AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
Improving the Understanding of Consent
The challenge
Australians experience sexual violence at an alarming rate, particularly between 10-17 years of age. 1-in-5 women, 1-in-16 men have experienced sexual violence, and 1-in-2 women, 1-in-4 men have experienced sexual harassment. A key component in preventing this, is supporting young people to develop positive attitudes and behaviours around consent.
But how to start the conversation when older generations have never been taught about sexual consent. It’s an emotionally charged, private topic, so people don’t talk about it unless they “need” to and it’s a topic kept away from public spheres, not openly discussed or modelled. On top of this, “consent” is culturally loaded, fraught with connotations, inflammatory media rhetoric and systemic inconsistencies.
It's informed conversations that bring us closer... we need to support young people to have better and more respectful relationships - ultimately aiming to improve the understanding of sexual consent and reduce sexual violence.
BMF & Orchard have partnered to deliver ‘Consent Can’t Wait’ - a primary-prevention campaign, aiming to reduce sexual violence by improving the understanding of sexual consent and nurture respectful relationships among adults to pass onto the young people in their lives.
Orchard was responsible for the development of the campaign website – consent.gov.au
The goal
A campaign that impacts our target audience’s behaviour as follows:
- Think – As adults, many of us are thinking about sexual consent differently. If adults understand sexual consent better, young people have a better chance of understanding consent in a way that helps them have healthy relationships.
- Feel – challenged (my understanding of sexual consent may not be complete and is almost certainly different to others) and empowered (I need to think more about this and (re-)educate myself... So I can, in turn better teach and protect young people.
- Do – Go to the website to learn principles around what consent means, and in turn talk to other adults about what consent means to them.
The goal for the website specifically, as an integral part of this campaign is to empower with information and resources:
- Primary - The website is to act as conversation starter – a starting point to get people talking about consent.
- Secondary – The website is a catalogue of information, a central hub to educate and build memory capital, and a teaching resource to help adults talk to children, nurturing a new skill.
The solution
A campaign website that will act as a central campaign hub.
Working with the Australian government requires working with their tech stack and restrictions to ensure compliance. Orchard’s development capabilities extend to a number of platforms and languages, and in this instance our skilled PHP team were brought in to support.
The CONSENT website was built on GovCMS (Australia's whole-of-government content management system) using the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model. We leveraged GovCMS's robust Drupal foundation while extending its capabilities through the creation of a custom subtheme derived from the provided base theme.
Key technical aspects of the platform include:
- Drupal Core: GovCMS is built on Drupal, providing a powerful, extensible foundation
- PaaS: Allows for greater customization compared to SaaS while still maintaining essential GovCMS features and compliance requirements
- Containerized Architecture: Deployed using a Docker-based infrastructure on the GovCMS PaaS
- CI/CD Pipeline: Integration with continuous deployment workflows through GitLab CI
The solution
A campaign website that will act as a central campaign hub.
Working with the Australian government requires working with their tech stack and restrictions to ensure compliance. Orchard’s development capabilities extend to a number of platforms and languages, and in this instance our skilled PHP team were brought in to support.
The CONSENT website was built on GovCMS (Australia's whole-of-government content management system) using the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model. We leveraged GovCMS's robust Drupal foundation while extending its capabilities through the creation of a custom subtheme derived from the provided base theme.
Key technical aspects of the platform include:
- Drupal Core: GovCMS is built on Drupal, providing a powerful, extensible foundation
- PaaS: Allows for greater customization compared to SaaS while still maintaining essential GovCMS features and compliance requirements
- Containerized Architecture: Deployed using a Docker-based infrastructure on the GovCMS PaaS
- CI/CD Pipeline: Integration with continuous deployment workflows through GitLab CI
Technical challenges and solutions
-
Maintaining Compatibility with GovCMS Updates
-
Complex Layouts
-
Translations and multiple PDF files
-
AA Accessibility Compliance with Custom Design Elements
The results
The GovCMS PaaS implementation with a custom subtheme approach proved highly effective. The project overcame key technical challenges including: achieving AA Accessibility with custom designs that diverged from the standard theme; optimizing performance despite heavy media requirements; and implementing multilingual support with translation workflows. Throughout these challenges, we maintained GovCMS's security and compliance features while delivering a custom design that remained compatible with platform updates and met all government guidelines.
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