Step Inside the Room: Creating the Conditions for Boys to Open Up
Tracks
Ballroom 3: In-Person Only
| Monday, November 23, 2026 |
| 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM |
| Ballroom 3 |
Overview
Al Green & Lucy Barratt, The Man Cave
Three Key Learnings
1. A practical understanding of what skilled facilitation with adolescent boys actually looks like, drawn from a live, adapted workshop
2. Insight into the relational conditions - compassionate accountability through high support and high expectations - that creates genuine engagement to apply in your own prevention work
3. Reflection on how experiential and emotionally honest approaches can deepen boys’ engagement in conversations about identity, relationships and healthy masculinity in ways traditional education models often struggle to achieve
Speaker
Lucy Barrat
The Man Cave
Step Inside the Room: Creating the Conditions for Boys to Open Up
Presentation Overview
What creates the conditions for a room full of teenage boys to move from guardedness or resistance towards openness, authenticity and genuine reflection?
This session doesn't answer that question with a presentation. Instead, participants will step inside an adapted experience of The Man Cave's work, facilitated using the same relational approach, activities and tools we use with boys in schools across Australia.
The session explores how skilled facilitation can help soften the stereotypes and expectations that shape how boys show up with one another, creating space for greater emotional honesty, connection and reflection. At the centre of this approach is compassionate accountability: holding high support and high expectations simultaneously, while meeting boys with warmth, curiosity and clear boundaries.
TMC sees this as one part of a much bigger prevention puzzle. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which boys are willing and able to engage meaningfully in conversations about themselves, their relationships and the expectations placed on them. From there, collaboration with practitioners and experts across the prevention field is critical to determining where those conversations go next.
Through the experience and facilitated reflection, participants will explore what helped them lean in, what created resistance, and what this might tell us about engaging boys in prevention work.
Key Learnings:
A understanding of the relational conditions that can help boys move towards greater openness, authenticity and reflection.
Insight into TMC's approach to compassionate accountability, combining high support with high expectations.
An opportunity to reflect on what helps people lean into challenging conversations, and how these conditions might strengthen their own work with boys and young men.
A clearer understanding of where TMC's facilitation expertise can contribute to broader prevention efforts, and where collaboration with other expertise is essential.
This session doesn't answer that question with a presentation. Instead, participants will step inside an adapted experience of The Man Cave's work, facilitated using the same relational approach, activities and tools we use with boys in schools across Australia.
The session explores how skilled facilitation can help soften the stereotypes and expectations that shape how boys show up with one another, creating space for greater emotional honesty, connection and reflection. At the centre of this approach is compassionate accountability: holding high support and high expectations simultaneously, while meeting boys with warmth, curiosity and clear boundaries.
TMC sees this as one part of a much bigger prevention puzzle. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which boys are willing and able to engage meaningfully in conversations about themselves, their relationships and the expectations placed on them. From there, collaboration with practitioners and experts across the prevention field is critical to determining where those conversations go next.
Through the experience and facilitated reflection, participants will explore what helped them lean in, what created resistance, and what this might tell us about engaging boys in prevention work.
Key Learnings:
A understanding of the relational conditions that can help boys move towards greater openness, authenticity and reflection.
Insight into TMC's approach to compassionate accountability, combining high support with high expectations.
An opportunity to reflect on what helps people lean into challenging conversations, and how these conditions might strengthen their own work with boys and young men.
A clearer understanding of where TMC's facilitation expertise can contribute to broader prevention efforts, and where collaboration with other expertise is essential.
Biography
Lucy Barrat: (she/her) is the Product and Education Manager at The Man Cave, where she has worked since 2021. She leads the development of programs for boys and training for educators, adults, and the communities around them, ensuring the work is informed by current evidence and the realities of boys' worlds. Lucy brings nearly 18 years of education experience, including as a primary and secondary teacher, and holds a Master of Education (Student Wellbeing). Guided by the belief that other people matter, she is motivated by a desire to see a safer, more equitable world and to support young men to grow into emotionally literate, curious, and playful people who think critically, act respectfully, and contribute to their communities.
Al Green
The Man Cave
Step Inside the Room: Creating the Conditions for Boys to Open Up
Presentation Overview
What creates the conditions for a room full of teenage boys to move from guardedness or resistance towards openness, authenticity and genuine reflection?
This session doesn't answer that question with a presentation. Instead, participants will step inside an adapted experience of The Man Cave's work, facilitated using the same relational approach, activities and tools we use with boys in schools across Australia.
The session explores how skilled facilitation can help soften the stereotypes and expectations that shape how boys show up with one another, creating space for greater emotional honesty, connection and reflection. At the centre of this approach is compassionate accountability: holding high support and high expectations simultaneously, while meeting boys with warmth, curiosity and clear boundaries.
TMC sees this as one part of a much bigger prevention puzzle. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which boys are willing and able to engage meaningfully in conversations about themselves, their relationships and the expectations placed on them. From there, collaboration with practitioners and experts across the prevention field is critical to determining where those conversations go next.
Through the experience and facilitated reflection, participants will explore what helped them lean in, what created resistance, and what this might tell us about engaging boys in prevention work.
Key Learnings:
A understanding of the relational conditions that can help boys move towards greater openness, authenticity and reflection.
Insight into TMC's approach to compassionate accountability, combining high support with high expectations.
An opportunity to reflect on what helps people lean into challenging conversations, and how these conditions might strengthen their own work with boys and young men.
A clearer understanding of where TMC's facilitation expertise can contribute to broader prevention efforts, and where collaboration with other expertise is essential.
This session doesn't answer that question with a presentation. Instead, participants will step inside an adapted experience of The Man Cave's work, facilitated using the same relational approach, activities and tools we use with boys in schools across Australia.
The session explores how skilled facilitation can help soften the stereotypes and expectations that shape how boys show up with one another, creating space for greater emotional honesty, connection and reflection. At the centre of this approach is compassionate accountability: holding high support and high expectations simultaneously, while meeting boys with warmth, curiosity and clear boundaries.
TMC sees this as one part of a much bigger prevention puzzle. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which boys are willing and able to engage meaningfully in conversations about themselves, their relationships and the expectations placed on them. From there, collaboration with practitioners and experts across the prevention field is critical to determining where those conversations go next.
Through the experience and facilitated reflection, participants will explore what helped them lean in, what created resistance, and what this might tell us about engaging boys in prevention work.
Key Learnings:
A understanding of the relational conditions that can help boys move towards greater openness, authenticity and reflection.
Insight into TMC's approach to compassionate accountability, combining high support with high expectations.
An opportunity to reflect on what helps people lean into challenging conversations, and how these conditions might strengthen their own work with boys and young men.
A clearer understanding of where TMC's facilitation expertise can contribute to broader prevention efforts, and where collaboration with other expertise is essential.
Biography
Al Green: (he/him) Al is Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer of The Man Cave, a preventative mental health and emotional literacy charity working with boys and young men. He has shaped how the organisation facilitates, trains and holds culture, building a facilitator pipeline grounded in relational safety, experiential learning and rites of passage. His work sits in primary prevention, helping young men build emotional skills, self-awareness and empathy that contribute to interrupting cycles of violence before they begin.
Mr Ben Vasiliou
CEO
The Man Cave
Step Inside the Room: Creating the Conditions for Boys to Open Up
Presentation Overview
This session doesn't answer that question with a presentation. Instead, participants will step inside an adapted experience of The Man Cave's work, facilitated using the same relational approach, activities and tools we use with boys in schools across Australia.
The session explores how skilled facilitation can help soften the stereotypes and expectations that shape how boys show up with one another, creating space for greater emotional honesty, connection and reflection. At the centre of this approach is compassionate accountability: holding high support and high expectations simultaneously, while meeting boys with warmth, curiosity and clear boundaries.
TMC sees this as one part of a much bigger prevention puzzle. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which boys are willing and able to engage meaningfully in conversations about themselves, their relationships and the expectations placed on them. From there, collaboration with practitioners and experts across the prevention field is critical to determining where those conversations go next.
Through the experience and facilitated reflection, participants will explore what helped them lean in, what created resistance, and what this might tell us about engaging boys in prevention work.
The session explores how skilled facilitation can help soften the stereotypes and expectations that shape how boys show up with one another, creating space for greater emotional honesty, connection and reflection. At the centre of this approach is compassionate accountability: holding high support and high expectations simultaneously, while meeting boys with warmth, curiosity and clear boundaries.
TMC sees this as one part of a much bigger prevention puzzle. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which boys are willing and able to engage meaningfully in conversations about themselves, their relationships and the expectations placed on them. From there, collaboration with practitioners and experts across the prevention field is critical to determining where those conversations go next.
Through the experience and facilitated reflection, participants will explore what helped them lean in, what created resistance, and what this might tell us about engaging boys in prevention work.
Biography
Al is the Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer at The Man Cave, Australia’s leading preventative mental health and healthy masculinities charity for boys and young men. A highly sought-after facilitator with more than 15 years’ experience, he has facilitated transformational experiences with tens of thousands of boys, educators and leaders across Australia.
Al has spoken and facilitated at conferences and professional learning events across the education, mental health, outdoor education and violence prevention sectors, and is known for his experiential, engaging and deeply relational facilitation style.
