Welcome to Resource On The Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. My name is Louis Marvin, and I'm the Training Specialist at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This podcast is part of our male survivor series. Today, Emiliano Diaz de Leon joins me for a conversation of his experience training and supporting advocates in Texas as they do advocacy with male survivors. Emiliano is the men's engagement specialist at TAASA, the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. Emiliano, thanks for being on the podcast. Why don't you start by telling us about your work at TAASA, especially as it has to do with supporting advocates at sexual assault centers on how they work with male survivors.

Well, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I work here in Texas at the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault as the men's engagement specialists. What that means is basically I provide training and technical assistance to rape crisis centers here in Texas. I am very fortunate that I get to work with a small group of rape crisis centres under a state summit grant program called block grant. And so that includes 10 rape crisis centres that are spread out across the state, specifically around engaging boys and men in violence prevention, as well as enhancing services for male survivors of sexual violence. So a lot of the training and technical assistance is really focused on just basic Victim Services, for example, like hospital, accompaniment, hotline, counseling, etcetera, those kinds of basic services that most rape crisis centers provide around the country, and also enhancing the services. So we think of that primarily in support groups, outreach, education, etcetera, for male survivors of sexual violence, and so those are sort of my two focus areas of really helping people think about both the prevention and the victim advocacy around boys and men.

That's great. It's great to hear that you're doing work on both sides of things, the prevention and the services, I think that sometimes we think about these as totally separate, but it's cool that you're engaging these centers on both topics, and in this project, we've been thinking a lot about how... Sometimes when we talk about men and sexual violence, we're kinda stuck in a place of engaging men and boys to be people who are good bystanders and in prevention work, which is great and really important, and there's also an opportunity to talk about men as victims and survivors as well, so you're doing all of that work in Texas, which is great to hear.

Yeah, absolutely, I feel very fortunate to be able to do both things, and I've been with TAASA now going on 13 years, and during that time, I've been able to do both and have really begun to spend more of my time doing victim advocacy under this new... Under this grant program, so that to me is really exciting to be able to help people think through what those services look like, because we still have a long way to go, among our almost 90 Rape Crisis Center here in Texas, and so they're sort of like on a spectrum in terms of services around male survivors, and so some are doing better than others, some haven't even gotten started. And so over the last 13 years, I've really had been working to bring everybody up to the minimum standards of providing services to boys and men.

Great, well, it sounds like you have some insights that's gonna be relevant to listeners who are approaching efficacy from a broad range of experiences, so tell us what are some common needs that advocates that you've worked with, what are some of the common needs that they have around working with male survivors and just delve in a little bit about how you go about working with them and meeting those needs.

Yeah, a lot of folks need just the basic nuts and bolts of services. So what does that even look like? Most of our rape crisis centers have done a tremendous job, probably over the last five decades, almost, 'cause we have some centers that have been around from the very beginning of the entire rape movement, and so those are the centers that are doing really well, especially in our large metropolitan areas here in Texas, and their services are... They're just enhancing services for male survivors, and then we have a lot of centers in rural communities here in Texas that need a lot of support and technical assistance around just the basic nuts and bolts of what does it take... What do you need to have in place in order to provide just basic services, like hotline or hospital accompaniment, just counseling services, legal advocacy, all of those sort of things that we consider is just basic rape crisis center services.

And so we help folks make sure that they have everything in place to provide those services. A lot of what I do is encouragement. I think of myself as a cheerleader for rape crisis centers, like I said, that are on that spectrum, and really encouraging them, checking in with them and just being present in their work and being accessible as they move through that continuum from one end of just meeting those basic standards and services to, like I said, enhancing services for boys and men. A big part of that work includes overcoming boundaries.

So when we think about just how diverse the state is, both geographically and in terms of its make-up, that creates additional barriers for rape crisis centers. So a lot of my work is really helping people think about their population and about the audience that they want to serve, especially if it's a culturally specific community, or if they're working with an immigrant or refugee community, or a community that speaks a different language. So it's really helping rape crisis centers think through all of those micro-details in terms that really impact their community, and really think through those things and work with them to overcome what could be barriers for them of providing those services.

And so that's a big part of the work that I do, a lot of resource sharing. As I come across both national and international resources around male survivors of sexual violence, whether it's research, whether it's curriculums, whether it's podcasts, whether it's articles, PSAs. Anything related to male survivors of sexual violence that provide those types of resources to our folks on an ongoing basis, so that we are not just the only... We don't consider ourselves the only hub of training and technical assistance. There's a lot of really wonderful organizations, like Men Healing, and malesurvivor.org, and 1in6, that provide additional training and technical assistance to folks. And so we wanna make sure that they have access and information regarding the different resources that are available to them. So the way that I do that work is just through a lot of conversations.

We build... I build relationships with folks. And a lot of that work has been... COVID has really impacted our ability to travel and to meet with people in person, when that's generally how we like to operate. Because we're such a large state, it does require for us to be with people. And so we have moved a lot of that engagement online, whether it's through email, or Zoom meetings, or... Hopefully we'll get to a place where we can meet with people in person, meet with their staff, provide training and technical assistance in groups of advocates and volunteers, as well as individuals, which is part of our ongoing work with folks. We do a lot of group technical assistance. So every month I hold what I call an office space for this small group of grantees, where they can just show up between a couple of hours and chat about how things are going for them personally, so that they can get the self-care that they need.

But also that they have a space where they can address the technical issues and the technical questions that they have about the grant program, about providing services to male survivors. And so we have found that to be... I have found that to be extremely effective during this time. We're hoping to continue that beyond COVID. Of course, we provide a lot of training at our state conference to victim advocates. We try to introduce additional workshops around different male survivor issues. So for example, at our upcoming virtual state conference this summer, I'm gonna be talking a little bit about how we can use the Texas Men Story Project to reach male survivors of sexual violence, to engage in those community conversations about that issue. And then of course we do webinars. We use a lot of social media. We have a pretty large social media following.

Thanks. You mentioned those calls that you're having with advocates, are there any common questions that come up around working with male survivors, whether in COVID, or not COVID specific? But are there any topics that you are able to share and to let our advocate listeners and others know about, and how you and the group have worked through those questions?

Yeah. So one of the most common questions that I get around prevention and as well as around victim advocacy with boys and men is most of our folks are female-identified here in Texas. Our victim advocates are volunteers that work with victims and survivors, and so I get that question a lot. It is like, "Well, maybe I shouldn't be working with male survivors because I'm not a man." Or because I'm not a boy. I don't have that lived experience, and so that I think is probably the most common thing that I hear from victim advocates and I told them all the time, male survivors don't care of your gender. They just care that you're coming with empathy and an open heart and an open mind in terms of the experiences.

So, I think there's a wonderful desire on the part of most of victim advocates that I've encountered in my work, but they just wanna do... They wanna do good by boys and men, and they want to provide the same level of victim services that they provide to girls and women, they wanna provide those to boys and men. They just don't know how to get there. It's 'cause it doesn't look the same. It is different, but it's also similar in some way, but it is different, and I think it's helping people recognize how it's different and how it's similar, and really working through how the strategy might look different from our work with female-identified survivors. Yeah, but I recognize again, that's long-term work for me because we also have encountered a tremendous amount of turnover in the field and so we're always constantly having to retrain and to develop both new advocates. There are a lot of folks who are coming into the field that are fairly new to the issues of sexual violence, even more new to the issue of providing services to boys and men.

Thanks Emiliano. It sounds like you're saying that advocates who are trained to work with survivors have really great skills that they're able to use to work with male survivors or survivors of any gender, and also that there might be some capacity building that needs to happen around, meeting some of the distinct needs that male survivors may have and that theme really connects with a lot of the things that we're talking about in this project. What's your advice to programs then that maybe the program is starting to think about some of the distinct needs of male survivors, how might that program adjust their existing advocacy or start new services to meet those needs of male survivors that might be distinct or might need to happen in a new or slightly different way?

Yeah, I would definitely acknowledge the willingness to explore the distinct needs of male survivors, like the fact that you would even come to me... Come to us at the coalition around meeting, that's particularly need is a huge step. Our centers are... Their capacities are already pulled in so many ways, especially now during COVID, and just all the other... The daily crises of working in a center. I know from personal experience how difficult and challenging that can be just providing services on a daily basis and not even thinking about accessing professional developments or accessing technical systems, like I... Actually, I didn't attend our state conference until actually after I left TAASA, I mean, after I left my local rape crisis center, I'm sorry. Sort of as an example, that most folks that are on the front lines providing service don't have the time to make a phone call or to be able to access the kind of training or technical systems that we offer.


So that's why I think it's really important to just go to the source in terms of asking male survivors what support you need, what support do they need? And a lot of the ways that we do that is by just, like I said, asking, opening ourselves to honest and sometimes really... Feedback that we don't wanna hear because it's not always gonna be really... It's not gonna include positive experiences. So surveys, focus groups, etcetera, those kinds of things, where we are going to form our clients or current clients and asking them about their experiences of services that you provide and being transparent about that data that you're receiving in terms of creating a report and sharing that with your board of directors and with your funders.

I think because that data is really important to show in terms of the need for services, but also a need for additional funding for staff or materials or outreach efforts, those kinds of things. That's why that data is so important and that it needs to come directly from your clients themselves. I think it's also really important to offer support services and information online. I think most male survivors that I've encountered in my work have come to Healing Work to begin their journey because they've been able to access some service online, whether it's hotline services online, whether it's therapeutic services online, support groups online. I can tell you in this particular day and age, in terms of being able to access information and resources primarily on our phones, that that's so critical is that we're able to provide those kinds of services 'cause they may be reluctant to come into your office.

Most of our centers here in Texas, I will speak for the centers here in Texas, are called women's centers or they have women in the title of their organization. And so boys and men in those communities don't think that the women's center is for them, that their services are accessible to them or for them because of just the name of the organization. And so we talk about just a basic issue to address. If we can address that issue with folks. And we have worked with a number of centers to help them think about the barrier that that creates for male survivors and their experiences... The experience of centers who have worked through that process because there are challenges, both fiscal challenges and reputational challenges, sort of reinventing yourself, re-branding yourself, there's all the additional challenges that come with changing their name that they've had for some of our centers, like I said, almost 50 years.

But when they do that... Here in Austin, for example, here in Austin, Texas, the centers were called, The Center for Battered Women and the Austin Rape Crisis Center. So when they merged, they became a safe place, and once there was a merger here in Austin, it changed the whole trajectory of the organization because they were able to expand their services to include all types of survivors of all kinds of violence and crime in addition to male survivors, like the idea of having a safe place, that's a place I can go to. I wasn't sure about The Battered Women's Center 'cause I'm not a battered woman, but I am a male survivor of sexual violence or sexual abuse, but that's not a place where I could go.

But now, because it's called safe, the idea of the services that they provide are sort of a core part of their name, just their name alone has made a tremendous impact to their ability to reach boys and men who are survivors of sexual violence or sexual abuse, and they have seen those services increase since they merged with the local rape crisis center years ago. So that, I think, is an example of how important, how critical it is for us to do just a lot of internal organizational reflection, but it's also a process that they don't have to work through alone. We are here to walk people through all of this. So they're never alone in terms of making the decision. All of that again is part of what we offer to our member organization, and I think it's just critical for folks to think about what that looks like in terms of providing services and information online. Yeah.

Thanks. I appreciate you mentioning the concept of the name change and how re-envisioning a name can help reach men, but it doesn't have to be specifically about that. It can really be also a matter of thinking really broadly about those in one's community and how they can think in access services, so it doesn't need to be one group against another. It can be a way of really elevating visibility and services for everyone. Emiliano, can you think of any other examples of a program that you've seen and maybe worked with, maybe they've really stepped back and re-envisioned how they provided services to male survivors and what do they do to get there and how male survivors responded?
	
I definitely want to give love to say here in Austin, that's where I got my start as a volunteer and as a victim advocate, so I definitely wanna show them some love on this podcast in terms of as a model program in terms of... I encourage everyone to explore their website and to get a really good sense of the kind of services that they're providing, because I think for such a large metropolitan area, Austin, Texas is the capital of the state and they're one of the most prominent, one of the largest membership organizations here at TAASA, and so they're providing phenomenal services and they really have some really innovative... They're doing some really innovative work in outreach and education services, especially when it comes to support groups.

They have enough interest. They're a really great example of providing culturally-specific and language-accessible services, and so there's a large deaf and hard of hearing community here, and they provide those services to survivors, to male survivors. They have groups available in Spanish, so those are some of the kinds of examples that really come to mind in terms of really looking at your population and identifying the needs and it is also an issue of resources. CASFV, The Center Against Sexual and Family Violence is another example of... They're really at the cusp of really figuring out what that looks like.

And they have predominantly Latino... They serve a predominantly Latino community and they are on the border between Texas and Juarez, and so they serve a lot of immigrants, and they provide a lot of services in Spanish, and a lot of their services are culturally specific to that community, and to that very unique geographic area of the state because unfortunately, the closest rape crisis center is hundreds of miles away, and they serve a large population, and so again, they're thinking really creatively about what does that look like, what is the outreach? What does the services look like? They've done a really great job of recruiting and maintaining male advocates, and not just... But a diverse group of male advocates. I think that's important to one of the things we haven't talked about was just recruiting a diverse group of male advocates that look like your community, and CASFV has done a fantastic job of really being intentional and thoughtful about the type of men, old or young or...

Men from all different types of backgrounds and experiences, sexual orientation. I think all of those things are critical when you're trying to reach a particular community, and so they're doing some really great work with the LGBTQ community and male survivors in that community, and so in terms of their outreach and their education, the services that they're providing, who's providing those services? And then on top of providing those services to folks who are undocumented, who are Spanish speaking, so we're talking about three layers of different types of experiences that they come to the center with. And so I think the centers could have become different, more different. I will use those two examples, but there's a handful of Texas rape crisis centers that have taken a hard, honest look at the gaps and services for male survivors of sexual violence.

And I think that's so important is that we just reflect and have honest conversations internally as an organization about the services that we're providing to male survivors, and they don't have to do that alone. 

Thanks Emiliano. Finally, I just, I wonder if you could talk with us a little bit about how you talk with advocates who may have in their lives been victimized by men and have that lived experience or maybe bringing that to their work with survivors, how do you talk with advocates who've had those experiences about vicarious trauma that comes up in providing services to men?

Yeah, to be honest, I know this situation really well as a survivor of male violence and as a victim advocate. This particular question is very personal for me in terms of my experience of men's violence. That really brought me to this work. It was because of my experiences of men's violence, of being a survivor, that ultimately led me to this work. When I first started as a volunteer and as a victim advocate, I was really reluctant to see men just as allies. I sort of struggle seeing men primarily as offenders, as perpetrators of violence and abuse. I even being identifying as a man, I was reluctant to work with other... Especially with adult me. I had no problem working with boys. I started as a volunteer children's advocate and that's how I came into the work as a children's advocate. So my work with boys felt safe. I was really comfortable doing that work because I recognized my experiences through them in a lot of ways as survivors, so I was really comfortable with working with boys.

When it came to adult men, when it came to taking hotline calls from adult men, when it came to engaging adults in the community, adult men in the community or adult men who are clients or who are survivors, it was much harder for me to forget my experiences of violence at the hands of men who looked a lot like those men. It took me a long time and a lot of support from my mentors, from women and to really work through those feelings, the feelings of pain and reluctance and mistrust that I had of men and only because of their lived experiences, 'cause they have worked through their own vicarious trauma, and so without their guidance, I don't think I would be able to do this, the work that I do today because I really had to overcome the feelings that were wrapped up with my own trauma.

And that was a long, difficult process, and I was reluctant to get it started. [chuckle] It is really was just like, "Why do I care? I'm happy just working with female-identified folks and with children, I don't need to work with men." But I think as I work through those feelings and as I began to experience men, all kinds of men, both men as survivors and men who were perpetrators because when you're at a center, you're gonna get calls from both, and so as I acquired that experience as I experienced... Had those encounters, I think I began to change my attitude and they begin to work through my feelings in a very public and private way. It is so important.

I'm grateful for the experience of... Because I can help folks work through that as well, so now I'm in the position that the women who mentored me really early on as a victim advocate, now I'm in a position to provide that same kind of support and encouragement and show that kind of empathy to victim advocates who are experiencing the same sort of trauma from working with menI can't tell you how grateful that I had such an amazing supervisor at Safe when I first started because it really made a difference because I could walk into our office and talk about what was coming up for me, what I was experienced from doing the work, and that was so important to be able to have that kind of support from both my supervisor and from the organization.

And where they made self-care a priority, and they still do. And I think that's one of the things that I really have prioritized, that I encourage victim advocates to prioritize in their own life. 

A lot of our anxiety around providing services, is because we don't feel like we have enough information, we don't have enough training, we don't have enough... We don't even have the capacity. So I think it's really important that you just check in with folks all the time. I think that's what helped me work through all of this, was that I was not working through it alone, that I knew that there were other victim advocates that were working through their own trauma, their own experiences of sexual violence, their own experiences of domestic violence, their own experiences of child sexual abuse. And unfortunately, to this day, I continue to take account of that and most victim advocates come to the work because they've been impacted personally by the issue of sexual violence in some way.

And I'll use a good... I'll use an example of that. I didn't realize watching a teacher on Hulu, was gonna bring up so much for me, and I encourage folks to check out the series, I would provide a trigger warning that it's about a young man who is sexually abused by his teacher, and so... But as I was watching the series, I kept on... It reminded me a lot of things or things that I experienced and witnessed when I was a boy in high school, and is also reminding me a lot of... It triggered a lot of folks that I was engaging with online, on social media, around the series, and I think again, we don't realize... You don't know when vicarious trauma is gonna come up for you, it could be a smell, it could be a sound, it could be a show, and I think it's really important, because healing work is not just, "I'm over and done with." That trauma... What we understand of trauma is that it lives in our body.

And it's gonna continuously come up, we're gonna be triggered in some way, and so I know that I have to... This has been ongoing for me, so that's why I really appreciate this question because I think it's important for us to acknowledge and to appreciate the journey that we're on, and that you are not alone, regardless of where you are on that journey, it is so important to just take that step of acknowledging that you're living with vicarious trauma and that you take care of yourself and I wish I had, to be honest, I wish I had done a better job of taking care of myself. And after decades of doing this, of doing victim advocacy, I was toast, because I didn't take better care of myself.

And so if you're a victim advocate and you're listening to this podcast, I really encourage you to take care of yourself, self-care is so critical, and it's so important for you to do the healing work and to know that you're not alone and that your organization should be the source of healing for you, it should be, and we should expect our organizations to support us as we work through that healing process. So know that you're not alone, and that there are a lot of folks, including me, that are ready to support you and encourage you, as you're working through that process. And I know that, because I experienced that. And so I feel like it's really important for folks that have done the work, to support folks who are just getting started in this work, so that you can do this work long-term, a lot longer than I did, and so, yeah, it's so important. And I hope that folks... I hope folks found that helpful.

Yeah, Emiliano, thank you so much for that offering, and I really appreciate you joining us today and getting into so much of your personal and professional experience, and as it turns out, how those two connect. So thank you so much. Emiliano, will be back to talk about a project he worked on, that engaged male survivors to tell their stories and lessons that he learned from that project. We also invite listeners to learn more about working with male survivors, by checking out the links in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource On the Go. For more resources and information about understanding, responding to and preventing sexual assault, visit our website at www.nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@nsvrc.org.