Gryffyn Projects and The Keep Being Here Project :Supporting trauma and abuse victims.

Gryffyn Projects .

Gryffyn Projects is set up to directly support Survivors of Trauma. We will specialise in helping children and adult survivors of Child abuse and related trauma. We are asking the community to help us continue our work to apply a new and life changing approach to these issues.
We have three main goals:
First ,to ensure that protection of children and teenagers is enhanced and strengthened.
Second ,To match recovering victims/ survivors with life changing help and support, and use lived experience to improve delivery of that support.
And Third ,is advocating at government level for more justice oriented policies and outcomes.

What we are about is compassion and understanding for trauma sufferers and the long term mental health impacts they feel.
Because of my lived experience , I know where the gaps in support are and how to fill them. The focus will be on creating long term “roadmaps” out of trauma and building specialist teams of professionals , counsellors and carers to support that. We will specialise in one on one mentoring across all facets of the pathway out of traumatic experiences.
Most importantly I know how to come back from it and I want to share my knowledge of recovery and rebuilding and kick start the healing process for others.
Gryffyn is unique because we are built on lived experience .We are run by survivors, for survivors.

I want to acknowledge that this is a difficult subject, and solutions exist, but they can be hard to reach. This funding will make those solutions accessible and allow us to expand the programs we do now and directly support and assist trauma affected people to rebuild, and shape their own recovery.
. Since the article below was published in early October I have been contacted , and been able to help over 200 people make a start on their own recovery and that support is ongoing.

I can offer a personal and inspiring viewpoint because I’ve charted a pathway out of the huge damage done to my life,  and gradually put myself back together. My story is one of optimism, because I kept myself here , but the right support at the right time was almost impossible to find.
I want to change that and Gryffyn Projects is the framework for that. Through these funds we can kickstart the healing process for anyone who needs it.. I now have good support around me both professionally and personally and I want to replicate that for others.

All funds raised will be used to expand, create and implement programs that directly and intensively support victims of abuse and others experiencing trauma, and if appropriate their families. In my current experience this will include direct targeted counselling, one on one mentoring, trauma coaching, accessing psychology , accessing structured programs, addiction recovery , guiding through the legal and disclosure process, and minimising suicide risk.
I want to extend the work I do now consulting with Government on Mental Health Policy, and advising at Universities on trauma psychology. I also run a CPTSD group for men, and advocate for and support 25 other victims from across Australia .(and partly because of the article below , this is growing daily. )
I recently completed a high profile, 3 year long jury trial . There were 12 of us who gave evidence and more in the wings and we all had similar awful stories. The church still actively fights these cases.
At the courts request, I took time to write a detailed Victim Impact Statement because I wanted people to know and understand .
You can read that statement in full at the end of this page , or go here. https://www.facebook.com/GryffynProjects/

The Royal Commission 2016, brought forward almost 10,000 people who made submissions , of which I was one. 

I want to give back now and share what I know about recovery. It’s part of my own healing too.
As I continue that recovery , I want to make sure that what happened to me wont happen to any other kid. Supporting this Project is a huge part of that.

Cam and Gryffyn Projects.
@gryffynprojects (on Facebook)

My Victim Impact Statement. August 2021.

To understand the impact these assaults have had on my life, you have go back to who I was, and who I was becoming before they happened.
I was a smart kid: perceptive , intelligent , full of life and although my childhood had some difficulty, I was sure of myself. I was academically strong, I was ambitious, socially optimistic and hopeful. As I entered high school I was excited to embrace my adolescence and the huge potential of my future life.

The first impacts of the abuse showed up soon after the first assaults. Almost overnight my optimism vanished. I began to withdraw and isolate from both family and friends, my grades began to tank, I stopped sleeping and I suddenly couldn’t engage with things I loved. Worse than that I got hit with my first serious bout of anxiety. For a year I couldn’t swallow properly, sometimes I couldn’t breathe and I became almost immobilised by a constant fear. It was fear of being expelled, of my parents finding out what was happening, and fear of the next assault. I began to feel intense shame that I had done something to warrant the attention I was getting. The words and threats he had said about God, punishment and expulsion were stuck in my head and I had begun to believe parts of it. Added to that my fight or flight responses were haywire and my adrenal system so confused that by the end of year 8 I was exhausted. By the end of year 9 I would be a broken person. Already I had lost the crucial early teenage years, time when I should have been building my identity , creating my values or simply just enjoying life like a normal teenager. I had no safe place. He took it.
I didn’t know it then but a lot of these things would stay with me for my whole life. The loss of foundation, the fundamental breach of trust and the heightened fear of being close to anyone.
Co existing with that was anxiety, trauma based depression and the loneliness that came from not being able to share my story.
It’s easy now to look at it through adult eyes and rationalise the setting and behaviour, especially in a court room, the most adult of settings but I was just a scared kid: a child really. I just wanted to learn music. That feeling of how horrified and alone I was after school on those assault days will never leave me.
As I was was writing this I struggled to know where to start because the damage is everywhere. I have times when I’m high functioning, even thriving and I relish those times, but just below the surface there is disfunction, isolation and a shattered life.
I’d like to share with the court some personal experiences that describe these impacts and the affect on me and my relationships.

My history with addiction started when I was about 18. I began drinking and didn’t stop for a year, messing up my HSC and hating myself for it. I was overwhelmed with the flashbacks that came every night and I just needed them to stop. I was waking up with the feeling of being held down, like something heavy on my chest and with restricted breathing. When I drunk enough it would be less.
Later on in my 20s and 30s I used alcohol and increasingly drugs to normalise both my personal and professional relationships. I didn’t want to be addicted but I needed to manage the anxiety that arrived every time I was faced with intimacy or a new relationship. I was trying and craving to create safe place just so I could be present with the people I loved.
Until recently, my relationships rarely lasted beyond a few months. Day to day I found it really difficult to find fulfilment and commitment and I resisted trust. I never knew when or how to explain my impossible history to anyone and for years, every time I was intimate with someone I would have to stop, check myself and remove all thoughts of the assaults and the feeling of his hands on me. Deeply affecting is that my first “ sexual “ experiences, strong inverted commas, were assaults perpetrated violently. The shame and confusion of that never quite leaves you.
I could never build a strong bond with someone. He took that enjoyment away from me.

In my late 30s I began the process of getting a handle on my disorders and addictions. I felt like he won every time i replaced myself with substances, plus I had a daughter now and I wanted what happened to me to never impact her.

By then, I was on my 3rd suicide attempt and had ended up in hospital. I started to really look at and understand the full impacts of the abuse. I want to explain that I always want to keep being here and optimism is a very strong driver for me but sometimes I would simply get overwhelmed with the depression and darkness. I never wanted to kill all of myself just the part that housed the trauma of the abuse.. Because the abuse happened at such a young and formative age I lost crucial parts of myself. They were parts I needed because they linked to my identity and my self worth. If there were one thing I wish he hadn’t taken from me it would be this.

The more abstract impacts are harder to define but just as profound.
One of the first I felt was the loss of my spiritual life. As a sensitive, deep thinking kid I was pretty vulnerable. I went to him as a mentor and for guidance. I don’t understand it now but back then my version of God was important to me, but I had started to question a faith handed down to me by my parents. As the abuse continued I became deeply affected by the hypocrisy of it. I couldn’t believe in God anymore because the contradiction was too great and Irrationally I grieved that loss. What he said to me during the abuse did a lot of damage. He knew I would believe those “man of God” words and he manipulated that.
I had a right to choose my spirituality and the way I expressed religion and he removed that right.

My parents are horrified they put me in that situation.They trusted a priest and are appalled that they encouraged me to learn music with him. It’s been so challenging for them and they have essentially become secondary victims of his actions. I’m now estranged from the family I grew up with. The abuse radiated out and destroyed those relationships and I am always aware that I will never get that time back.
The break down of these close connections is important because it added to my isolation. Without strong support networks, i start drowning and this has big impacts on my ability to work. I love my job and I love working but I’ve always had to choose between managing my mental health and managing my working life. At times this has literally been the choice between keeping being here and earning money. For my daughter and increasingly for myself I will always choose to be here but I would like to recognise the cost. By age 40 I had become a financial non citizen, (bank managers words not mine) No house, no super, no credit rating* , no mortgage, no savings, no stability of income. I’ve worked really hard to change that in the past 10 years but I’m handicapped . Lack of education, borderline homelessness, not being able to afford therapy, the trigger of no safe place, all contribute to pretty devastating cycle. 4 times I’ve started Uni, and 4 times Ive got “unwell “and not been able to finish. Some very real damage has been done to my right to earn, but what is more deeply painful to me is the loss of potential. I could have done so much. I can only try and do this now and I’m driven to contribute and make up for lost time.

What I hope will be learnt from this trial is a greater accountability from the church and all institutions to the people they’ve harmed. They have no choice but to change how they do this. They have a chance for healing here as much as we do.
What he did to me at school took a huge part of me, maybe the most important part, but what he can’t do anymore is define how I live my life. I feel real relief that he and people like him, can’t do any more damage.
For me now, it’s only about how I come back from it and live with optimism , compassion and potential.

After 3 years and 30 years of fighting we received 26 of 28 guilty verdicts. An unprecedented 15 year sentence was handed down on December 10th 2021.
Cam now runs innovative trauma support organisation
@gryffynprojects and The Keep Being Here project.

Cam Griffin ©

Witness Impact Statement: December 10th. 2021.

Cameron is the founder of Gryffyn Projects : An innovative support organisation for people affected by trauma and abuse.

https://www.facebook.com/GryffynProjects/

TECHNICAL NOTES.
Price Waterhouse through their Pro Bono arm will manage our donations and handle accounting , finance and business mentoring.
Sprint Legal will be advising on structure and compliance,
DGR status pending.
Best practice and Trauma Awareness will be applied to everything we do.

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