By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Family violence is an issue that’s tackled head-on at Hallam Senior College.
Students in a VCAL personal development skills class themselves chose the cause – a scourge within Casey, the South East and across the country.
In 2017-18 there were more than 4000 family violence situations reported to police in Casey.
That every-day prevalence is thought to be grossly under-reported, by a scale of two or three – perhaps more.
Students took action, staging a 24-hour walkathon fundraiser for their teacher Dave Nugent’s men’s behaviour change program Heavy METAL.
They then successfully pitched for a $5000 grant from then-Prevention of Family Violence Minister Natalie Hutchins.
This bankrolled a community Q&A and screening of Call Me Dad, the powerful doco on Heavy METAL participants’ journey of change.
At the Q&A on 7 November, Mr Nugent spoke of the challenges of tackling teenage boys’ “all wrong” attitudes towards females.
There’s the impact of internet porn, gaming and norms that encourage an “aggressive, abusive and belittling” attitude, he said.
“Us men have a role to play in this.
“We don’t realise how much power we have in our hand to step up and say it’s not OK.”
It is a slow course of change with courses at Heavy METAL lasting 40 weeks. Other similar courses of 10-12 weeks were simply not long enough, Mr Nugent said.
Cecilia Lopez of Foundation House said unsafe homes had severe impacts on children’s self-esteem, relationships and education.
There were extra challenges getting the message out to refugees traumatised by torture, she said.
The hurdles included language barriers and customs governing male-female relations.
“Men say (that in their homelands) men are the leaders but here the women are the leaders.
“The cultural block they have is huge.”
Heavy METAL co-facilitator Jacqui Seamark told the forum that contrary to assumptions, just 5-10 per cent of their clients were physically violent.
“Most of it is emotional violence. It’s harder to detect and understand.
“It’s about realising that yelling at your kids, yelling at your partners, controlling the finances, where your (partners) are not treated as equals has an impact.”
Co-panellist and Cranbourne CISS executive officer Leanne Petrides made special mention of the students’ foresight and commitment.
“The young people have brought (the issue) to us tonight.
“Sometimes we forget what young people can teach us.”
