What is the Truth, Healing and Reconciliation digital storytelling project about?

Men & Co. Services was successful in a collaborative grant, funded by Queensland Government, to engage with survivors of institutional sexual abuse, by collecting and recording experiences to produce a suite of digital stories. The digital storytelling focuses on the individual life stories and narratives of men. The digital stories are an online resource that was created based upon the brief and wishes of the participants.

How will we deliver this grant?

The project partnered with people with lived experience from the local area and produced the stories through a collaborative and informed process. Men and Co. Services had the opportunity to validate and recognise the profound harm caused by institutional abuse, as well as its broader impacts. Through involvement in this project, Men and Co. Services has played a part in reconciling the role that the system played in this abuse. 

Healing of survivors was supported by Men & Co. Services with pathways for support, counselling and assistance offered during the project. The project provided information and/or referral to Living Well, Knowmore Legal Services, Metro South Addiction and Mental Health Service as well as other providers. 

Men have unique and specific barriers to disclosing and sharing their experiences of sexual assault, such as strong feelings of shame and loss of control, as well as limited services available to assist them in sharing their experiences. Men & Co. Services is uniquely placed to be able to assist in sharing lived experiences of male survivors of sexual assault by providing a male only space with an ethos that understands men’s specific barriers. 

Organisations’ response and cultural change to institutional abuse must be guided by the needs, stories and wishes of survivors. This project enables survivors to contribute to that process of cultural change by highlighting the past and their hopes for the future. Through storytelling, survivors can demonstrate that they have many skills, competencies, strengths, values and abilities. Stories are about understanding our lives but also how our stories are rooted in the culture in which we live. Stories can have both positive and negative impacts on the past, present and future.

We hope that these stories serve as a resource to build knowledge and awareness of the issue of institutional child sexual abuse and grooming.