By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
PASTOR Graeme Cann is starkly aware of the reality of family violence – and he knows it doesn’t discriminate.
The pastor, who sits on the executive of the Casey Pastors Network and acts as a mentor in the CHALLENGE Family Violence program, has been pivotal in helping other religious leaders across the municipality understand this reality too.
“One of the big changes that has occurred in churches is that a few years ago most churches would have encouraged couples to stay together and work out their problems,” Pastor Cann said.
“Today we understand that is often not an acceptable way to go. Often it is necessary for them to separate and maybe even to divorce.
“Because if you’re dealing with a person for whom violence against women is deeply ingrained, it’s a cycle they get into, then change is going to take a long, long time.
“And maybe sometimes it will never happen.”
Pastor Cann’s involvement with the CHALLENGE program was instantaneous, joining the steering committee as soon as the initiative began early last year.
“The mentors have had training programs like bystander training programs, where you learn how to deal with men telling sexist jokes or degrading women in a public place, being able to intervene in that effectively,” Pastor Cann said.
“We’ve also done lots of training around the whole area of what constitutes violence and how violence is defined.
“We’ve learnt about it being a man’s problem rather than a woman’s problem because 96 per cent of the perpetrators are men. All that sort of thing.
“When we’ve had community leaders meetings, the mentors act as mentors to a table full of community leaders.
“We meet around big round tables and then one of the mentors speaks to the whole table.”
And this year the Casey Pastors Network will hold their second White Ribbon Breakfast in Narre Warren on Saturday 22 November.
But Pastor Cann said the network’s involvement in the anti-violence campaign had its origins much earlier.
Roughly 10 years ago the network started plans for what eventually became the Promoting Peace in Families program, which was also supported by the Federal Government.
“It was primarily a program aimed at the churches because the feeling among social workers was that one of the safe places should be the church, but it often wasn’t,” Pastor Cann said.
“So we felt it was really important to start doing, and we ran a four-week program in 12 churches in Casey. And it had an amazing impact.
“We had it properly assessed at the end and as a result of that we actually won a Department of Justice award for being one of the most outstanding crime prevention programs in Australia.
“We had 85 women come forward during that program to say that they were victims of domestic violence and about 48 men who came forward to say, under the definition we were using, they had in fact crossed that line.
“So it was very, very valuable.”
Pastor Cann felt Promoting Peace and Families successfully challenged pre-conceptions that helped open up churches in Casey to the benefit of being involved with something like the White Ribbon campaign.
“That actually ploughed the ground pretty well. It was in that phase of it that we had to work the hardest because a lot of pastors took the view that there was no domestic violence in their churches,” he said.
“So the fact that we turned up 85 women who disclosed their situations was a real eye-opener for some of the pastors.”
Fellow Casey pastor Andrew Russell, part of the network and also a CHALLENGE community leader, has worked together with Pastor Cann to offer continual support to those families of his church left broken as a consequence of domestic violence.
“We provide counsel for them and for the kids and family. We do what we can as a neutral party, instead of trying to take sides,” Pastor Russell said.
“The hardest part is to be a neutral figure in this. Because you’re for the man, you’re for the woman. You’re not for the abuse that’s gone on but he’s trying to get better, he’s trying to get help,” Pastor Russell said.
“Whether it works out or not is between them.”
Pastor Russell said it was hard not to become emotionally invested in the families that he lent his support to, but his faith provided him with comfort and he continually drew on this hope.
“It’s hard not to because your heart goes out to the people. The kids, what they’ve seen, what they’ve experienced. Because some of them respond in different ways,” he said.
“Some are going into some great depression, some of them don’t want to go where Dad is and they have to split the custody of the kids.
“And then they go back and forth within the court system, so it’s kind of hard to be neutral because you want to see it work out and you can’t take sides with them.
“But they know that we love them, we’re not here to tell them what they have to do, but we just share what the scripture says.
“They know how much we love them; we’re praying for them, we’re here for them.”
The Casey Pastors Network White Ribbon breakfast will be held on Saturday 22 November at City Edge, in Narre Warren. For more information, contact Pastor Cann on 0438 311 380, or at graeme.julia@gmail.com.
