On the final day of our Building Change Together training, participants were able to take a deep dive into Engaging Men and Boys with Melissa Espinoza from Safe Alternatives to Violent Environments and Sarah Diamond of Center for Community Solutions. In this developing this session, Melissa and Sarah brought together the previous days training, in particular community engagement and inclusivity.

During this session, participants were invited to assess their current strategies in creating gender inclusive spaces, and discuss the challenges they have experienced. The facilitators talked through a variety of innovative programs working with boys and men across the country to identify successful strategies they can incorporate into their own work. Each strategy strives to shift the social norms which contribute to gender based violence. The facilitators identified leaders in the movement such as Jackson Katz, Byron Hurt and Ashanti Branch working to mobilize men and boys to stop gender based violence by addressing the contributing systemic factors.

Together with the facilitators, participants were able to talk through those strategies and develop an action plan to clarify what they are currently doing, what they want to be doing, and strategies to engage, and mobilize, men and boys in their communities. 

Below are just a few resources we identified:

• Coaching Boys into Men by Futures Without Violence: https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/engaging-men/coaching-boys-into-men/
• A CALL TO MEN: http://www.acalltomen.org/
• Men Can Stop Rape: http://www.mencanstoprape.org/
• My Masculinity Helps:  http://mymasculinityhelps.com/

Stay tuned for our new weekly series prevention conversations!

Is your organization looking to deepen how cultural responsiveness is practiced?

• The countdown to the Cultural Responsiveness Organizational Self-Assessment (CROS) tool re-launch is on! Soon, we’ll be offering a variety of customized support options for domestic violence agencies.