Supporting Young People to Understand Affirmative Consent Program (2022 - 2025)
Taking ACtion: Affirmative Consent in the North is one of the 13 projects created as part of the Supporting Young People to Understand Affirmative Consent (SYPTUAC) Program. The SYPTUAC program aims to empower and educate young people and their key influencers to strengthen their understanding of affirmative consent and healthy relationships.
Taking ACtion: Affirmative Consent in the North
Developed by Women’s Health in the North
Taking ACtion is a youth-led affirmative consent education and community engagement pilot project being delivered by Women’s Health In the North (WHIN), the women’s health promotion and advocacy organisation for Melbourne’s northern metropolitan region (NMR). Working with young people in the NMR, Taking ACtion focuses on affirmative consent, respectful relationships and sexual violence prevention using a rights-based and sex-positive approach.
The project aims to empower and educate young people so that they know what it means to be treated with respect; understand their right to safe, consensual, respectful and pleasurable sexual experiences; and understand affirmative consent and the new laws. A significant part of the Taking ACtion project is the peer-led and co-design approach – putting young people at the centre of the design, development and delivery of activities.
Led by the Youth Action Group (YAG) and in partnership with Banksia Gardens Community Services, the first phase of Taking ACtion focused on developing a series of co-designed and co-delivered workshops, creating a collection of multimedia resources and hosting a youth forum. Building on the successes and learnings from Phase One, Phase Two of the project will see the continuation of the peer-educator designed and delivered workshops and sharing of the co-designed resources. The second phase will also see the addition of a series of consultations focused on scoping whole-of-setting approaches to the prevention of sexual violence and consent education in youth services.
Taking ACtion resources
Visit the project website to explore the full collection of resources and learn more about the workshops: www.takingaction.org.au
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.
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.
The Supporting Young People to Understand Affirmative Consent Program is supported by the Victorian Government.
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.
