Stop It Before It Starts!
Your creative brief
This page is your stimulus. Read it, let it sink in, then create something that shows us how to stop violence before it happens.
THE MODEL BEHIND THE CHALLENGE
The Cooktown Ten (C-10)
Violence doesn't just happen. Before any act of violence, six specific conditions come together — all at once, like petals on a flower. Remove even one of them, and violence can be stopped.
This is the insight behind the C-10: a model developed by Dr Bill Liley, a GP working in Cooktown, Far North Queensland. Take a deeper dive here. It is used by health workers, counsellors, teachers, and community members to have real conversations about preventing violence, before it occurs.
At the heart of all six factors sits contempt, the belief that another person is less worthy, less human, or less deserving of respect. Contempt is the attitudinal root from which violence grows.
THE C-10: SIX FACTORS of VIOLENCE and their SIX PREVENTION ACTIONS
Each factor is shown in the flower diagram below. The purple label is the factor, what makes violence possible. The green label is the factor's prevention action.
WHAT EACH FACTOR MEANS and HOW TO COUNTER IT
Frustration → Options
A sense there are no other choices. Give people options and paths forward.
Isolation → Connection
Being cut off from others. Build connection — social, emotional, cultural.
Desperation → Hope
All hope is gone. Restore a sense that things can change.
Prejudice → Respect
Dehumanising beliefs about others. Counter with genuine respect and dignity.
Place → Safety
A setting where violence feels possible. Be a person for whom others can feel safe to be with.
Trigger → Therapy
Unhealed trauma that activates a violent response. Healing and support reduce the threshold.
THE FOUR LIFE PROCESSES
The C-10 also recognises four basic life processes that sustain health and resilience — and where prevention can take root.
Eating
Good food, clean air, fresh water. What we take in from life.
Waste and renewal
What we release and let go, physically, emotionally, and socially.
Connecting
Moving, meeting, mixing. Our relationships with others and our world.
Passing on
Heritage, tradition, mortality. What we leave behind and how we let go.
Show us one moment where someone softened a factor. What happened next?
It could be a conversation, a gesture, a decision, a community, a place. Quiet and small, or bold and public. Any setting. Any type of violence. Show us the action, thought, or delay that turned the situation around.
WHAT YOUR ARTWORK CAN BE
• Paint or draw • Write or poem
• Film or animate • Music or song
• Photo or collage • Sculpture
• Community mural • Digital art
✓ Use the C-10 as your creative springboard. Your artwork must respond to the model.
✓ Depict prevention: an intervention, a shift in attitude, a moment of kindness or connection.
✓ Post on Instagram with #stopitbeforeitstarts and @violencepreventionaustralia, then complete the online entry form.
✓ You must submit the entry form to be considered for a judge's award.
• Do not depict or glorify violence itself.
• No identifiable person under 18 may appear in any entry.
