Presentation Suggestions?

Presentation Suggestions?
S

Soccer Kid

Registrant
I haven't posted in a while, but I thought this would be a good place to ask this:

I have been given an awesome opportunity to present material to my university on the sexual abuse of males. I am working with an organization called the Lighthouse on campus. They have been giving me ideas and I wanted to see what ideas you might have for me as well.

One option they liked was finding a "panel" of survivors and experts to answer questions on the topic. If anyone might be interested in doing that let me know and maybe we can work out a way to get you here to my school or we can set up some kind of telephone thing.

But, I am more interested in knowing what other people might have for ideas. I only get 1 hour (actually more like 50 minutes) so it needs to be quick and straight forward.

Anyone have any good suggestions about what I might want to discuss to a room full of hundreds of college students on sexual abuse of males?
 
Also, I wanted to know who I might contact at MS to get a box of fliers for their organization to hand out?
 
Zachary,

Kudos on your courage for agreeing to sit on the panel. Do you know what some of the other panelists are going to say? It might be best to tailor your presentation so that there is no redundancy. I think three bullet points are plenty for any presentation - you can fill in the details with as much information as appropriate. I would be very sensitive to the fact that there may be survivors in the room who don't even know that they're survivors.

First, I would start with trying to destroy any myths about how sexual abuse of male children doesn't occur. You can do that through anecdotes or through statistics.

Second, I might say something about the effects of sexual abuse as it pertains particularly to males. This may "trigger" some survivors or help family and friends of survivors recognize abuse of their loved ones.

Third, that recovery is possible and that there are resources out there. Try someone on the board for flyers. VOICES in Action also has some good brochures on their website.

Another option is to squeeze two and three together and talk about something I haven't seen alot of resources on: prevention. How do we protect our male children from sexual abuse? We talk about recovery and effective prosecution of offenders, but I see very little about how to teach young boys to be safer.

Thanks for doing this. Let us know how it goes.
 
No one is on the panel. It was just an idea to have one. I approached my university and asked to present material on male sexual abuse. They agreed and offered to absorb any costs associated with the presentation. During my inital meeting with the Lighthouse representative they suggested I organize a panel. I haven't tried to organize one yet...I'm still debating if I should have one. The university will not pay to put someone up in a hotel while presenting so the panel members have to pay for that all themselves. So I don't really think a panel is all that great of an idea right now.

I was looking for other ideas.

I like your points! Initially the Lighthouse and I came up with those exact points. I think they are good ideas, and prevention is a big issue. I want to raise awareness AND promote prevention. I am speaking to college students, most who do not have kids but will soon. This is a perfect opportunity!

Any other suggestions?
 
What is the purpose of your presentation? What do you want them to walk away with? More importantly what does your targeted audience want from your presentation ... have you asked a sub sample set from the targeted audiene?

Who is your audience. Age range? Any non-university students? Will they come voluntarily? Will people show up who are forced to be there? Perhaps for extra credit?

Do you have leeway to do any type of experiential?

Courage-Wisdom-Spiritualtiy
 
Hey Josh,
Glad to hear from you! Like "BTR", I too am curious about the target audience and the goals of the presentation. What is the mission of the Lighthouse group?

Over the summer I saw the movie about male CSA called MYSTERIOUS SKIN [based on the book by the same title]. This movie was very powerful and in my opinion really captured many experiences that I had as a child. The movie is out on DVD and I am sure this movie would open a wide discussion. [Major triggers] Have you considered partnering with your campus's counseling center?

Good luck!
Vernon
 
Zach,

I think a really good basic focus would be the list of myths about the sexual abuse of boys that is posted on this site. Many university students are still stumbling along under these misconceptions, and victims among them often don't seek help because of these false ideas.

Much love,
Larry
 
Zach, I was a speech teacher for years. One of my students did a speech on sexual abuse of women. She had every third girl in the room stand up, and then stated that one in three women in the United States would be the victim of sexual abuse. It brought home the vastness of the problem and made it very personal at the same time. Of course, I don't know how you would do that with such a large audience, but so many have absolutely no idea that male sexual abuse is so prevalent in our society.

Another way to bring it home might be to have ten men of differnt ages, ethnicities, walks of life, etc., in other words, completely different looks, identify themselves as abuse survivors. One of the things that struck me the most at my first survivor's week-end was that, if you didn't know what kind of week-end was being held, and you just walked in off the street, you would have no idea what sort of group of men you were looking at. I don't know what I expected but I was struck by the complete diversity of the participants. Many people would assume that we have some sort of mark on our foreheads or some sort of identifying feature, and are surprised that there is absolutely no way that you might be able to pick us out in a crowd.

Once you have established the fact that male sexual abuse survivors are "we" instead of "they", you might just have a captive audience.
 
Zach I have a powerpoint presentation that I gave at a conference hosted by the Niagara Region Police Association . The audience was over 250 and included police officers, people from the attorney generals office and many therapists. I talked for 40 or so minutes and had a Q&A afterwards. Here is the title page and the next one.
A JOURNEY THROUGH HELL

THE HANGOVER OF UNTREATED SEXUAL ABUSE/ASSAULT.
- by Mike Church

THE THREE PATHS
WITHDRAW FROM SOCIETY
ATTACK SOCIETY
SUICIDE
THE EFFECTS OF EACH
COPING STRATEGIES
ALCOHOL/DRUGS
ACTING OUT
PROSTITUTION
SELF DESTRUCTION
EXTREME SWINGS THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND

CONSTRICTION- FEEL NO PAIN
INTRUSION-IN YOUR FACE

I have sent it to Nathan and he will grant access to all.
 
Zach,

This is the Power Point that Mike Church used on his last presentation. He has stated that anyone may use this Power Point. This Power Point has nothing to do with MaleSurvivor and if you choice to use this, note that MaleSurvivor has not sponsored the commission of this Power Point nor are we sponsoring your presentation.

https://www.malesurvivor.org/userfiles/journey.ppt

Nathan
 
The powerpoint was only to prompt me to talk about the effects of each topic on me as a survivor. It kept me and the audience on the same track.
I am sure that most of us can recognize some of our emotions and behaviors
 
Zach

I put together a 5 minute DVD slideshow to the music of "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who, this song means a lot to me so at every lyric change the photograph or video clip would change also for example.

Opening chords - Photo of headstome reading innocence taken in 1970.

Then the words come in

"no one knows what its like to be the badman" - and whilst that is being sung a picture appears of myself (as I am now) as I had always been told that I was a bad un.

"to be the sadman" - A bottle of smifnoff vodka appears.

"Behind Blue Eyes" - photograph of my bespecticled eyes only.

"no one know what its like to be hated" - picture of a homeless drunk, which I was once.

"To be fated" - picture of a noose.

"To telling only lies" - Picture of our Prime Minister and thats how it goes on till the middle eight where I insert some video of football hooligans fighting of which I was one also.

I made it primarily as a movie short for a video and film competition over here and it was well recieved although a warning was given out prior to it being shown as it was described a emotionally strong and possibly upsetting.

I wish I could get a copy to you before your presentation.

Its entitled "Benders - the effects of male childhood sexual abu*se - a personal view".

I would imagine the same sort of thing could be done with PowerPoint.

I am hoping to be asked to talk in public about my abuse in the not too distant future and I will be showing "Benders" as an introduction to anything I have to say.

Best of luck with the presentation

Kirk
 
Wow!

Thank you all so much for the help! I hope more comes in!

To answer some questions:

What is the purpose of your presentation?
There are many proposed purposes...so far the main purpose is to raise awareness and to allow those who have been abused to give them the knowledge and hopefully the comfort they need to come forward to someone and let someone know. The presentation will probably consist of three sections, statistics, effects and recovery as well as a Q and A session afterwards. The presentation will have to be short because of the time constraints. I might be able to increase the time, but most classes are 50 minutes in length and those who have classes after 50 minutes will probably leave.

What do you want them to walk away with?
Strength, knowledge and hopefully the power to talk about it. To break the silence!

More importantly what does your targeted audience want from your presentation ... have you asked a sub sample set from the targeted audiene?
No. I will consider taking a sample, however right now the sample is to be directed mainly towards college students.

Who is your audience. Age range?
All individuals in the city, but mostly college aged students (17 to 24)

Any non-university students?
Faculty will probably be there.

Will they come voluntarily?
Some, some will also be there because their classes will come and see it together.

Will people show up who are forced to be there?
Yes, some will be there for classes.

Perhaps for extra credit?
Possibly, depends on the instructor.

Do you have leeway to do any type of experiential?
I probably do, but I haven't thought about it much. We pretty much know the audience is going to be college students.

What is the mission of the Lighthouse group?
To raise awareness about sexual, physical and emotional abuse against individuals who are college aged. I can find the actual mission statement if you like.

VHD11: the goals of the presentation are being decided. That's why I came here. I'm trying to find out what you guys might think and to give some ideas about goals.

Have you considered partnering with your campus's counseling center?
No, but actually that is a great idea. I'm not sure how much of a help they would be. I tried asking them for help before but they didn't offer much.

The movie would be nice, but I doubt many people have seen it here and it might not make much of an impact. I can't show the movie because of the lack of time and of course copyright limitations.

Roadrunner: The idea of talking about myths is probably a guarantee. That NEEDS to be talked about! Without those it's nearly impossible to give the presentation with the impact I desire.

Bobby: I thought about doing the stand up idea...but that would be a lot of people to do that with. That would be hard! It might also be difficult to find people to admit to being abused or to pretend to be abused. I could, however, make powerpoint slides to show the many "faces" of abuse. Anyone care to share photos of themselves as children and adults? I really doubt people would be willing to do that, but it would probably make a good impact, and a strong one at that!

Mike & Nathan: Thanks for making the powerpoint available to me and everyone else. I might borrow some of the information on it. Howard Fradkin also supplied me with information and in a few months MS will be mailing me fliers and information on the retreats to hand out. The information that MS gives me will be given to every single person who enters the presentation. This could be very important!

Kirk: Is there any way you could send me a copy of the DVD? That would be interesting to see. Of course since it has your likeness on it I would never use it, but it might give me an idea of how to create something like that on my own!

Wow! Thanks guys for all the help! I didn't expect this much! Any other advice would be great!
 
Oh, I also wanted to add too that Nathan is correct. MS, even though they are supplying me with fliers and information and help, the presentation and I are not associated with MS. The presentation is being sponsored and produced by the Lighthouse at Central Missouri State University and is being put on by my organization called Forgotten Victims. Male Survivor members are just being nice and guiding me a bit! And for that I appreciate it!

Thanks!
 
Zachary,

Thanks for the information. Yes, addressing the myths will be a big piece of the presentation. I'm guessing that the people who attend your presentation voluntarily will mostly be people who have been abused or know someone who has been abused. As with this board they will be at different places with their abuse. More than anything I think they need resources that they can continue to use for help after the presentation. A phamplet containing things like books, websites, support groups, and counselors should be handed out to everyone. Leaving it on a table for them to take would make it difficult for someone to walk on up and take it ... it would already feel like an admission of what happened.

As for the non-volunteers, the myths will be extremely helpful. But my take is to focus on how child abuse seems to be a taboo subject to talk about in society. How for someone who has been abused overcoming stigmas to break the silence is a big deal. And how they may be contributing to reinforcing the stigma through their jokes, reactions or even non-reactions to when the subject of CSA comes up in their lives. Why is that we (me included) are more willing to talk about other negative life events, hurrincanes effects on people, our soldiers experiences in war, people haveing heart attacks ... events that effect large groups of people, but are unwilling to talk about child sexual abuse which directly effects so many and indrectly effects even more. The issue of why is child sexual abuse the elephant in the room no one will acknowledge and talk about what do about.

Three ideas I want to suggest for an experiential: One, as people come into your presentation to be seated they are handed an envelope not to be opened until you ask them to. In each envelope can be a different story of a person who has been abused. I would suggest the story focus on the details to represent the diversity of peoples backgrounds. It have brief statements about when the abuse occurred and the who the person was and lasting effects. Something not longer than a paragraph. You can create maybe 10 or more types of profiles, copy them, and place them in the envelopes. You choose when it would be best for them to open up the envelopes and read them. You could also put something of particular significance to the imaginary profile you create and desribe its meaning. For example, I get triggered and thus absoulutely hate monopoly money because it was the "game" that was used to coerce me by my first perp (thus placing monoply money or even a monoply game piece in the envelope). This may be a bit too personal and corny. Second option is to have poster boards set up around the room and allow people to take a few minutes to read some of the poster boards. Here i think you would have more leeway to decide what should be on the posterboards ... stories, bios, news articles, or whatever you feel will be effective. Third idea is to have them write down on a piece of paper the ... if their female then the 6 most important male friends/family members in their lives (if they are male they should write down their own name and then five of the most important male friends/family members in their lives ... and reveal the statistic that 1 in 6 of these people may have been abused. Maybe you could take this a step further but not sure how ....

Good luck with the presentation

Courage-Wisdom-Spirituality
 
Good ideas!

I'll look over them a bit more and think about using some of them. Remember though, I am limited on time and getting 500 people to look at posters and then getting them to all sit down quickly is no easy task. It might burn a lot of time.

I will also be participating in the Awareness Fair here on campus. The Awareness Fair will allow my organization to put up a poster board to advertise the organization AND the presentation. Maybe I can do that there?

Thanks a ton for your help!
 
Members,

If anyone has any videos, power points, flyers, handouts please feel free to email them to me at [email protected] I will go ahead and make them aviable to you Zach and anyone else who would like them. I will post them on site and give the link via this thread.

Nathan
 
Nathan,

Thanks a ton! I really appreicate all the help from everyone!

After I create the fliers for the presentation myself, I will go ahead and make them available as well.
 
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