Every year in October, domestic violence receives the star treatment: his own month of perception.
However, come on November 1, we will return to our regularly planned programming, and this specific program will again be a side issue. Important, always – but not seen as something else that goes beyond a problem that can only be managed, not resolved.
If we move our perspective to management to prevention, we can see how we can change the conditions that can lead to domestic violence throughout the year. It is that thinking process that led us to make the helpline, a call for change.
The helpline is about responding to people who want to change, but our work is about teaching skills to interrupt and combat this behavior throughout the year. We want to share our skills to teach others how to promote compassionate accountability in their communities.
Everyone who works on the helpline, loving, mutual responsibility. “Everyone” includes men. Involving was a powerful factor in the decision to collaborate with the California-Founded Organization Alliance for Boys and Men of Color. All sexes must get up to end this. If you pop up more men and say: “I don’t like these habits that I see and want to change”, or: “This is something that I see my friends doing, and it has to stop, and I want to be better to be part of their change,” is a doorway into rapid transformation of the community.
Public accountability addresses volumes and encourages more people to call in and listen to what the helpline can offer.
Usually, interventions focus on resistant people who are not ready to change, but are forced into programs against their will. The helpline works with those who are willing to take that next step. This enables us to cultivate a space for someone to change if he wants.
Moreover, the fact that callers are anonymous, enables them to step outside their public identity and to be fairer and more vulnerable about what they do with the feelings they don’t like. Many callers say that they have never told anyone the whole truth about what they have done.
We measure the success by only being to be told, to be to be told, to be left, accepting feedback and considering a change in perspective. With a call for change, we keep a mirror in the lives of people, so they can see what they have become for themselves. This step is what leads to the most radical change – but it does not happen from one day to the next.
When it comes to accountability and domestic violence, we simply think of conviction, safety planning and responding – but we can do more. We can collaborate with individuals to achieve change, making them a positive example that shows others how it is possible to stop this violent behavior, to become reliable and ultimately become a really healthy partner and member of the community.
Jac Patati is the founder of “A Call for Change”, which is a partnership of the Healing Together Campaign of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color. /Insideesources
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