The Family Survival Trust is a charity registered in the UK, established in order to support and offer counselling for members of abusive cults, religions, and similar organisations, and their families members. It evolved out of the work of FAIR, Britain's main "anti-cult" group in November 2007.
History
The Family Survival Trust evolved from FAIR Britain's first "anti-cult" group. FAIR was founded in 1976 by Paul Rose, as a support group for friends and relatives of "cult" members, with an early focus on the Unification Church, although in the years following this focus expanded to include other new religious movements or what it referred to as "cults". In the late 1970s, it started to publish FAIR News to provide information and reports on new religious movements. FST is a member of FECRIS.
Family, Action, Information, Rescue
Family, Action, Information, Rescue was originally set up a network of regional branches, and also worked closely with evangelical groups, despite not describing itself as non-religious in outlook. Its membership includes many committed Christians. It consistently objected to the "anti-cult" label and "repeatedly pointed out that it not anti-religious, but practices detrimental to the well-being of the individual". It also publicly disapproved of activities like "Moonie bashing". However, NRM scholar George D. Chryssides pointed out at the time that "lthough FAIR officials the term 'anti-cult', FAIR's main strategy seems designed to hamper the progress of NRMs in a variety of ways." Yet Elizabeth Arweck adds that FAIR's "commitment to raise cult awareness was tempered by repeated warnings against witchhunts". The organisation named itself as "Family, Action, Information, Resource" in order to denote a concern "more with the place of these cults in public life and governments than with the issues of recruitment and brainwashing, although these remain important." FAIR was initially perceived as supporting "deprogramming", but then publicly distanced itself from it, citing such reasons as high failure rates, damage to families and civil liberty issues. In 1985, FAIR chairman Casey McMann said that FAIR neither recommended nor supported coercivedeprogramming and disapproved of those practising it, considering "coercive deprogramming a money-making racket which encouraged preying on the misery of families with cult involvement." FAIR's applications for government funding were not successful; such funding instead gone toINFORM, set up in 1988 by the sociologist Eileen Barker, with the support of Britain's mainstream churches. Relations between FAIR and INFORM have at times been strained, with FAIR accusing INFORM of being too soft on cults. FAIR' chairman Tom Sackville as MP and Home Office minister abolished government funding for the INFORM in 1997 but funds was reinstated in 2000. In 1987, an ex-FAIR committee member, Cyril Vosper, was convicted in Munich on charges of kidnapping and causing bodily harm to German Scientologist Barbara Schwarz in the course of a deprogramming attempt.
Cultists Anonymous
In 1985 ex-members of FAIR who believed that the group had become too moderate created a splinter group called Cultists Anonymous. The hardliner Cultists Anonymous group was short-lived and rejoined FAIR in 1991.
Activities
The Family Survival Trust provides a confidential helpline for individuals and families effect by cult involvement and organizes national conferences
