Glen Poole from Helping Men will be taking part in a debate on Young Male Suicide this evening (Thursday 17th January 2013) on ITN Truthloader at 7pm

Men in Brighton & Hove are killing themselves at a rate of one man every 10 days.

The recession is being blamed for the rise in suicides which increased by 5% in 2008-2010, compared with 2005-2009.

In the same period there was a 41% drop in suicides by women down to just 23 between 2008 and 2010

Men in Brighton & Hove are now 3.2 times more likely to kills themselves than women in the city.

The Argus reports the story as follows:

Money worries and unemployment caused by the outbreak of the recession are being blamed for an increase in the number of men taking their own lives according to a report in the Brighton Argus.

A study has revealed that the number of male suicides in Sussex increased during the beginning of the recession, while the number of female suicides dropped significantly.

The report by the University of Liverpool showed that there were 2% fewer male suicides between 2008 and 2010 in West Sussex – including Mid Sussex.

Some 123 cases were reported of men committing suicide. Female suicides decreased by 34% over the same period, with 42 deaths.

There were 74 male suicides in Brighton and Hove between 2008 and 2010 – a rise of 5% compared to the period 2005 to 2007.

For the same period there was a 41% drop in suicides by women down to just 23 between 2008 and 2010.

A similar pattern was seen in East Sussex where there was a 9% increase in male suicides but a 30% reduction in female suicides.

In 2008 to 2010 there were 109 male suicides and 38 female suicides in East Sussex compared to 99 male suicides and 56 female suicides in 2005 to 2007.

To read more about male suicide see the following posts:

• Five Ways To Stop Male Suicide 
• Killer Facts About Male Suicide 

The Second National for Conference for Men and Boys has been reviewed by journalist Ally Fogg in a Guardian ‘comment is free’ article for International Men’s Day, in which he sings the praises of the emerging men and boys’ sector in the UK.

He writes” “The men’s sector, as represented that day, includes many brilliant organisations. In isolation they have done great things. But in coming together as a sector, for International Men’s Day or for a conference, we may be seeing the seeds of a new unity, a recognition that the problems they face are often the same one.

“Although it was billed as an event for the men and boys “sector”, conference organiser Glen Poole used his own plenary session to spell out his dream of a global men’s movement.

“The vision laid out by Poole was very different. Like the day itself, it focused on specific social injustices that specifically or disproportionately affect men and boys, mostly well-recognised and uncontroversial. All he did was join the dots.

“Are we seeing the seeds of a new men’s movement? The phrase seems grandiose, but the word “sector” is not enough. To begin to address and reverse these problems will need not only the intervention of specialist services, but the engagement of the media, politics and the public at large. The first step in solving any problem is to identify and acknowledge its existence, and International Men’s Day is a very good place to start.”

The article is followed by hundreds of readers comments both supporting and challenging International Men’s Day and the value of a men’s movement. The comments include this one from a reader called JDBurton:

“Hurray! No, in fact HALLELUJAH! The fact that IMD has inspired the Guardian to print an actually thoughtful article that suggests this, rather than the usual stereotyping dross it usually publishes about men shows that it’s already had an effect. This has made me happy.”

Click here now to read the full article.

Happy International Men’s Day to you!  Monday 19th November 2012 is International Men’s Day (IMD) so why not join us in celebrating men and boys in the UK today?

IMD is now celebrated in more than 60 countries worldwide and this year’s celebrations are the biggest the UK has ever seen with events being held all over the country; surveys and reports being published; new websites and campaigns being lauched and funds being raised for various causes supporting men and boys in different ways.

Once again The Men’s Network has been leading on co-ordinating the day in the UK. Here’s just a selection of what’s happening on International Men’s Day in the UK this year (click on the links to find out more today):

• The International Men’s Day UK team has published a survey revealing the Top Ten Men’s Issues in the UK
• Brad Pitt, Chris Moyles, Stephen Fry, Paul McCartney and other celebrites are back an International Men’s Day fundraiser in Scotland
• Other IMD fundraisers have included a spiritual fast, a Tash Dash fun run and IMD UK promoting Ten Top Men’s Charities to donate to
• Men Matters in Northern Ireland have published a report on Fatherhood
• The NHS in Scotland have launched a lifesaving health screening programme
• Men Beyond 50 have launched a new website
• A new Men’s Issues campaign and website has been launched in Leeds
• There are International Men’s Day evenst in Birmingham, Manchester, Derby, Preston, Brighton and London
• The IMD London co-ordinator Shane Ryan was interviewed on the BBC
• Articles have appeared in The Green Parent, One Space, Talk Of The Town and The Rights Of Man
• Our neighbours in the Isle Of Man are celebrating the day for the first time
• The Second National Conference for Men and Boys was held in Brighton in the run up to International Men’s Day

If you take time to spread the word about International Men’s Day in the UK today let us know how you mark the day by contacting glen@themensnetwork.org.uk.

And whatever you do today have a Happy International Men’s Day!

BY GLEN POOLE, STRATEGIC DIRECTOR, THE MEN’S NETWORK

Men are notoriously bad at getting help, taking care of our health and when it comes to talking – well we just don’t talk.

Hands up who’s heard these types of statements – maybe even said them yourselves?

And how many times have you heard someone say that “the helping professions are hopeless at helping men and boys get help”?  Probably never or hardly ever!

Well that’s the focus of a new course I’ll be running later this month and the purpose of this post is to give you a flavour of the course and share with you our Top Five Tips For Helping Men Get Help.

And if you want to come on the. course this time or are interested in taking this course in the future then there are further details for you at the end of this post.

Of course it isn’t true that everyone working in the helping professions is hopeless at helping men get help – just as it isn’t true that ALL men are notoriously bad at getting help.

But rather than focus on what men do or don’t do, the Helping Men Get Help course helps professionals working with men and boys to learn some tried and tested techniques to help more men get help and access your services and projects.

Everything you will learn on the course is drawn from one of three sources:

• National and international research on the barriers men and boys face when accessing services
• Real life examples of best practice many of which were showcased at the recent National Conference for Men and Boys
• Direct personal experience of successfully helping more men access help and support

The course is designed for service providers in areas such as health promotion, parenting, education, social care, mental health, support groups, community safety and housing. The course is for anyone concerned with helping men and boys get better access to and outcomes from their existing services, or anyone interested in developing new services and projects for men and boys.

The skills you learn will help you make your case to funders and commissioners, help you create effective marketing campaigns and help you design and deliver your services in a way that will help more men to access the help and support you provide.

Obviously the only way to get the full value of this course is to come  along and do the course, but we thought we’d share our Top Five Tips for Helping Men Get Help to get you thinking about how you can make some changes to the way you approach working with men and boys.

TIP ONE: Champion equality for men

Men and boys are a distinct group with specific needs who face a number of inequalities in terms of their access to and outcomes from a broad range of public services.

The Government tells us it is  “committed to equal treatment and equality of opportunity for all and to addressing existing inequalities for men….wherever they are found”. The Government also says “it is equally committed to taking action to address the needs of men and boys where the evidence shows inequalities exist”

There are many examples where men and boys are unequal because they are in the majority – eg we are the majority of crime victims, rough sleepers, premature adult deaths, suicides, underperforming pupils, children excluded from school, parents separated from our children etc.

We can also experience inequality when we are in the minority, eg when we are victims of domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse or have an eating disorder. Being in minority means services are not tailored to our needs and we considerably less likely to access those services as a result.

If you want to become more effective at helping more men get help the first step is to acknowledge the inequalities that men and boys face and become a champion for their equality.

TIP TWO: Meet men where they are

If you want to deliver services that are more effective at helping men get help then it’s really important to meet men where they are not where you want them to be or think they should be.

At a basic level this can mean meeting men where they are physically. Some of the most successful services don’t wait for men to show up, they find out where the men they want to help are and go and meet them there  – in pubs, workplaces, football grounds, even in some instances knocking on their doors.

It can also mean meeting men where they already are practically. Men are more likely to be in work, more likely to work full time and overtime and more likely to work away from their home town. Some of the most successful men’s services work because they operate in the evenings or weekends when men are more likely to be available.

Finally, it can mean meeting men where they are psychologically using language, settings and set-ups that are familiar and comfortable to men and boys, rather than expecting them to fit themselves into services that use language, settings and set-ups that are already working well for most women, but may never be appropriate for the majority of men you want to help.

TIP THREE: Call a spade a spade

This is the easiest and often quickest way to get more men into your service and it’s so obvious it’s astounding that the vast majority of services don’t do this.

Make sure you are telling men that men are welcome to access your service. If you advertise a parenting service to ‘parents and carers’ or a health service to ‘people over 40’ you can guarantee that lots of women will turn up but very few men.

If you take the simple step of advertising a parenting service for dads or a health service for ‘men over 40’, the only thing that will stop more men turning up at your service is the quality of your advertising (in it’s broadest sense including PR, word-of-mouth etc).

If more men turn up for a while and then stop coming, then you need to look beyond your advertising to the services you are providing to find our why they don’t work as well for men.

TIP FOUR: Be proudly pro-male

If you were gay, black, disabled or Chinese can you image turning up to a service where the staff are unwelcoming to, negative towards, suspicious of, or harbour low opinions about gay people, black people, disabled people or Chinese people? How likely would you be to access that service?

Ask yourselves honestly maybe rating yourselves on a scale of 1 – 10:

• Are you and all of your colleagues welcoming to men?
• Are you and all of your colleagues positive about men?
• Do you and all of your colleagues trust men?
• Do you and all of your colleagues have a high opinion of men?
• Do you and you colleagues have different personal opinions about men and women?

If I asked you and all your colleagues to complete the following sentences what would you say?

“All women deserve my help and support because………..”

“All men deserve my help and support because…….”

Are you proudly pro-male and proudly pro-female? Or is the way that you and your colleagues think about men and women in general different and does that different what of thinking promote men’s equality or add to their inequality?

TIP FIVE: Change the gender discourse

The Big Lottery’s INVISIBLE MEN report published in the summer explored the barriers that exist which prevent men from engaging with projects and services as a beneficiary.

It found that: “one of the biggest barriers in engaging men into social projects is this overall resistance to engage with gender as an issue from a male perspective. Despite evidence that tells us that that male engagement is an issue, we do not rethink our approach. This needs to be tackled so that engagement can happen effectively.”

We have a simple trick for helping you to rethink your approach. You may consider that the ways services tend to view men and women is through a gender filter where women HAVE problems and men ARE problems – and this is reflected in the types of services we offer men and the point at which men access services.

Whilst there are more men and boys who are victims of violence than there are men and boys who are perpetrators of violence, there are more services for male perpetrators of violence (men who ARE problems) than there are services for male victims of violence (men who HAVE problems).

If we mostly provide services for men who ARE problems then it is little wonder that men who HAVE problems are not coming forward to access our services.

Try looking at the problems your service wants to address through new eyes, through a gender filter where women HAVE problems and men HAVE problems too. And then begin to look at the problems men HAVE as an opportunity to work with men, to help them overcome their challenges so they can flourish and thrive and grow and realize their greatest potential.

In this way you can start to play your part in changing the gender discourse to help us all become more effective at addressing the inequalities that women experience and the inequalities that men experience.

FINALLY, if you want to become more skilled at Helping Men Get Help then the new course Helping Men Get Help takes place in Brighton on Wednesday 28th November.

The course is run through of training partner Leading The Change and costs £150 per delegate and the good news is we have a special Friends of The Men’s Network offer for you to access this course for just £50.

You can click here now to buy your discounted ticket today and to find out more about the course click on this link now.

The team behind International Men’s Day in the UK is running a snap survey to help identify what people working with men and boys think are the most important men’s issues. It only takes 2 minutes to complete the survey and you can do this now by following this link.

Issues under consideration include:

• Giving boys a better education
• Equal rights for dads
• Improving men’s health and life expectancy
• Beating male cancer and tackling men’s cancer inequalities
• Tackling male unemployment
• Stopping male suicide
• Ending violence against men and boys
• Ending unnecessary male circumcision
• Tackling male disposability
• Tackling negative portrayals of men in the media

If issues that are important to you are not included in the online questionnaire do please email glen@themensnetwork.org.uk so your concerns can be included in the final analysis.

And to take part and complete this survey now please follow this link.

As the charity that is only able to host the UK’s National Conference For Men and Boys in the UK thanks the huge generosity of volunteers organize the event; the speakers and facilitators who give their time for free an the delegates who travel from all over the country (many at their own expense; we were both delighted (and a bit jealous) to hear that the German government is hosting a men’s conference!

It would be ungracious not to mention that our own city council in Brighton & Hove has helped  us by part-funding this year’s national conference and who knows how soon it will be before the UK Government takes after its colleagues in Germany and funds a national conference for men and boys in the future.

The key in Germany seems – in part at least –  to be the forthright support of Kristina Schröder, the country’s 32 year old Family Minister  who has publicly challenged German feminists in her book “Danke, emanzipiert sind wir selber!” or “We’re emancipated on our own, thank you very much.” In it she writes: “Never were women in Germany as free as they are today, but in the ideological trenches of the 1970s sit all manner of dogmatists who publicly pass judgment on the results of this freedom.” One chapter is called: “The world has changed — the feminist worldview has not.”

In an open letter published in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in the spring of 2011. “We have become so used the monopolistic claims of women’s rights activists on issues relating to gender equality that the idea of including boys and men to a greater degree in the debate has, in the best case, been ignored and in the worst case been branded as a betrayal of the goals pursued by the women’s rights movement.”

As Family Minister Schröder’s has pledged to focus more attention on issues affecting men and boys and started by establishing a German Boys’ Day last spring.

Against this backdrop  Schröder opened a two-day conference today focusing on issues specific to men as society strives to achieve gender equality. Called “Men’s Policies: Contributions to a Gender Equitable Society,” the gathering is the first such high-level conference ever held on men’s issues in the German-speaking world.

From the perspective of The Men’s Network, our approach has always been to make the case for tackling the inequalities that men face in addition to – rather than in opposition to tackling the inequalities that women face and it’s interesting to see the approach taken in different countries to working on behalf of men and boys.

According to a report on the German men’s conference at Spiegel Online, some of the key men’s issues identified include support for fathers, boy’s educational underachievement and men’s short life expectancy.

We’re glad to say that – even though not Government funded – the UK’s Second National Conference for Men and Boys addresses a much broader range of men’s issues including male suicide, the isolation of older; men as victims of violence; mentoring and rites of passage;  working with gay, bisexual and transgender men an much, much more.

What’s also interesting about this development in Germany is learning about some of the men’s groups and campaigners working across Europe. According to Spiegel Online there’s:

• The Austrian Labor Ministry which has created a ministry devoted specifically to the subject. In 2004, the ministry held the first ever European fatherhood conference.
• There’s Thomas Gesterkamp, the author of several books on men’s issues, including “The New Fathers between Child and Career.
• There’s Markus Theunert, president of maenner.ch, an organization that unites all men’s and father’s groups in Switzerland
• Andreas Goosses, spokesman of Forum Männer, a Germany-wide group which focuses on men’s issues

As we build our global links through International Men’s Day and other activities, we look forward to learning more about how different nations are approaching the challenging issues of working for men and boys.

Thanks to Tony Stott of Healing Men for bringing this to our attention via Michael Buchanan.

Some of the UK’s leading men’s groups and rites of passage practitioners are coming together next month to create an experiential day of workshops, sharing and connecting for men who want to explore their inner worlds.

If you want to be part of this read our post Are You Coming To The Big Man Gathering to find out what’s happening and how to book your ticket online and come along.

The very act of making the gathering happen has been a great privilege and adventure as it has enabled some great men and men’s groups to start to work together for the first time and create something bigger than ourselves.

And it has started to open up new relationships and connections with other men and men’s groups around the UK which reflects our intention that this event should be the beginning of something bigger than any of us can imagine.

And the bigger idea is that there are men and communities of men all over the country (and world) who are on a path of self discovery and growth and we imagine it would be amazing to connect us all and discover what we can learn from each others journeys.

At the heart of this idea is not to find the ‘right’ way or ‘best’ way for men to grow and develop but simply to be able to spend time with other men who are on their way, whatever way that is – and by doing that not only can we deepen and enrich our own personal journeys but also help others on their journeys too – whether they are just taking their first tentative steps whether their seasoned travellers on the road of self discovery.

The men who have been involved this year have come from a range of different groups including The Men’s Network, abandofbrothers, Journeyman UK, The ManKind Project, MensCraft and the Brahma Kumaris men’s group and Men Beyond 50.

And there are other groups and individuals we have begun to connect with too who we hope will become more involved in future gatherings such as Men As Learners and Elders and Noble Man, the team behind the International Symposium for Men 2013 and men working with the Three Principles.

If you want to come and take part in this first Big Man Gathering or want to connect to this evolving conversation do please feel free to drop me a line on glen@themensnetwork.org.uk

To book your place at the Big Man Gathering get more details on the Gathering here.

Some of the UK’s leading voices on men’s rights and men’s equality are gathering in Brighton & Hove on the eve of the Second National Conference for Men and Boys – and you can join them.

You may want to come along to this event on Thursday 1^st November if you’re concerned about issues like

• Equal rights for dads
• Support for male victims of domestic violence
• Equal pension rights for men
• Tackling misandry and sexism against men
• Tackling negative stereotypes of men
• Protecting men against false allegations
• Improving boys education
• Tackling fatherlessness

The event is a great opportunity for like-minded people to get together to network and debate and contribute to an open discussion on the theme Putting Men’s Issues On The Political Agenda.

Speakers on the evening will include:

James Williams, an online radio presenter who champions men’s issues through his regular Men’s Matters programme on Express FM.

John Mays of Parity, the UK’s longest-running men’s equality campaign who have successfully fought the British Government over the issue of pensioner inequality that denied  men aged 60 – 65 hundreds of millions of pounds in state support that was given to women of the same age through prescription charges, winter fuel payments, bus travel concession an widower’s benefits. There current areas of focus include domestic violence, the education of boys and the unequal funding of men and women’s projects by the public sector.

Matt O Connor, founder of the headline grabbing Fathers 4 Justice campaign who is working on a new project to launch a political party called ‘Tomorrow’ that he says will advance cogent economic and social arguments that support the role of fathers in families and society, free from the institutional prejudices of the past.

David Smith of the charities NORM UK and Genital Autonomy campaigns for boys to have equal protection against medically unnecessary genital cutting and mutilation. David connects with other campaigns like Men Do Complain and the campaign to End Unnecessary Male Circumcision to work towards giving boys and girls equal protection in law.

Swayne O Pie author of Why Britain Hates Men who says he worked enthusiastically for ‘Equality Feminism’ in the 1970s and still passionately believes in the principles of equal rights, equal opportunities, equal respect, equal treatment and equal choices for women and is now a fierce critic of ‘modern feminism’.

Also present will be representatives from UK charities running social projects that seek to address some of the issues highlighted by men’s rights campaigner such as male victims of domestic violence, the high rate of male suicide and fathers denied contact with their children.

They will include Mark Brooks of The ManKind Initiative, Glen Poole of The Men’s Network and Simon Howes of CALM UK amongst others.

To book your ticket now and come and take part in this unique event see this link: Conference Fringe Event – Men’s Rights Networking Event and Discussion.

The event takes place on Thursday 1st November from 7pm to 9pm at The Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton & Hove, BN1 1YD and tickets are £5 in advance and £10 on the door.