Step Inside the Room: An Experiential Session on Gender-Transformative Facilitation With Adolescent Boys
Tracks
Ballroom 3: In-Person Only
| Monday, November 23, 2026 |
| 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM |
| Ballroom 3 |
Overview
Ben Vasiliou, 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
Mr Ben Vasiliou
CEO
The Man Cave
Step inside the room: an experiential session on gender-transformative facilitation with adolescent boys
Presentation Overview
What creates the conditions where a room full of teenage boys moves from resistance to genuine reflection? This session doesn't answer that question with a presentation; it answers it by putting you in the room.
This condensed, adapted experience of The Man Cave’s actual work, facilitated by some of our most experienced facilitators, using the same tools, activities, and relational approach used with 25,000 boys every year. This session moves beyond providing a simple overview; rather, it offers an opportunity to feel what skilled gender-transformative facilitation is and what makes it possible.
This workshop draws from the iterations The Man Cave implemented as part of our federally funded Healthy Masculinities Trial and Evaluation, in partnership with the Jesuit Social Service and Women’s Health in the South East. These sessions are grounded in compassionate accountability: high support and high expectations held simultaneously. When boys experience facilitators who bring warmth and clear expectations, and who genuinely hear them, something shifts. This session shows what that shift can look like and how to build the relational conditions in your own practice that make it possible.
This condensed, adapted experience of The Man Cave’s actual work, facilitated by some of our most experienced facilitators, using the same tools, activities, and relational approach used with 25,000 boys every year. This session moves beyond providing a simple overview; rather, it offers an opportunity to feel what skilled gender-transformative facilitation is and what makes it possible.
This workshop draws from the iterations The Man Cave implemented as part of our federally funded Healthy Masculinities Trial and Evaluation, in partnership with the Jesuit Social Service and Women’s Health in the South East. These sessions are grounded in compassionate accountability: high support and high expectations held simultaneously. When boys experience facilitators who bring warmth and clear expectations, and who genuinely hear them, something shifts. This session shows what that shift can look like and how to build the relational conditions in your own practice that make it possible.
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.
