What We Do
Support for Former Members
There are many ways in which our friends at the Olive Leaf Network may be able to support you.
Some people appreciate simply having an understanding friend to talk through challenges, and others need more significant support like emergency accommodation or legal advice. The Olive Leaf Network primarily provides signposting support – we do not offer legal advice, accommodation, counselling or financial support ourselves. However, we can recommend and connect you to wider avenues of support in these areas and many others that are relevant to your particular situation.
Some of those who contact us are not yet ready to leave their group or may never do so, but they want support for thinking through their options. Others may have left a high-demand religious group many years ago, but find themselves in later years wanting to connect with others who understand the particular challenges faced by former members of such groups.
Wherever you are at with your journey, we would love to hear from you.
How We Can Help You
We connect former members of high-demand religious groups, especially the PBCC (Exclusive Brethren), with support and signposting communication that aids them in their journey into a different life.
Those who leave a high-demand religious group may face a wide range of needs and challenges. Through our network, we do our best to connect them with people or organisations to help with their particular needs. Often our role is more about connecting leavers with the right support, rather than providing that support ourselves.
Support for leavers can take many different forms:
- Friendship: emails, phone calls, social media, and even old-school letters; someone to bounce ideas off or share an occasional cup of tea or coffee.
- Short or Medium-Term accommodation: including emergency accommodation, support to secure rental accommodation, transport, etc.
- Financial Support and Advice: including budgeting tips and support to connect with social services if required.
- Employment: support to create a CV/resume, advice for increasing employability, and assistance in transitioning workplaces.
- Mental/Emotional: connecting leavers to counselling/psychology services, including specialist support for trauma, grief, sexual abuse, or alcohol dependency.
- Spiritual: being a sounding board for spiritual or religious questions, and connecting leavers to new churches or faith communities if desired.
- Community/Relational: guidance on how to relate to non-members, build safe friendships and romantic relationships, and create a new sense of community.
Due to the isolation experienced after leaving a high-demand religious community, and/or experiencing shunning or excommunication, former members may feel they have no-one available to ‘be in their corner’ or to provide social support for them. The Olive Leaf Network seeks to be available to stand in this gap if there is a need for this kind of support.
Examples of these occasions could be:
- Physically going with a former member to situations where they might otherwise feel alone or vulnerable, such as legal appointments, receiving visits from group elders or other current members, counselling, social service or healthcare appointments, or burial services.
- Providing written advocacy such as employment or accommodation references, statements in legal cases, or support in communication with current members.
It is important for the histories and experiences of former members of high-demand religious groups to be heard. The Olive Leaf Network educates wider society and raises awareness about what it is like to experience excommunication or disaffiliation from a high-demand religious sect.
We are happy to speak with anyone who wants to know more about our experiences, whether you are a student working on a project, a journalist researching an article, or an academic looking for survey participants.
Special Note:
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care is currently seeking testimony from survivors of abuse from within faith-based organisations in New Zealand, specifically including groups they publicly termed ‘closed,’ which were the PBCC (Exclusive Brethren), Gloriavale and the Jehovah Witnesses. We strongly encourage leavers and religious abuse survivors to contact the commission to share their experiences.
Website: https://www.abuseincare.org.nz/
Email: contact@abuseincare.org.nz
Phone: 0800 222 727 (Weekdays 8:30am – 4:30pm)
If you have any questions about the scope of the inquiry and whether your experiences are relevant, you are welcome to call the commission to clarify this; you will find commission staff helpful, compassionate and supportive. You are also welcome to contact us with any queries regarding making a submission.
Get In Touch
We’re here to help! Please send us a message using this form, or go to our contact page for more ways to get in touch.
Please be reassured that all communication with the Olive Leaf Network will be held in strict confidence. Your personal information will only be shared with others beyond our network with your permission, unless you or others are in danger, in which case we will inform relevant authorities.
