Youth-led co-design to prevent Family and Domestic Violence
Creating space for young people to unpack their own attitudes towards gender stereotypes and design primary prevention strategies
Exploring new approaches to primary prevention of gendered violence
The primary prevention of Family and Domestic Violence feels like a giant, indeterminate challenge. How do you work across a whole population to amplify positive cultures of masculinity? What can be done that is actually going to stop harm being inflicted on women and girls?
ThirdStory (then Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand) was awarded a grant by the Department of Communities WA to focus on this challenge of primary prevention. We started with certainty about the scale of the problem of gendered violence in this country: 1 in 3 women have experienced violence since the age of 15 and where on average one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner (Australian Bureau of Statistics). But we had far less certainty about which primary prevention approaches are most effective. We needed to be flexible and creative - and fortunately, the less prescriptive nature of the grant enabled us to work in this way.
Young people as agents of change
Rather than seeing youth as part of the problem, we looked to them to be the agents of change and to shape potential interventions. We recruited a design team of young men and women aged between 15 and 21. They let us know that they didn’t connect with ‘generic’ posters, ‘boring’ school presentations, and educational videos that ‘talk down’ to them.
As the young people shared their experiences, we were able to summarise how they work out their attitudes around gender. We understood four key patterns of influence:
Working it out together - conversations with peers, sharing and testing thoughts and ideas
Real talk - conversations with trusted adults about values, attitudes and behaviour
Reading the room - messages from wider culture about gender and/or violence
Taking inspiration - authentic, admired role models in real life or online
For our intervention, we focussed on the power of role models and how that could be communicated creatively. We collaborated with Perth design and digital consultancy Anthologie, Dav Tabeshfar, photographer Stef King, and filmmaker Dominic Pearce to launch “This is Manly”: a social media and poster campaign, a powerful hashtag, a positive prompt to explore all the ways there are to be a man. Together, we were awarded two Bronze Skulls at the Perth Advertising and Design Club (PADC) in the Social Campaign and Community Engagement categories.
“This is Manly aligns with our findings about campaigns and messaging that actually work for sexual and gender-based violence. Instead of telling people what doesn’t work, now I have a solution I can point to.”
Deeper and broader work in Primary Prevention
In This is Manly’s campaign, we found it was important to:
Include voices that are authentic, personal, non-judgemental
Amplify the voice of relatable role models
Share and spark open, positive conversations about masculinity
Having secured a second grant from the Department of Communities, This is Manly continues as a campaign and also as an ongoing discovery and co-design process. To deepen and broaden our understanding of the influence of role models, we are working with a new design team including men who are role models within their communities, whether as educators, faith leaders, artists or sports coaches and we are curious to hear more about their experiences and perspectives.
Innovation Unit - now ThirdStory - has substantial experience in service design and evaluation in the Family and Domestic Violence sector. We are growing our knowledge and experience of Primary Prevention, both on this project and in partnership with the Department of Education WA on ACTION Respect, an initiative involving over 40 primary schools across the state.
This project is also connecting us with primary prevention practitioners across Australia and we will be sharing what we are discovering by drawing together a community of practice.
Find out more at This is Manly and follow @this.is.manly on Instagram.