‘Losing people’: Survivors of child sexual abuse urgently call for more specialised services as demand surges

WARNING: Distressing content Male survivors of child sexual abuse are taking their own lives before they are ever able to receive proper care, with a shortage of services creating waitlists of up to year for those seeking help. Jarad Grice, who was sexually abused by a neighbour when he was just eight years old, spent 18 years searching for support after the ordeal led to his own suicide attempt at 17. Mr Grice recalled going to the home of his neighbour — about ten years his senior — out of fear of what might happen if he didn’t. He’s still unable to recall much of the experience, not knowing when the abuse began, or how many times it happened. “I distanced myself from both my parents as soon as it happened,” Mr Grice told NewsWire. “They had once said ‘What do you do over there?’, but I just had a whole list of excuses to give them.” Mr Grice said the older boy used things like games and toys to “keep him comfy” and lure him back. “But in lying to my parents to protect myself I put up a barrier at eight years old between me and my parents that took a long time to pull down,” he said. The abuse ended after the neighbour tried to abuse him out in the street near where Jarad had been playing with his friends, with the shift to a public setting giving the young boy the courage to refuse. By age 12, Jarad knew he had been abused, but stayed silent until his suicide attempt when he was 17. At the age of 35, Mr Grice found the Survivors and Mates Support Network (SAMSN), the country’s only specialist support organisation dedicated to male survivors of childhood sexual abuse, their families and supporters. He said the organisation’s eight-week peer support program “cemented” his recovery. “What was amazing was all these fears and insecurities that I’d thought were exclusively mine — they all had the same problems, same concerns, and it just was really empowering that I wasn’t alone,” Mr Grice said. SAMSN was launched in 2011, with co-founder and chief executive officer Craig Hughes-Cashmore a survivor himself. Mr Hughes-Cashmore attempted suicide three times, which landed him in hospital on locked wards, when he was 21, 30, and 35 years old. There were many other attempts over that time. He only realised he’d been abused after reading the story of another male survivor of child sexual abuse years later, when he was 38 years old. Mr Hughes-Cashmore was sexually abused by his father’s work colleague as a child, and when he tried to report it to a teacher, they, along with another teacher, became his second and third abusers. “I did not have a good experience of disclosure, and so I just went into denial,” he said. He moved from Adelaide to Melbourne at 17 where he said he found “dope, drugs and disco”. “I wanted to forget it ever happened, but of course, you can’t completely bury these things,” he said. “It was a very confusing couple of decades where I was just struggling to survive. “My life was derailed from the moment I was first raped, and the trauma that had gone with that.” ‘Losing people’: Warning as waitlists for support balloon Mr Hughes-Cashmore said organisations like SAMSN were buckling under demand. A SAMSN colleague recently called a man on the waitlist for the organisation’s peer support group program only to learn he’d died by suicide, highlighting the urgency for more services and funding. “(It) breaks my heart,” Mr Hughes-Cashmore said. “The same day we had another guy who was in hospital after trying to take his own life. “This is real. We’re losing people - men and women.” Mr Hughes-Cashmore said general sexual assault services often had long waitlists between six and 12 months, and there weren’t enough services specialising in male survivors of child sexual abuse. The 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended state and territory governments fund dedicated community support services for those who experienced childhood sexual abuse in institutional contexts. The government launched the National Redress Scheme in 2018 to help survivors access counselling and redress payments, with 45 Redress Support Services (including SAMSN) receiving funding from the Commonwealth to support survivors. Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth said $142m was provided in the 2023-24 budget to support the National Redress Scheme over five years. “This included $81.2 million in support for essential Redress Support Services who assist survivors in applying to the Scheme, which expands on existing specialised supports provided for survivors through Redress Support Services. As a Government we will continue to listen to survivors and make changes to the Scheme in a measured and survivor focused way,” Ms Rishworth said. However Mr Hughes-Cashmore said SAMSN, which is largely only able to cater to survivors in NSW at the moment, have asked for additional funding from the Commonwealth government in a pre-budget submission in order to reach all male survivors, including those not sexually abused in institutions. He acknowledged the critical and ongoing support from the government, but noted there was a “real urgency” for more specialist services. Speaking of the long waitlists for services, Mr Hughes-Cashmore said it was critical for survivors to receive immediate help when reaching out because it could often feel as though they were “talking about something that feels like it happened yesterday”, and not 30 years ago. “That’s where we can lose people, because they can feel so overwhelmed,” Mr Hughes-Cashmore said. He said survivors could often feel “isolated”, “complicit” and “responsible”, while stigmas around masculinity were also a barrier for many survivors. “Men are meant to be strong and resilient. ‘Why didn’t I stop it?’” he said. “I see 40-year-old men saying, ‘I should have done something’. It’s like, dude, you were a child … the complex dynamics of grooming are really hard to make sense of for children and for adult survivors to understand on their own. “There’s a real urgency for governments to fund specialist community-based services for survivors. We need to give these people space to talk with peers and professionals, so they feel seen and understood. “We need to give them some hope.” Don’t go it alone. Please reach out for help. Lifeline: 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au SAMSN: 1800 472 676 or samsn.org.au Blue Knot Foundation: 1300 657 380 or blueknot.org.au 13YARN: Speak to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander crisis supporter on 13 92 76 or visit 13yarn.org.au National Redress Scheme: 1800 737 377