Engaging Men and Children as Allies in Ending Gender-based Violence

Minh Ha

Hi, welcome to Patchwork, the podcast from the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington. I’m Minh Ha from OVW and today we're joined by Kellie Greene. Kellie is a program specialist here at OVW. Thanks for joining us. Before we get started, tell me about how you find yourself here in OVW. What did you do before coming here?

Kellie Greene

Prior to coming to OVW, I worked at the Peace Corps. I was the first ever victim advocate and the director for their Office of Victim Advocacy, which I stood up. And then I also was responsible for creating their sexual assault risk reduction and response program that responded to the Peace Corps volunteers that were victims of sexual assault and other violent crimes in the 74+ countries that the Peace Corps serves. And prior to going to the Peace Corps, I had a nonprofit down in Florida called Speaking Out About Rape SOAR for short. And through SOAR, we provided different programing for survivors of sexual assault, but mostly focused on really educating the community about the healing that takes place after sexual assault.

Minh Ha

And how long have you been here at OVW?

Kellie Greene

I have been at OVW for five years.

Minh Ha

And now you manage the Children and Youth and Engaging Men program, right? Tell me about the grant program.

Kellie Greene

So the Children and Youth and Engaging Men Grant Program is focused on providing opportunities to address the prevention, intervention, treatment and response for children and youth that have been impacted by the VAWA crimes. And then it also works with engaging men and boys as allies in ending violence against women and girls.

Minh Ha

So what sorts of activities does your program funding allow for?

Kellie Greene:

A whole host of activities! That's what's so exciting about this grant program. Some of the activities they include teaching children and youth about healthy relationships, bystander intervention, helps schools with developing policies and protocols in responding to dating violence and sexual assault in middle and high schools. Also addresses the direct victim services for children that are exposed to violence in their homes or to children and youth that have been victims of dating, violence, sexual assault or stalking. And then one of the biggest parts of this program and the activities is the… really the innovation that comes along in engaging with the with the youth developing youth groups that can help inform the development of policies, of campaigns, of outreach to other youth in the community. It's just really exciting to see what the grantees do and the input from the children and youth that they work with.

Minh Ha

As we think about the work that our office does, tell me how engaging men and our male youth is important to getting to the end goal of ending violence against women.

Kellie Greene

I'm so glad you asked that because engaging with men and boys is so important to really ending violence against women. Research shows that a majority of the offenders of violent crimes against women and girls are perpetrated by males, and so by being able to bring in the men and the boys into this work, it's so important to make them feel a part of it as opposed to always coming at them as you're the problem so they can actually be a part of the solution.

The other part of it is that when young children, especially, you know, boys and girls, when they are exposed to violence in their homes, if it's left unaddressed, it can lead to behavioral problems and health issues that will follow them throughout the spectrum of their lifetime. So it's important to address these issues as quickly as we can.

The other great part about the engaging men piece of this work is teaching about the healthy relationships which starts out at a young age as having healthy relationships, which then as you grow up, you become romantically involved and knowing how to have a healthy friendship will help you in having a healthy romantic relationship.

Another part of this program that I think is really important is the fact that by engaging with children and youth and teaching about those healthy relationships, the bystander intervention, the healthy conflict resolution, we are empowering our future leaders. We're working with a generation that is going to be our future congressmen and women, our future teachers, the future CEOs of businesses across the country. They’re our future decision makers. And by providing them with these tools at an early age that just becomes a part of their life it’s going to follow them throughout their whole lives. We're giving them the power in the knowledge to be able to influence change in the most positive of ways.

Minh Ha

Last week you sent over a comic book, which I got to say was pretty neat. I see that as a really effective teaching tool, especially for the age group that you were that you're working with.

Kellie Greene

I love this comic book so much because it's created by youth. It was created by youth that are part of a project that was funded by OVW, the Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse based in South Florida, and they have been working very closely with youth in their community to develop the script for the comic book to develop the illustrations that accompany the comic book. But by using art to deliver the message, and it delivers it in a way that doesn't feel like you're being taught, it's in the youth’s language, it is talking about issues that are important to them.

Minh Ha

I thought it was such a wonderful idea to use that sort of medium to try to target that age group. I remember when I was young, I also read comic books.

Kellie Greene

I totally agree with everything what you just said because it is very representative of their life. It represents the community that the grantee serves. It really shows in a very positive way how you can address the issues of healthy relationships, how you can address conflict and how you can be an active bystander in a positive way to create positive change. And this comic book is successful in doing all of that, and I think it's really powerful to be able to use art, whether it's through film, through writing, or painting, or photographs, music or, you know, in this case, the comic book, to be able to present these difficult topics to youth in a way that is palatable to them, that they can then learn from it in a way that they don't even realize that they're learning about healthy relationships by reading this comic book.

Minh Ha

Yeah, exactly. But at the same time, you know, something that's meant for entertainment did such a good job of adjusting these topics that might be hard to talk about, especially for children, you know, toxic masculinity, jealousy, but also other things such as like conflict de-escalation and conflict resolution. I thought it did a really good job of doing that.

And there is a song that went along with this comment that you shared as well, and I recall you saying that that song was written and produced by one of the children that you worked with, right?

Kellie Greene

Yes, I absolutely love that the youth are engaged in using song as a way to express themselves. So to be able to take your feelings and to write them down in a way that then is turned into a song that people then can sing because this song has a catchy hook to it and you know, it kind of stays with you. And that's just such a powerful way to be able to spread the message of a violence against women and how unacceptable it is and how we all have a role in playing to get to ending violence against women.

As anyone who's been in therapy probably knows, that journaling is a really powerful tool to help you in processing your feelings. And that's what this song really does, is it takes what these young people are thinking about what these young people are facing in their lives every day, and it takes those thoughts, turns them into lyrics and sets them to music. And it becomes a very powerful tool to spread the message of being active bystanders, of holding each other accountable.

Minh Ha

Let's take a listen to part of the song now. This is Beautiful Rights by Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse.

Song

I have the right to be free from violence.

Have the right, have the right, have the right, I have the right,

Have the right, have the right, have the right, I have the right,

I can't be silent when the violence is ignored, this is more than a women's issue.

The connection between his violence and my silence intersecting from what I'm seeing and what I'm accepting, I'm expecting to hear that real men cry and love and feel it's an awful messaging that’s distorting what’s real. Real men cry and love and feel.

Minh Ha

Tell me more about the song, Kellie.

Kellie Greene

So in this song, they're using different forms of art to do the prevention and outreach, but to also pull in youth who want to work on these projects. They're giving the youth a chance to empower other youth to share positive messages. You know, music is a universal language, and so to use the power of music, to spread awareness and to use it as a as a prevention tool is a really powerful way of including youth to be a part of ending violence against women and girls.

Minh Ha

Totally agree. So, Kellie, working, our listeners go to hear the song and check out the comic?

Kellie Greene

Well, if you're in the Orlando area, Orlando, Florida, The song has just been picked up by a local radio station. There it's 98.5 on your dial. For those of you not in the Orlando area, you can go to our Serving Our Youth website, which will have a copy of the song. There's also another song that the youth had done. And there's also a copy of the comic book there. So to get to that website, you would just go to www.servingouryouth.org.

Minh Ha

Great and we will make sure we link to that on our website.

So what's next for your program?

Kellie Greene

We have lots of things on the horizon. One of the things that's going to be coming out next is a school policy toolkit to assist schools and school districts with developing policies and protocols for addressing sexual assault and dating violence within the schools. Also coming up the next the next solicitation for Engaging Men and Children and Youth is going to be released in the next few months.

Minh Ha

As you mentioned, they're going to be our future, and so I look forward to all of us being out of a job.

Kellie Greene

Yeah, yeah.

Minh Ha

Well, Kellie, thanks a lot for joining us today as we finish up this episode. Is there anything else that you want our listeners to know?

Kellie Greene

Oh, well, thanks for uplifting the Children and Youth and Engaging Men program, the work of the grantees, and for the opportunity to talk about the program that I manage here at OVW.

I am just uplifted every day by the innovation and the creativity of the grantees and the children and youth that they work with. It gives me incredible hope for the future that we're just seeing so many more youth come forward and seek help when they have been victims of violence.

The other thing that I would really want our listeners to know, as I just mentioned previously, is that the office is getting ready to release the next round of solicitations for the Children and Youth and Engaging Men program. So if you aren't already a grantee, I encourage those folks that are out there listening that are eligible entities to apply for funding because it's so important for communities to be developing these programs that really support the children and youth that have been impacted by domestic violence, dating, violence, sexual assault and stalking.

Minh Ha

That's wonderful. I'll make sure I leave a subscription link to our solicitations page on our website as well for them. Thanks, Kellie!

Kellie Greene

Oh, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Minh Ha

And thank you for listening to Patchwork. We'd appreciate any comments you have to share about this or any of our episodes. Feel free to send them to patchwork@usdoj.gov.

Thanks for listening. From OVW, I'm Minh Ha