A different way to respond to harm.
Harmful sexual behaviour between young people is playing out in schools and communities across Australia — and the responses we default to aren't working. We're piloting a restorative pathway that centres the student who was harmed, holds the student responsible genuinely accountable, and gives every young person a route back to safety.
We couldn't do this without them. The Snow Foundation's investment funds the development, delivery and independent evaluation of this pilot — from the first referral through to what we learn about what actually helps — so we can build a genuinely better justice option for children impacted by harmful sexual behaviour.
Current responses aren't meeting anyone's needs.
Young people, their families and school communities face complex experiences of harm, stigma and disrupted relationships following harmful sexual behaviour. The responses schools and systems currently have available to them are limited — they can minimise or normalise what happened, be overly exclusionary or punitive, and fail to address the needs of the student who was harmed. Left unaddressed, these responses can lead to further harm and compromised health and wellbeing for everyone involved.
We think there's a better way — one that doesn't ask schools to choose between safety and repair.
Accountability, not punishment.
Holding students who are responsible for displaying harmful sexual behaviour genuinely accountable is central to our work. But we know that carceral and purely punitive responses are largely ineffective — they don't get to why the behaviour happened, and they don't repair anything.
Real change comes when a young person understands the impact of what they did, takes meaningful responsibility for it, and commits to acting differently. That's what a restorative process makes possible — for the student responsible, and for the student who was harmed, who deserves to be heard, believed, and supported to feel safe at school again.
Alongside delivering the pilot, we're advocating to government and the Department of Education to recognise the scale of this need — and to invest in restorative pathways as a genuine, funded part of how schools respond, not a stopgap we're left to prove on our own.
Read about our model →What we're working to achieve
Health & wellbeing
A transparent, trauma-informed pathway that complements — never replaces — schools' legal and safety obligations.
Real support
Access to appropriate support for every student involved, including the student responsible, to address what's underneath the behaviour.
Skilled facilitation
Independent, trauma-informed restorative practitioners, and training so school staff can support the process with confidence.
This pathway is open to any school.
Schools cover the cost of the process on a fee-for-service basis — we're advocating for government to fund it directly, so cost is never the reason a child can't access it.