Miessakit Association is a non-governmental expert organization established to support the mental, psychological and social growth of men in Finland. The organization complements the existing crisis services available for men and promotes nonviolent family life. Miessakit works as a national level link for men's groups with equal objectives and maintains international contacts in its field.
Contents
Men's groups
The objective of the Miesryhmät - men's group activities is to gather together men all around the country into small peer groups for discussing issues on being a man and using each other as mirrors to find material for personal growth. Experience based on several years of development and background work shows that men's group activities can also serve as an important preventive operational model in health care and social politics. In these groups the Finnish man, traditionally hiding his problems can find new courage and self-confidence to be accepted as a man with all a man's problems and uncertainties. This will also lower the threshold for looking for support and treatment so that help will be sought for before the eventual crisis or illness has developed to a less easily treatable stage. On the other hand, men's groups will offer support in minor everyday issues and problems as well. This will prevent the piling up of unsolved matters.
Support in giving up intimate partner violence
Lyömätön Linja service helps men who have used physical or mental violence against their intimate partners. In individual work the objective is to help the customer to give up using violence. Psychotherapeutic work offers the opportunity to find connections between emotional life and behavior that are relevant to the usage of violence. The basic principle is that the customer is willing to work to get rid of violent behavior.
Father support
The objective of Isyyden Tueksi – father support activities is to develop and carry out and build training and structures for supporting fatherhood. These activities can help to create opportunities for men to participate in fathers' peer support groups in connection with civic childbirth training or voluntary activities. On the other hand, staff from communities and other service providers will be able to specialize in fatherhood support. Father training activities meet the demand emerging from the increased opportunities for men to participate in childbirth and early childhood education and the fact that modern family training needs to take into account the special characteristics of the father as an important part of the family entity.
Support for immigrant men
The objective of Vieraasta Veljeksi - support for immigrant men activities is to enforce the integration of immigrants by creating new forms of intercommunication and co-operation between immigrant men and native Finnish men, also integrating the incumbent population to our changed society. So far, activities to support immigrants with focus on men have been very scarce in Finland. Vieraasta Veljeksi has met this shortcoming by building an operational model in which two-way integration is put into practice with the help of support person activities, learning groups, leisure activities and advocacy work.
Competence Center for Working with Men
Miestyön Osaamiskeskus – competence center for working with men is a specialized development and training unit conducting research and development in the field of working with men and enforcing the competence of the various operators in this field. The operation is based on research on working with men and male specificity and communicating the achieved understanding by giving training, seminars and lectures. The objective of the competence center is to enforce the competence of the social, health care, educational and youth work sectors in working with men. This is done by carrying out training and development projects together with various co-operative networks. Training and development are seamlessly linked together at the competence center. Experts and professionals from various fields examine existing knowledge in co-operative processes, thus producing competence that can be applied in practice.
Divorce crisis support
Erosta Elossa is a nationwide service that supports and guides men in dealing with divorce issues. Men are given individual and personal discussions support, counseling and peer support in various questions that arise when a relationship is under threat, in the actual divorce process and in the time after the divorce. One central objective is to secure the continuation of the relationship between the child and the father also after the divorce. Erosta Elossa offers individual discussion support and counseling by email and telephone. Erosta Elossa gathers together and arranges men's divorce groups nationwide. Being part of a professionally led peer group and listening to other men's experiences helps in analyzing one's own divorce process. The group deals with feelings related to divorce and parenting and meeting issues.
Social advocacy
The objective of the organization's social advocacy activities is to promote the male point of view in public discussion both by taking stands and by raising issues regarded as important. Miessakit participates in public debate in publications and at events and occasions willing to discuss questions that are considered focal to the organization's mission. By expressing its opinions and issuing statements Miessakit aims to generate discussion and by doing so to influence.
Further information
Miessakit home page