Mike Lew
Author of Victims no longer

“Over the past four decades I have met and worked with thousands of male survivors and services created for survivors throughout the world. None of these services offers more caring, dedicated, and impressive support than moMENtum. A true grassroots movement, created by and for male survivors in Devon, UK, moMENtum’s impact has grown and spread well beyond the local. It took a long struggle, but professionals and government bureaucracy have begun to pay attention and realise moMENtum’s value. This is largely due to the persistence and commitment of its founders, John Slater and Russell Dawson. moMENtum treats survivors with respect and active encouragement and does tangible good. I am honoured to know the moMENtum folks and to continue to have a working relationship with them.”

Claire Gilkes
Psychotherapist
Psychology and Psychological Therapies
The Briars, Crabb Lane, Exeter EX2 9JD

I have been aware of the work of MoMENtum for some years now and feel fortunate to have been involved with MoMENtum in a professional capacity, as a Psychotherapist working within Devon Partnership NHS Trust, since 2018. MoMENtum’s commitment and dedication to offering support for adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse is truly remarkable. MoMENtum’s long-term approach offers an outstanding level of support and facilitates levels of engagement that is clearly centred on the survivors’ needs and current stage in their recovery. The uniqueness of MoMENtum’s approach and stead-fasted open-door way of working is an invaluable part of the work that they do and has enabled them to forge links with many organisations and individuals. I feel privileged to be part of one such link with the collaboration between MoMENtum and the META group that runs through Devon Partnership NHS Trust group.

[META: Men’s Trauma Alliance for adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse]

Gilli Watson
Chartered Clinical Psychologist Consultant and Trainer
MA Msc AFBPsS
January 2022

“I am very happy to provide my support for moMENtum. As a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Trauma Lead for Psychology and Psychological Therapies, Exeter within Devon Partnership Trust over many years, I have had direct experience of the work of moMENtum since its beginning .

moMENtum was established by John Slater and Russell Dawson in the profound absence of any services for men survivors of childhood sexual abuse within Adult Mental Health services. Men who suffered childhood sexual abuse were frequently referred to Drug and Alcohol Services . These services were not trauma informed and were not able to provide Trauma therapies. Men survivor’s distress was frequently misdiagnosed as addiction problems, ‘psychosis’ or ‘personality disorder’. Men were less likely than women to be referred for therapy in general and men with sexual abuse histories were especially unlikely to be referred for Psychological Therapy. This left many men survivors with no trauma informed help or possibility for healing and recovery. As a result, many men were left in profound distress and suicidality.

John Slater and Russell Dawson were acutely aware of this failure of service provision for men survivors within adult mental health services and moMENtum was created in response to this profound neglect .

Throughout the years moMENtum has operated, I have been enormously impressed by the courage and determination of John and Russell to continue to offer support for other men survivors despite the lack of funding and the lack of support and recognition within mental health services. John and Russell have developed extensive knowledge, skills and expertise in offering compassion, care, information and group support with men survivors, often in severe distress and pain. They have developed extensive skills in being alongside men in profound distress, offering respectful and compassionate listening, contact, connection and mutual support . They have frequently advocated alongside men trying to access adult mental health services .They have developed careful boundaries in order not to be drawn in to offering help that mental health services should be providing, especially in relation to crisis assessment, suicidality and the need for in patient services.

I have been profoundly impressed by the resilience and commitment of John Slater and Russell Dawson to continue to provide this listening, advocacy and mutual group support for men survivors of childhood sexual abuse despite at times the enormous personal cost of this work for them.

It is heartening to know that they have been able to secure funding in recent years which has enabled moMENtum to become better resourced and financed.

Mental health services sadly continue to be unresponsive to many men who have suffered childhood sexual abuse and have severe mental health difficulties as a consequence. Routine enquiry about childhood abuse does not occur in many adult mental health services and trauma informed practice remains extremely patchy particularly for men.

moMENtum offers a life line for many men survivors as a source of information, acceptance, comfort and skilled group support. It is one of very few community based mutual support services for men survivors nationally and is an expert Third sector organisation informing service developments for men survivors at a local and national level. ”

Thom Harrigan, LICSW
USA

My experience with MoMENtum has been somewhat limited and circumscribed, but in the way I have come to know them I am deeply impressed with the resource they are to male survivors they serve, and to male survivors, and the individuals working with them, more broadly. Indeed, more than a resource they are a critical service, and this service has, and is having, a profound effect on raising awareness of what has happened, and is happening, to boys and men sexually abused as children; not only increasing understanding of the issue(s) but influencing and changing the network of care and services needed in response. Of course, in its primary purpose MoMENtum is saving and improving the lives of individuals, families and groups who have not been helped elsewhere, or need the particular knowledge and skill this group, these men, provide.

I am a psychotherapist, social justice advocate, educator and survivor. My relationship with MoMENtum, the men leading it and many of the men in this network has been inspiring, humbling and exciting. It is a model for others to learn from, and it is what change-making is about.

Kristian Tomblin
Communities and Commissioning Manager
Directorate of Communities, Public Health, Environment and Prosperity Devon County Council

“I attended a focus group of male survivors of CSA hosted by John Slater. What struck me most powerfully was the ‘brotherhood’ that people involved with MoMENtum described.

The ‘brotherhood’ was underpinned by a deep empathy, trust and compassion. It helped them connect with themselves and crucially, with other people, without fear or judgement. MoMENtum are doing lives saving work. “