Who we are & our mission
A trusted community organisation, not a crisis service.
Through education, advocacy and community support, we help people of all genders, ages, cultures and backgrounds affected by abuse find trusted pathways to help.
Why we exist
Solid Hearts exists to provide education, advocacy, community support, and pathways to trusted support services for people affected by emotional, physical, domestic, family, and sexual abuse — helping build safer communities across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Plenty of support exists after harm, almost none before it. Campaigns say abuse is wrong — few teach what respect feels like, or what happens if you speak up. That gap is where we work.
Why prevention
Crisis services are essential and always will be. But a system that only responds is a system that waits. Prevention asks a different question: what would have had to change for this never to happen?
Nearly all of it can be prevented.
Abuse is not random and it is not inevitable. It follows patterns we can see, in conditions we can change, with warning signs people can learn to spot. That is not wishful thinking — it is what forty years of prevention research shows.
What we are not
We are not an emergency, counselling or specialist family violence response service — that work belongs to organisations equipped to do it, and we don’t present ourselves as an alternative.
What we do is build referral pathways into those services and practise them before we deliver a single session, so a disclosure during one of our programmes reaches the right specialist quickly and safely. Being clear about that boundary is part of the work — overstating our scope puts people at risk.
How we turn that mission into measurable change
Our theory of change sets out the full chain from inputs to long-term impact — including the stages we can evidence ourselves and the stages we cannot claim credit for alone.