In efforts aimed at greater gender equality, there is a growing emphasis on promoting positive or healthier masculinities. Aiming for healthier masculinities that embrace equality, respect, non-violence and care means encouraging boys and men to be more conscious of how enactments of masculinity and traditional norms of masculinity can be harmful to women and girls, to gender diverse people, and to boys and men themselves. It is clear that conforming to traditional masculine norms is associated with poorer mental health outcomes and lower help-seeking behaviours among men, as well as a higher likelihood of violence perpetration.
A variety of organisations, communities, local councils and other bodies are putting increasing amounts of time and energy towards fostering healthier masculinities. While this often involves engaging an existing provider to run a healthy masculinities program, some stakeholders want to set out to design and implement their own programs. Such stakeholders are the intended audience of this tool. Drawing on recent evidence reviews and evaluations of healthier masculinities programs in Australia, the tool lays out some promising principles of good practice that can help in the effective design and implementation of healthier masculinities programs. The tool does not describe specific details of curricula or course content for healthier masculinities programs. Rather, it provides guidelines around core fundamentals such as underpinning philosophical foundations to guide the initial planning of programs, some key practicalities to consider in program delivery, and considerations for integrating and conducting program evaluation.