At the heart of the matter

Changing the story

Supporting victims and holding perpetrators to account is essential. But to see lasting change, we need to go 'upstream' and address the causes of violence.

Associate Professor Michael Flood has spent his career doing just that. His work on violence prevention, and more broadly on men and masculinities, has greatly advanced understandings of the causes of violence and, in turn, the actions required to prevent it. In particular, Associate Professor Flood has focused on the importance of engaging men and boys in prevention.

Michael's expertise is having an impact at a national and international level.

In 2015, he co-authored a report that fundamentally shaped the Change the Story framework for understanding and preventing violence against women and their children. This ground-breaking national framework aims to guide both community actions and government policy, and an evaluation by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that it is already having a huge impact. Stakeholders interviewed said it has changed the language, shaped the work we do, and put this work firmly on the national agenda.

'Changing the story' at a national level is vital, but so too is supporting community groups working on the ground. Associate Professor Flood's work achieves this, providing the evidence base for many community programs.

Far from being confined to the halls of academia, his work is staunchly practical. For example, his book Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention identifies the barriers that stop men supporting violence prevention work and includes strategies for overcoming them. Community organisations are directly using this guidance, relying on it to inform the words and approaches they use in their flyers, posters and workshop materials.

The national White Ribbon campaign benefited in particular from Associate Professor Flood's work, using his research to inform its policies, training, fact sheets and media campaigns over a period of 20 years.

Similarly, Benjamin Brewin from Eastern Health, one of Melbourne's largest metropolitan health services, says his team has used the principles laid out in Associate Professor Flood's book to develop their strategies. 'His work has better enabled practitioners to work with men and boys in preventing violence,' Brewin says.

Many other organisations have also benefitted.

Women's Health Victoria, for example, engaged Associate Professor Flood to provide input on their masterclass for Victoria's primary prevention workforce. Claire Varley from Women's Health Victoria says his advice 'helped ensure the masterclass was evidence-based and practical,' resulting in a workshop that has been 'exceptionally well received'.

Associate Professor Flood's work has also shaped the design of numerous respectful relationships programs in schools and among young people, such as the LOVE BiTES program, developed by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.

As well as being influential in Australia, Associate Professor Flood's work has had an international impact. White Ribbon New Zealand, for example, drew on Associate Professor Flood's work in a campaign encouraging fathers to talk to their sons about consent. His work has also been taken up by men's anti-violence groups in the US, in Canadian work with young men on healthy relationships and sexuality, and in United Nations frameworks and curricula.

Associate Professor Flood also frequently engages with the broader community, determined to contribute not only to the discussions being had in governments and organisations, but also to the conversations we are having around the dinner table.

Journey to impact

2007
Associate Professor Flood authors the foundation document for an agenda-setting framework Preventing Violence Before it Occurs, adopted by the Victorian government and drawn upon by Federal and state governments.

2011
Australian Research Council Linkage grant 'Taking a Stand' awarded to Associate Professor Flood to work with a national sporting organisation on their efforts to reduce violence against women.

2015

• Our Watch releases 'Change the Story', a national framework for the prevention of violence, based in part on Associate Professor Flood's work.
• Australian Research Council Future Fellowship 'Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention' awarded to Associate Professor Flood.
• Australian Research Council Linkage grant 'Violence Against Women: a Media Intervention' awarded to Associate Professor Flood.
• Associate Professor Flood's work informs the online curricula for the United Nations 'Virtual knowledge centre to end violence against women and girls'.

2015–2018
The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation draws on Associate Professor Flood's work for its landmark surveys of community attitudes to domestic violence, and its work on backlash to equality initiatives.

2016
The Royal Commission into Family Violence cites Associate Professor Flood's work on prevention and engaging men, as do two submissions by the national organisation Our Watch.

2016–2018
A consortium of five community agencies in Victoria draw on Associate Professor Flood's expertise to guide a community mobilisation project among men in Melbourne.

2017–2018
White Ribbon New Zealand draws on Associate Professor Flood's work for their campaigns.

2018

• The Men and Family Relationships Centre (NSW) bases its primary prevention initiative, the Men's Accountability Project, in part on Associate Professor Flood's work.
• Women's Health West (Vic) uses Associate Professor Flood's work to inform its Western region prevention strategy to engage and mobilise men, and its '16 Day Activist Challenge'.
• Associate Professor Flood publishes Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention, a state-of-the-art account of the field that has already been used by numerous violence prevention bodies worldwide.

2017–2019
Associate Professor Flood's work shapes the policy frameworks, investments and research programs of University of Calgary's SHIFT: The Project to End Domestic Violence.

2019
Associate Professor Flood participated in The Pacific Regional Dialogue on Engaging Men in the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls, with participants from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

2020
Associate Professor Flood co-authored the guidelines for funding programs in Alberta, and in Canada more widely, to guide their support for programs that engage men and boys in violence prevention.