Violence Prevention Innovation Lab

Grant updates

Our Watch is pleased to announce the third cohort of successful grant recipients of the Violence Prevention Innovation Lab’s Building Connections Challenge.

'I'm delighted that the Victorian Government will be funding two promising community-led primary prevention initiatives through Our Watch's Violence Prevention Innovation Lab. This funding is crucial for supporting primary prevention initiatives with strong innovation potential, enabling better testing and evaluation and deepening impact.'

Patty Kinnersly, CEO, Our Watch

Announcing new grant round projects

The Victorian Government have announced their support of the following Innovation Lab grantees:

Body Safety Australia

Body Safety Australia will empower 40–50 boys aged 12–18 across four Victorian schools to co-design physical and digital tools to address the impact of AI-facilitated image-based abuse, teaching them how to intervene in the face of harmful peer behaviour. These could include gamified challenges, conversation cards and videos.

The Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre

The Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre will partner with Rainbow Health Australia to adapt the Respect Starts Here program to address homophobia in sport. This work will support community sports clubs to build respectful, positive relationships and reject restrictive and outdated stereotypes of masculinity, including toughness, dominance, stoicism and heterosexuality.

We would also like to congratulate the following grantees:

Wyndham Youth Aboriginal Corporation

Building on Wyndham Youth Aboriginal Corporation (WYAC)'s existing boys’ group and the concept of men’s groups, the project will bring boys and their male guardians together through facilitated On Country experiences. Participants will include boys alongside their fathers, uncles, grandfathers or other male caregivers. Using On Country activities as a culturally appropriate and engaging setting, facilitated conversations will support men and boys to strengthen intergenerational and family relationships, explore collective healing and healthy relationships, strengthen cultural identity, and explore positive and healthy ways of being a proud Aboriginal man. 

Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority

Ngarrindjeri Men Leading Change is a Ngarrindjeri-led, place-based partnership and framework grounded in the Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Agreement (KNYA), meaning 'Listen to Ngarrindjeri speak,' and the practice of Yunnarumi, which means deep listening, speaking together, and deciding lawfully as Country.  

The project strengthens Ngarrindjeri-led systems of care and responsibility by supporting men and boys to build respectful, positive, and gender-equal relationships.

In the news

Check out the latest articles featuring the Lab: 

Innovation lab rethinks violence prevention | Today 

Starting Your Innovation Journey | Shackleton Labs

Round 2 grant projects

Numburindi Development Aboriginal Corporation

Project location: Northern Territory 

A Woman’s Worth Through the Eyes of our Boys is a culturally-led initiative. The project will co-design and pilot a restorative learning program developed with Elders, mentors, youth, and cultural practitioners. Over a 12-month period, participants will take part in reflection sessions, storytelling interviews, cultural mentoring, and restorative circles that bring men, women, and young people together to listen and learn. 

The project expands its reach through a partnership with NT Corrections to work with men who are incarcerated or serving community corrections orders. In prison settings, NDAC will guide men to reflect and record their understanding of women and relationships from childhood to the present. This guided reflection builds self-awareness, challenges violence-supportive beliefs, and supports cultural healing.

Darwin Indigenous Men's Service Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation

Project location:Northern Territory  

This project is a collaboration between the Darwin Indigenous Men’s Service (DIMS) and Mimal Land Management Aboriginal Corporation (Mimal) in Central Arnhem Land. 

The project will be delivered at the Weemol located Mimal Ranger base and surrounding areas and will adapt and deliver the proven DIMS violence prevention program. The program will be tailored to include local cultural protocols, traditional knowledge, and healing on Country, addressing root causes like intergenerational trauma, marginalisation, and disconnection from identity. 

Community News Hub Aboriginal Corporation

Project location: NSW 

This project will support men and boys to build respectful, positive and gender‑equal relationships and reject rigid stereotypes by training a cohort of First Nations youth creators to design and publish short‑form videos that role‑model care, empathy, consent, help‑seeking and allyship.

Content standards will embed gender‑transformative approaches and accountability to women throughout production and publication. 

Three Rivers Regional Assembly Aboriginal Corporation

Project location: NSW

Men of Lore: Respect, Culture and Connection is a culturally grounded, community-led program that extends the success of Three Rivers Regional Assembly Aboriginal Corporation (TRRA)’s annual Men’s Gathering into a structured, year-long model of learning, reflection, and leadership.

Over 12 months, TRRA will bring Aboriginal men together from across the Three Rivers footprint to explore what it means to be a strong, respectful man who leads through culture, equality, and care for community.

Round 1 grant projects

Dads Group

Project title: DadConnect 
Project location: Queensland 

DadConnect is a 12-month hybrid digital and place-based capability pilot that supports men and boys to build respectful, positive, gender-equal relationships. This is done by strengthening relational capability in fathers and building the workforce’s confidence and skill to engage men safely and effectively during the perinatal period. 

SSI 

Project title: Migrant and Refugee Fathers Project 
Project location: Queensland 

This project will bring together and facilitate a group of young fathers from migrant and refugee communities to explore and articulate what works and resonates in supporting young migrant and refugee men. This is particularly in the context of becoming fathers, to foster respectful, gender-equal relationships and challenge rigid ideas of masculinity. 

New Story Company 

Project title: Two Plays Project
Project location: Tasmania 

Two playwrights will collaborate using a community engaged framework to write the performance scripts of two new playsabout male violence against women and children, one told from a female perspective and one from a male perspective.

The plays will challenge rigid stereotypes of masculinity and provide a sense of both the problem and the possible solutions for audiences to be inspired by. New Story Company will also produce play readings, with follow-on community discussion sessions about the issues raised.

One Vision Productions 

Project title: MPOWER PRO: FlowCoach AI
Project location: NSW and national 

MPOWER PRO incorporating FlowCoach AI meets young men through hip hop – a language they already speak. This Indigenous-led platform uses artificial intelligence coaching to guide young people through songwriting as a pathway to emotional wellbeing. As they create, they develop emotional regulation skills, practice self-reflection, and build agency. The technology allows culturally grounded support to reach young men at scale, particularly those who don't engage with traditional services.   

YLAB 

Project title: The First 100 
Project location: Victoria 

The First 100 is a youth-led, community-driven social media project designed to help parents and young people have conversations about what healthy digital masculinity looks like today.

Engender Equality 

Project title: Support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ young people 
Project location: Tasmania 

The project will form a framework of support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ young people to parent in gender affirming, equitable ways. Facilitated by a peer with relevant professional experience, the fathers will share parenting and family experiences through discussions of topics related to stereotypes of masculinity and fatherhood, and their interaction with cisgenderism, cisnormativity and homophobia. The group will focus on ways to individually and collectively challenge rigid masculinity stereotypes and limited understandings of gender in not only themselves, but interpersonal and community contexts. 

Related

Diverse local not-for-profit projects announced as first Violence Prevention Innovation Lab grantees

• Posted at 13 Feb, 2026

The grantees represent a broad range of new, community-led primary prevention initiatives across a diverse selection of organisations.

Innovation Lab to fund groundbreaking work in preventing violence against women

• Posted at 18 Sept, 2025

The first of its kind Violence Prevention Innovation Lab will shortly launch in Australia to identify and strengthen transformative gender-based violence prevention approaches.