Our story

It began the way most prevention work begins.

Solid Hearts began the way most prevention work begins — with someone who had been through it, and who did not want anyone else to go through it alone.

The beginning
A gap nobody was filling
Solid Hearts started from a simple gap: plenty of support existed after harm, almost none before it. Campaigns said abuse was wrong — but rarely taught what respect felt like, or what happened if you spoke up.
Learning
What we got wrong first
Our earliest sessions leaned on stories of harm, because they felt powerful. They were the wrong tool — participants disengaged, and hosts worried about re-traumatising people. Prevention research already knew why: fear-based messaging raises awareness, not behaviour. So we rebuilt from strength, describing what works before what doesn't.
Building
From presentations to programmes
A one-off talk makes a group feel like it acted. It rarely changes anything. We moved to multi-session workshops with pre- and post-measurement, host training and disclosure pathways agreed in writing — slower and more expensive per workshop, and far more effective.
Now
Handing it over
Our own delivery capacity will never be enough — Aotearoa has too many communities and too few facilitators for one organisation to reach them all. So our model shifted again: training local people to lead prevention themselves, with a handover built in from day one.
Next
A generation-long commitment
Te Aorerekura, Aotearoa's 25-year national strategy, is an honest admission that this work spans generations. We're building an organisation still useful in 2050 — independently evaluated, locally governed, and honest about what hasn't worked.