Strong men protect children

When Bill Hogan was approached to be part of the Valley Men Choose Respect campaign, he readily agreed to help combat a problem he’s spent a career trying to help solve.

Part of Gov. Sean Parnell’s statewide Choose Respect effort, the Mat-Su campaign features a handful of local community leaders willing to share their personal messages to stop domestic violence in the Valley.

For Hogan, that means lending his experience as dean of the University of Alaska Anchorage College of Health. But his roots are here. He’s a former CEO of Life Quest (now known as Mat-Su Health Services), former commissioner for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and former director of Behavioral Health for the state.

“I’m a social worker by trade, and I was involved when the governor began developing the sexual assault and domestic violence initiative,” Hogan said.

That Alaska ranks No. 1 in the United States per capita for domestic violence is not acceptable, Hogan said.

While there are reported instances of both sexes assaulting and abusing each other, most of the violence is perpetrated by men. For many of those who exhibit violence in the home, it’s a matter of modeling behaviors learned from their fathers, Hogan said.

“I think a lot of it is that,” he said. “Then there’s another part of it that is personal responsibility and part of it is to teach people how to handle conflict without resorting to violence. Unfortunately, our rates are way too high. I feel like I have a responsibility as a community member (to speak out).”

That personal responsibility is key, Hogan said, because while those who experience domestic violence as children are more likely to abuse as adults, acting on those instincts is a choice.

“Men have a responsibility to look at alternatives rather than resorting to emotional or physical abuse,” he said. “You have to show respect, and it’s a choice. There’s a lot of work to do, but if men step up and own the problem, that increases the likelihood they’ll take responsibility to stop.”

Along with trying to break the cycle of abuse with kids, Choosing Respect also involves changing the “it’s-not-my-business” practice of ignoring domestic violence when it’s witnessed, Hogan said.

“It’s time for neighbors to speak up,” he said. “They’re not blind and they can hear what’s going on, for the most part.”

In a special Choose Respect column in today’s Frontiersman (see page A7), Hogan discusses how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) “effect multiple generations of people in Alaska and in the Mat-Su Borough. In all likelihood, ACEs may begin to explain why we have such high rates of abuse, assault, mental health and alcohol and drug problems — as well as chronic disease.”

— Greg Johnson