Children and Families in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In trying to ascertain the best way to expend a limited resource base, I talked with the United Way about the need for some GIS mapping to determine the necessary community-wide needs and which of those were being served by too many agencies and which were not being served by any community organization. It was clear -- due to the grant-driven nature of many government and nonprofit agencies -- that some needs were overemphasized and others were completely neglected. I'm not sure whether United Way ever implemented my suggestion, but what I can say, unequivocally, is that at that time and ever since, it doesn't require GIS mapping to determine that there is little funding, anywhere, from any government, foundation, or corporate funding source, for men's emotional health issues.

Which, of course, is quite paradoxical. As I noted several weeks ago, even though we live in a patriarchal society, there are very few funding dollars for mental health intervention programs for men. My own theory is that this is true because the men in control of the funding refuse to admit that men have problems -- which is glaringly incorrect, but denial is hardly a rare phenomenon.

This gets me back to my original point about the need for my own nonprofit. Most founders of nonprofit social service organizations are motivated by either their own painful experiences or those of people they love, and their belief in the need to provide services for that issue. Personally, I have focused Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute on men's emotional wellness with an emphasis on adult male sexual abuse survivors both because I'm a survivor of incest and profound physical abuse, and because it's clear to me that that population is profoundly neglected by the social service delivery system.

When I was setting it up in the early part of this decade, there were many people 'cheering me on'. Some 'brothers' were willing to brainstorm ideas, contribute starter funds, and point me in good programatic directions, and I continue to have a very supportive Board to assist me. But beyond that, as one of my professors at the University of Missouri-St. Louis Nonprofit Management and Leadership Program noted, "it's your passion and energy that are going to be needed to promote the issue," and it is those qualities that are going to be needed, in a long-term sustained way, to ever generate funding for the nonprofit. I knew from the very beginning that this would be a fairly lonely journey, that while there are other practitioners in the men's wellness field, those of us who are working on these issues are rare.

Which is why 'reaching out', via LinkedIn and other social media sites, has been so very helpful. Just knowing that there are other people in the country (and internationally) who are working on these issues -- and connecting with them professionally -- has reinvigorated my sometimes flagging energy.

My fellow congregant's suggestion got me to thinking about what it's like when one is working on a 'cutting-edge social frontier' issue. I'm sure, quite sure really, that when feminists, in the 1960's, first approached foundations and government agencies for funding for women's issues, they were told to work on something else, because there wasn't funding available for that. What it took was slowly educating other females, and then their male colleagues, and finally the 'public at-large' about the need for a change in social ideas about women. And, indeed, as we all know from the history of the last 40 years, while it took some time for funding for issues focused on women and children to 'take hold', it finally happened -- maybe not sufficient funding to tackle all the needed issues, but far greater than when it was first broached in the 60's.

And that is what is needed for men's emotional wellness. Slowly educating other males, then our female colleagues, and challenging and finally changing cultural assumptions, perceptions, and expectations about problems that men face in their lives. I truly believe that those attitudes can -- and, with consistent effort, will -- change eventually, and that we can, over time, motivate foundations, corporations, and government agencies to generate grant funding.

If I didn't have that deeply held belief, I couldn't continue this work. It's too lonely and the funding is presently far too little to continue it without the fervent belief that it will eventually come to fruition. There are simply too many males who need the intervention services to have any desire to ignore that reality or turn away from the necessary work in this field.

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