Young people as agents of change: A consent education project
A consent education project led by young people, for young people
Everyone has the right to fun, caring and respectful relationships. No matter what the relationship looks like or who it’s with. So we’re collaborating with young LGBTQIA+, cis-gender and/or straight people from the Macedon Ranges to make an LGBTQIA+ inclusive program to teach young people about consent.
Project Details
Young People as Agents of Change (YPAC) is a collaborative project between young people and project partners across the Macedon Ranges. We work together to grow 12-17 year old’s understanding of consent and how to build healthy relationships.
Our project partners are
- Women’s Health Loddon Mallee
- Sunbury Cobaw Community Health
- Centre for Non-Violence
- Macedon Ranges Shire Council
- Youth Affairs Council of Victoria
- Zoe Belle Gender Collective
- Centre for Excellence in Rural Sexual Health
The YPAC project is supported by the Victorian Government. All resources we create will be age-appropriate, based on the Victorian Government consent curriculum and use evidence-based strategies.
For more information or to request a workshop please email ypac@casacv.org.au and we’ll get back to you shortly.
Click here to download our project FAQ document: February-2024_YPAC-Workshop-FAQ.pdf
Click here to learn more about our Advocacy and Education services.
November 2023 Updates
Conferences and Webinars
November was a busy month! While we analyzed our co-design findings and developed a prototype workshop, we were invited to speak at two events.
Firstly, the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria welcomed us at their Potholes to Possibilities conference. This conference supports anyone who works with young people to learn more about the big issues young people face, how to work more collaboratively with young people and about youth-led solutions. We spoke about the project with MacKillop Family Services, the YACVic and the Man Cave. We loved sharing what we learned about co-designing and queer inclusion in this space.
Secondly, Womens Health Loddon Mallee hosted a much needed webinar on young people and consent. With about 110 participants, we shared practical ways to support young people with consent and heard from Chanel Contos, a consent advocate, and Will, a Peer Educator from YACVic.
Testing our Prototype Workshop
The Co-Design team has officially tested the workshop! Overall, the feedback was positive, with a few changes identified to make the workshop more relatable and easier to facilitate. We also looked at accompanying resources, including a Zine, to emphasize key learnings from the workshop.
In late November, we got together on a rainy Sunday. We tested key activities from the workshop, including collaging. The workshop is influenced by
- Art therapy practices, which are evidence-based ways to learn and promote healthy boundary settings
- Sexual violence primary prevention research, including the drivers of intimate partner violence for LGBTQIA+ people (from Rainbow Health Australia) and violence against women (from Our Watch)
- The Ecological model, which looks at preventing gendered violence across all aspects of society, community and individual factors
- A Strengths-based model, drawing on the existing strengths and goals of participants
The next step is to start gathering Expressions of Interest!
October 2023 updates
Consent Trivia at Prive Camp
In October, thanks to our partnership with Sunbury Cobaw Community Health, we presented a Consent trivia on a local Pride Camp. Our co-design team were passionate about finding creative and fun ways to talk about consent, and the evidence suggests that many young people learn well when the content is “gamified”. So we created a Trivia, where teams of young people would problem solve questions about consent.
Lot’s of LGBTQIA+ young people we’ve spoken to say their current Relationship and Sexual Health educations doesn’t answer their questions or meets their needs. This is backed up by evidence that tells us that young LGBTQIA+ people experience high rates of feeling unsafe or uncomfortable in educational and workplace settings, high rates of verbal harassment based on sexuality or gender identity (Hill et. al. 2021).
So it was a privilege to support young LGBTQIA+ people to learn more about consent and respectful relationships in a supportive and inclusive space.
We learned a lot through this process, including that young people LOVE talking about consent.
July 2023 Updates
YPAC Features in Consent Webinar
In July, the Project Coordinator was invited to talk about the project at the Safe + Equal, Youth Affairs Council of Victoria and Sexual Assault Services Victoria Webinar on the new Affirmative Consent Laws. We shared our learnings with over 300 people through this webinar.
You can watch Rhiannon speak about the project, the importance of inclusion and the impact of the new affirmative consent laws here.
Co-Design Kick-off
In July, we kicked off our co-design process. We’re guided by VicHealth principles of co-design, which brings people with lived experience and staff experts together to build creative projects. We also used evidence-based best practices to run a meaningful co-design process that ensured young people were heard and a key part of what we created. This included using a variety of methods including: in-person workshops, surveys of young people and sector experts, online workshops and individual interviews.
Over a period of 3 months, a team of 14 Macedon Ranges young people, from across the gender and sexuality spectrum, and project staff came together to learn from each other. The young people had a deep understanding of the issues around consent that young people face, the specific context of relationships in the Macedon Ranges and how to speak with young people effectively. The staff bring expertise in sexual violence primary prevention, academic understanding of consent and relationships and advocacy skills.
When surveyed, 100% of the project participants felt their voice and opinion would be genuinely reflected in the end products. This is a huge result, and one we’re really proud of.
