Cedar co-ordinator Amanda Girvan at the Welcome Bay Community Centre. Photo / Megan Wilson
Cedar co-ordinator Amanda Girvan at the Welcome Bay Community Centre. Photo / Megan Wilson
A new educational programme for perpetrators of family violence has started in Tauranga, providing a “safe space” for people to openly talk about things they might otherwise be too ashamed to.
The organisation, Cedar, has been working with the Welcome Bay Community Centre to facilitate the programme, where men who have been violent towards their families can come together and learn to “make better choices for their families”.
“It’s really about getting to know these men, these men getting to know themselves and where violence started in their lives, because nobody wakes up one day and thinks, ‘I’m going to be violent’,” Cedar co-ordinator Amanda Girvan said.
Cedar is a service that has been primarily designed to run a psychosocial non-violence programme for male perpetrators of family violence. The service is operated by skilled and experienced family violence practitioners.
The programme is determined by the needs of the men involved through an assessment process. Referrals can be made through email or phone/text, either by agencies or by the men themselves.
Girvan said Cedar was founded in July following discussions with family violence specialists.
“One of us had been contacted by the Welcome Bay Community Centre because they had had several men who were using violence on their families referred to them and they just weren’t sure what to do with them.”
Girvan said they identified a “real gap” for men who were not mandated (court-appointed) to do a non-violence programme.
Girvan said it started the programme to help these men and the community centre.
“I’ve never met somebody that uses violence against their family that wants to hurt their family - they just don’t know how to do better.
“And because all of us have family violence backgrounds and we’d been doing programmes for a long time, it was easy to pull out what had worked for us in the past and get rid of the stuff we didn’t think worked.”
Amanda Girvan said she received some “really great feedback” from the pilot programme. Photo / Megan Wilson
The pilot programme took place over 13 weeks from September to December and consisted of one two-hour session per week.
Eight men did the programme, and some were coming back this year to redo it.
Girvan said the next programme would start on March 14. There were about seven or eight men signed up so far, with the ideal group size being about 12.
She said they received some “really great feedback” from the pilot programme, including that the men “really enjoyed having a safe space to be able to talk about stuff they’re usually really quite ashamed of”.
“They have that feeling of camaraderie, I guess, in that they’re not alone in struggling with power and control.”
Girvan said Cedar was in the process of registering as a charity so it could apply for funding for the programme.
“At the moment, we’re relying on the Welcome Bay Community Centre to bring in funding for us, and it can be a little bit tricky.”
Welcome Bay Community Centre manager Sacha Harwood said it received feedback from the community for a service that provided educational support on family violence.
She said the pilot programme was “absolutely fantastic” and she was excited to run it again this year.
At least two-thirds of those who started finished the programme, which was “great to see”, she said.
“We don’t work in the Ministry of Justice space, we don’t work with anyone who’s mandated, it’s purely to provide education, support and intervention to the community in a self-referral way.
“We know that in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty and Welcome Bay, there’s a significant family harm impact, and there’s quite a shift towards trying to reduce the impact on families.
“And a big part of that is providing education and support on how to stop being violent.”
