Supporting Young People to Understand Affirmative Consent Program (2022 - 2025)
On this page:
Supported by the Victorian Government, the Supporting Young People to Understand Affirmative Consent (SYPTUAC) Program aims to empower and educate young people and their key influencers to strengthen their understanding of affirmative consent and healthy relationships.
Announced in October 2022, the Program followed the Victorian Government's consent law reforms introduced through the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Act 2022, which adopted an affirmative model of consent. These reforms aim to place greater responsibility on anyone participating in a sexual act to take steps to say or do something to check if the other persons(s) involved are consenting, freely and voluntarily.
The Program is delivered through 13 community-based educational initiatives, targeting young people aged 12-25 years, outside of mainstream educational settings, including online groups, campaigns and peer-led initiatives, across metropolitan, regional, and rural Victoria.
The SYPTUAC Program complements the Respectful Relationships program already being delivered in Victorian schools, ensuring young people receive consistent and reinforcing messages about affirmative consent and healthy relationships.
For more information on Victoria's affirmative consent laws, please see Victorian affirmative consent laws.
Why consent education is important for young people
Consent is essential for everyone to understand, regardless of age. Understanding personal boundaries and feeling comfortable to talk about consent with others is an essential part of building healthy, respectful, and safe relationships, both sexual and non-sexual.
Anyone can experience sexual violence; it affects all age groups and all parts of our community. In Australia:
1 in 5 women (22%) and 1 in 16 men (6.1%) report experiencing sexual violence since the age of 15.
In the largest national survey of health and wellbeing amongst LGBTQIA+ people, almost one in two (49%) participants reported having ever been coerced or forced into sexual acts that they did not want to engage in.
Sexual violence is highly under-reported and we know rates are higher for some populations, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, women and girls with disability, and LGBTQIA+ communities.
Young people aged 18–24 are at higher risk of experiencing sexual violence, highlighting an urgent need for targeted initiatives that aim to respond and prevent young people’s experiences of sexual violence.
Research consistently shows that delivering comprehensive and consistent education on sex, consent and healthy relationships support several benefits, including:
increased knowledge and improved attitudes around sexual and reproductive health
reduced perpetration and victimisation of sexual violence
development of healthy relationships
prevention of child sexual abuse
improved social and emotional learning
increased media literacy
delayed onset of sexual behaviour.
Providing young people with comprehensive and evidence-based education on affirmative consent and respectful relationships equips them with the knowledge and skills to make informed choices that feel good and support their wellbeing. It encourages open, honest communication that makes sure everyone feels safe, comfortable and respected in all parts of life.
While no single approach can eliminate sexual violence, education that promotes gender equality, consent, and respectful relationships amongst young people is a powerful and essential step forward.
SYPTUAC pilot projects
There are 13 community-based education initiatives under the SYPTUAC Program, delivered by a range of community organisations across metropolitan, regional and rural Victoria.
These pilot projects are testing and trialling different ways to engage young people in consent, respectful relationships, and sexuality education outside of mainstream educational settings.
Australian Childhood Foundation
When Yes Means YES
An on-demand course designed to build the skills and confidence of foster and kinship carers to talk with young people in their care about non-sexual consent and affirmative sexual consent. The two courses were developed jointly with carers and young people.
Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights
Why Yes Matters
A project designed to raise awareness and understanding of affirmative consent and sexual violence prevention within newly arrived and migrant Muslim communities across Melbourne. It focuses on empowering young people and their families.
Banksia Gardens Community Services
Good People Act Now (GPAN)
A youth-led action group working to promote gender equality and prevent gender-based violence in Hume and surrounds. GPAN focuses on peer-to-peer bystander action, equipping young people with tools to safely challenge harmful beliefs and attitudes.
Body Safety Australia
Image-based Autonomy: Creating Digital Upstanders
A project that aims to capture young people’s experiences and perspectives around their use of digital technology, with a particular focus on image taking, sharing and editing. It will pilot effective approaches to meaningful online safety education, supporting young people to prevent and respond to image-based and deepfake abuse.
Centre Against Sexual Assault Central Victoria
Young People as Agents of Change
A collaborative education project between young people and project partners across the Macedon Ranges, working together to grow young people’s understanding of consent and how to build healthy relationships through a consent workshop and activities.
Drummond Street Services
BeSure
A program that delivers engaging, community-based workshops designed to help young people, carers, and key workers understand Victoria’s affirmative consent reforms. Workshops are delivered in TAFEs, youth programs, community organisations, and adult migrant education settings.
Sexual Health Victoria
Consent Matters
Online modules and interactive workshops for youth and community workers, to equip them with skills and resources for educating young people about affirmative consent, health relationships and sexual health.
The Man Cave
Is This OK??
A digital affirmative consent program for young people, parents and educators. The program’s first two seasons were streamed live on Twitch. The next season will be available on YouTube for young people to access at their leisure.
Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency
Lubly Consent
Information about affirmative consent for Aboriginal young people aged 14-18 years, as well as youth and family practitioners.
Women’s Health East
Get the Go-Ahead
A set of resources about affirmative consent, co-designed and co-created with a group of Disabled young people. The written and video resources explain the affirmative consent legislation in plain English, share reflections about sex, relationships and accessibility, and share advice for workers on how to have supportive, meaningful conversations with Disabled young people.
Women’s Health in the North
Taking ACtion: Affirmative Consent in the North
A youth-led affirmative consent education and community engagement pilot project. Taking ACtion focuses on affirmative consent, respectful relationships and sexual violence prevention using a rights-based and sex-positive approach.
Youth Affairs Council Australia (YACVic)
Yeah, Nah
A workshop which aims to build the capacity of young people to understanding the new Affirmative Consent legislation. The workshop can be adapted to be age appropriate, culturally safe and relevant to the young people that it’s being delivered to.
Youthlaw
Informed and Empowered
A project that aims to inform and empower young people to make informed decisions in personal and intimate relationships. It also developed education for professionals working with those young people. With a strong focus on new sexual consent laws and safety, the project includes a combination of interative online and in-person workshops, webinar and resources.
Affirmative Consent Leadership Consortium
The Victorian Government engaged Sexual Assault Services Victoria, Safe and Equal and Youth Affairs Council Victoria, known collectively as the Affirmative Consent Leadership Consortium (the ACLC), to support grantees of the SYPTUAC Program to deliver best practice, consistent and inclusive affirmative consent education and awareness raising of sexual violence with young people.
The Affirmative Consent Leadership Consortium (ACLC) is a partnership between:
Sexual Assault Services Victoria (SASVic) - the peak body for specialist sexual assault and harmful sexual behaviour services in Victoria.
Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic) - the peak body and leading policy advocate for young people and the youth sector in Victoria.
Safe and Equal - the peak body for Victorian organisations that specialise in family and gender-based violence across the continuum, including primary prevention, early intervention, response and recovery.
Between 2022 - 2025, the ACLC delivered a suite of capacity building activities for the project grantees, including:
Provision of guidance and advice to funded projects to support the implementation of the SYPTUAC Program.
Delivery of training to key project staff to undertake best practice, consistent and inclusive affirmative consent education and awareness raising of sexual violence with young people.
Facilitation of networking, collaboration and information sharing amongst project partners through a Community of Practice for key project staff.
Supporting project partners to manage disclosures and establish appropriate referral pathways into specialist sexual assault services.
Review of all materials generated by project partners.
Resources developed by the ACLC:
Please note, these resources were developed for grant recipients of the SYPTUAC Program but can be applied more broadly to other organisations delivering affirmative consent education to young people in Victoria.
Key message guidance - Supporting young people to understand affirmative consent program
Responding to disclosures of sexual violence and abuse from children and young people
Training and capacity building:
Explore training and capacity building opportunities offered by the Affirmative Consent Leadership Consortium partners:
Explore SASVic’s training offerings.
YACVic offers a range of training and support for youth groups and organisations working with young people as well as public training and events.
Useful links:
Explore the Commonwealth Consent Policy Framework - the Australian government's framework to support any organisation working to prevent sexual violence, to promote healthy relationships and sexual consent to young people.
Take a look through the Australian Government's Consent Can't Wait campaign with a range of video and written resources (including Plain English and other languages) to support confidence to understand and talk about consent with young people.
Explore YACVic's Youth Engagement Resource Platform (YERP) for all things youth participation to empower young people to make change and support anyone working with young people to develop their practice.
Join Safe and Equal's Partners in Prevention Network of over 4,000 people working to prevent family and gender-based violence in Victoria.
Accessing sexual violence support
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, there are specialist sexual assault services across Victoria that provide free and confidential counselling and advocacy support for people of all ages.
You can find your local service by using the Specialist Sexual Assault Service Map.
If you have experienced a recent sexual assault, you can call the Sexual Assault Crisis Line (SACL) on 1800 806 292.
SACL operates between 5pm - 9am on weeknights and throughout weekends and public holidays. During office hours, the line will divert to your local specialist sexual assault service.
