A big thanks to Mark Brooks at The ManKind Initiative who has taken time to provide us with a review of last month’s ‘Men Are Victims Too’ conference.

On Wednesday in Taunton, The ManKind Initiative, as part of the burgeoning Men and Boys sector, produced its inaugural national conference on male victims of domestic abuse entitled “Men are victims too.”

The charity put the conference on because it was about time the subject was seriously looked and focussed upon rather than being tagged onto the end of general domestic abuse conferences. Male victims of domestic abuse should be a mainstream subject and not a ‘oh we better put something a session on about male victims’. Domestic abuse is not a gendered issue, it is an issue that affects all genders.

The main reason my fellow trustees and I decided to put the conference on was to help raise awareness of the issue, to help give those on the frontline the tools to help men that come forward and also to ensure that male victims are not forgotten. Being a proper charity, we ensured the costs were kept to a minimum to encourage people to come aboard.

Over 80 delegates attended from the four corners of the UK including Scotland and Northern Ireland and also from the Republic of Ireland. Importantly delegates were mainly those working on the frontline from social workers to probation officers to members of housing teams – the people who really do matter as they provide the support male victims need.