Ivan Clarke was nine years old when he was taken from his mum. Soon after, he was dropped into the clutches of a pedophile.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe raped and tortured me, fed me ethanol and drugs, and he did that to me and a number of other children in the neighbourhood, his own children included,\u201d Mr Clarke reveals.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I then moved on to another family who I call my family now. My mum died when we were in care, my dad died before we went into care, so I had a lot of trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Clarke admits to journeying through life, fuelled by drugs and alcohol, with a really broken view of himself and the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lot of anger issues, and I met a lady here in Sydney. She fell pregnant to me. We have a daughter together. Sadly, she passed away a couple of years ago, but I took her as a hostage in the relationship and caused her great trauma as a result of my trauma,\u201d Mr Clarke said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know enough about love to know how to be in love. And I didn\u2019t know enough about relationships to be in one. I didn\u2019t know enough about being a parent to be a parent, and I kind of seduced her into believing that I was more capable than what I really was and sadly, I caused her great harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a perpetrator of domestic violence, controlling as a result of my own experiences of trauma. And yeah, I wasn\u2019t a nice person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Clarke did time in jail for resisting arrest, assaulting police and abusive language, and while his domestic violence wasn\u2019t physical, it was just as destructive.<\/p>\n
Now, the Barkinji\/Malyangappa man has poured that lifetime of lived experience, academic qualification, and frontline counselling work into the blueprint behind a groundbreaking proposal to break the cycle of family violence.<\/p>\n
\u2018Safer men \u2013 Safer families\u2019 <\/p>\n
Teaming up with Claude Robinson, the manager of a transition house in Sydney called Rainbow Lodge, and former police officer and criminologist Dr Vince Hurley, Mr Clarke is backing a state government proposal called Safer Men-Safer Families. <\/p>\n
The initiative recognises that men\u2019s behaviour is at the centre of domestic violence, \u201cso that\u2019s got to be the solution\u201d, Mr Robinson says.<\/p>\n
The plan \u2013 which needs a $6 million investment from the New South Wales Government \u2013 flips the current response to domestic violence on its head. <\/p>\n
Under existing responses, families are routinely forced to flee their homes while perpetrators remain. <\/p>\n
The proposed initiative aims to keep mothers and children safely in their family home, while the male perpetrator is removed under court direction to a 24\/7 managed residential facility for assessment and intensive rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
The program will operate in direct partnership with leading women\u2019s domestic violence service WAGEC (Women\u2019s and Girls\u2019 Emergency Centre) to ensure mothers and children receive concurrent support.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently the system is you either go into a women\u2019s refuge or a men\u2019s program, and they\u2019re nearly in competition,\u201d Mr Robinson explains. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur idea is that we would partner with WAGEC \u2026 So when we\u2019re going to work with the men, at the same time, they would go and work with mum and the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just saw this cause and effect and went, \u2018We just need to do something about it,\u2019\u201d Mr Robinson adds. \u201cWe\u2019re just building more and more refuges for women and families to escape, and what we\u2019re doing is not working. It\u2019s got to be something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicole Yade, CEO of WAGEC, says the initiative complements crucial frontline support for victim-survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnding domestic and family violence requires all of us to be part of the solution,\u201d Ms Yade says. \u201cOur focus will always be on continuing the urgent work of supporting women and children, but we recognise that men must also be part of the change.<\/p>\n
\u201cSafer Men Safer Families is about trying new approaches that encourage men to take accountability, reflect on their behaviour and change. This complements our work at WAGEC and is an important step towards safer families and a safer society.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I can\u2019t be accused of being a bleeding heart\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a solution strongly backed by former NSW Police homicide detective Gary Jubelin, who spent over 34 years investigating Australia\u2019s most horrific crimes before hosting the I Catch Killers podcast. <\/p>\n
Having spent decades coming in at the \u201ctail end\u201d of violent crimes after victims were already dead, Jubelin says the system needs an urgent overhaul focused on intervention rather than endless, reactive punishment.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy view should carry a little bit of weight in that I can\u2019t be accused of being a bleeding heart,\u201d Mr Jubelin says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was a cop for a long, long time. I\u2019m quite happy putting away the bad guys. But what\u2019s the purpose of putting them away? Most people that we put in jail are going to be released at some point in time. It\u2019s in everyone\u2019s interest to make sure that when they are released, if possible, they\u2019re better people than when they went in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent some time in prisons speaking to the inmates, speaking to people that have been in there for domestic violence situations. And they say, we don\u2019t get any counselling in there. Invariably we take them from the family home, we get put in custody, and then we might be sharing the cell of someone in there that\u2019s also in there for the same thing. So it\u2019s two blokes talking about how angry they are and how frustrated they are \u2026 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a recipe for success upon their release.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about getting hard on crime. It\u2019s getting smart on crime. If we get smart on crime, we reduce crime. If we reduce crime, there\u2019s less victims. Surely no one can argue the logic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Jubelin also points out the immense logic behind keeping families safe in their own homes while court-bailing offenders into managed facilities through proposals like Safer Men-Safer Families.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not disrupting the family, the costs of disrupting the family \u2026 the ideal situation would be that the family, the victims of domestic violence, whether that be the wife, partner, children, are able to stay in their own location or stay in their home, not break ties, not move away from their schools, not being able to attend sporting events and give the family some stability,\u201d Mr Jubelin says. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf men are the problem in domestic violence, let\u2019s try and address that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
What made him violent<\/p>\n
Mr Clarke now understands that his own domestic abuse was fuelled by that exact blend of fear, addiction, and unaddressed pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was controlling and manipulative, I was selfish, I was very fearful,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was younger than me by six years and I took advantage of that age difference as well. I manipulated things and yeah, took advantage \u2026 It was fear motivated. At the same time, I also wanted her to dearly love me \u2026 But that faded ultimately because she didn\u2019t trust me and I was so broken.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hid in drugs and alcohol and violence and violence external to our relationship. And yeah, a lot of isolation with that, of course, which meant that I was abandoning her and my daughter \u2026 I didn\u2019t know at the time that that was all as a result of my own experiences of trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2000, Mr Clarke was living on the NSW north coast as everything in his life slowly unravelled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided that I was going to take my own life because I could not find a place of balance. I couldn\u2019t find any wellness, I couldn\u2019t find any purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
An intervention landed him in Sydney\u2019s We Help Ourselves rehabilitation program. Over a year spent in treatment, halfway houses, and transition homes, Mr Clarke finally disclosed the child sexual abuse he had suffered and began professional counselling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came to realise that there were a whole lot of behaviours that came about as a result of being treated in the way that I was treated by the pedophile. But also, there was a whole lot of pain and heartache as a result of my removal from my mum, not having my dad in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Driven to understand the psychology behind his actions, Mr Clarke qualified as a counsellor, studying alcohol and other drugs, trauma, grief, loss, and social and emotional wellbeing. <\/p>\n
He began working with Stolen Generation survivors \u2013 particularly Kinchela boys\u2019 home survivors \u2013 where he saw a clear, devastating pattern.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just saw all these traumas \u2026 being removed from their family, and then 90 per cent of them ended up in jail with drugs and alcohol issues. It was all too much of a parallel to ignore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Invited by the Education Centre Against Violence to co-design programs, Clarke helped create Strong Aboriginal Men, taking it to over 30 communities across NSW.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough my own experience, I could look through the lens of those men and understand that they weren\u2019t bad men, they were men with trauma \u2026 I was able to relate to their experiences as a result of my own experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Time to try something new<\/p>\n
Mr Clarke doesn\u2019t claim to have all the answers. And he is careful not to preach, but calls for a fundamental shift in how society tackles family violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be mindful here, because I have a tendency not to tell women how to do things, because I think as a man telling a woman how they should do things, it leaves the door open to a misogynistic perspective or behaviour or an attitude,\u201d Mr Clarke says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m mindful not to tell women, but I would invite a conversation that says, I think we need to look at domestic violence really differently, because for the years I\u2019ve worked in the field of men who use violence, one of the things I\u2019ve observed is that there is an over-representation of women telling men how to address the issue of domestic violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I find that to be quite a deterrent for men to want to engage in the process, to learn how to change and to address. I think domestic violence and violence in general is a men\u2019s issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claude Robinson agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is the men, so that\u2019s got to be the solution. What we\u2019re doing now is not working,\u201d Mr Robinson says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis program is so innovative; there is no other program of its kind in Australia. We believe that this model could be rolled out across NSW and Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur long-term goal is to have 10 Safer Men-Safer Families centres across NSW in geographical areas linked to courts and police districts, with at least three being specialist First Nations centres,\u201d Mr Robinson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could provide support to keep 500 families a year in their homes and communities, who are intensely working with 500 male users of violence and control to make intergenerational impact on family domestic violence in NSW.\u201d<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s sector leaders agree that tackling male behaviour is vital to keeping women and children safe in their homes.<\/p>\n
NSW anti-domestic violence minister Jodie Harrison told news.com.au: \u201cBoth myself and the Department of Communities and Justice have met with Rainbow Lodge regarding their proposal\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI commend the important work they are doing in the community and would encourage them to apply when appropriate funding opportunities are identified\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ivan Clarke was nine years old when he was taken from his mum. 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