About Us

Mission

The Men's Resource Center of West Michigan is dedicated to helping men discover, develop, and celebrate their humanity. We seek to free men of the rigid male training that erodes their lives and relationships. Our goal is to help men re-define and revision their masculinity to experience full humanity and to establish respectful lives. We seek to provide awareness and growth through counseling, consultation, education, advocacy, and experiential workshops. We invite the support of women in this venture and avoid any principle or activity that would undermine or subjugate women. Our vision is men joining together to create a caring, strong, and safe community.

Values

1. We value the humanity of men. We therefore seek to develop, encourage, and celebrate a healthy and holistic masculinity.
2. We value men's diverse capacities, abilities, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation; we, therefore, celebrate differences as well as similarities among men.
3. We value egalitarian and respectful relationships with women. Therefore, we seek to avoid activities that subjugate or marginalize women.
4. We value men's capacity for nurturing and care-taking; therefore, we encourage these behaviors in men's relationships with women, children, other men, and the environment.
5. We value growth and change; therefore, we promote re-visioning masculinity.
6. We value education and community awareness; therefore our activities include educational and community awareness projects such as writing, speaking, workshops, and consultation.
7. We value personal growth and change, and therefore seek to provide and promote individual and group therapy, forums for exchange of ideas, and experiential workshops.
8. We value mental health and other services for men. Therefore, we advocate for quality care in our community and elsewhere.

Beliefs

1. Males are born with the capacity for sensitivity, nurturing, compassion, and intimacy as well as attributes more typically associated with masculinity.
2. Traditional male socialization encourages males to deny their softer human characteristics, while encouraging harder traits such as toughness, dominance, aggression, and competitiveness.
3. We do not choose our sexual orientation. Sexuality exists on a continuum.
4. Males experience specific health, relationship, and personal problems that are a direct result of male socialization.
5. Males in intimate relationships are capable of having egalitarian, mutually respectful, emotionally intimate relationships void of control, abuse, and violence.
6. Males are capable of being more than economic providers and physical protectors in families: male partners and fathers need to be intimate, supportive and engaged with their families.
7. There are non-violent, non-abusive, and non-controlling means of solving problems and conflicts.
8. Individuals, relationships, families, institutions, and the community at large need to change with respect to gender roles.
9. Raising boys more humanely will mitigate the destructiveness of male socialization and contribute to a more respectful and egalitarian society.

Objectives

1. Develop community awareness about men's issues and how constrictive gender training and the male role create problems for men in relating to self, others, and their environment.
2. Whether a man is straight, gay, or bisexual we strive to understand his particular sexual orientation and attendant relationship dynamics while helping him develop a sexual life that is fulfilling, sacred and satisfying. 
3. Provide an opportunity for men to grow in a way that fosters mutual respect and intimacy in relationships, self awareness, empathy for others, as well as spiritual growth.
4. Neutralize gender conflicts through understanding, respecting, and valuing the contributions of each gender.
5. Improve how families, schools, churches and communities raise boys to become men.
6. Educate professionals working with males to improve services, to foster the welfare of males and to enhance their relationships.
7. Enable men to be intimate partners and fathers in terms of increased emotional connection and involvement.
8. Assist men in being accountable and respectful to others and the environment in their endeavors.