Valiant Film

VALIANT is joint project by Bus Stop Films and Northcott, supported by the Australian Department of Social Services.

About VALIANT

VALIANT is a short, educational film about building and maintaining healthy relationships and developing protective behaviour skills. Through four stories, VALIANT explores issues related to consent, sexuality and healthy relationships for people with disability.

VALIANT is supported by an educational guide developed by Northcott’s Sexuality and Relationship Education team. This guide aims to encourage discussion and learning around dating and relationships. It is intended to help spark conversations between people with disability, teachers, carers and others in their support network. It also provides tips and advice to help people with disability and their families and carers build respect for each other, navigate relationships and better understand another person’s needs and wishes.

Education Guide

Use this Education Guide to explore issues raised in VALIANT in groups or individually.

People with disability and relationships

Everyone has the right to intimacy and building healthy relationships, including people with disability. Yet access to education and understanding about sexual consent, relationships and dating is often limited – or non-existent.

For young people with disability, the need to learn about relationships, sexuality and sexual health can be overlooked, ignored or deemed unnecessary. In reality however, people with disability – and their parents, carers and support networks – often need extra support to learn about relationships and how to express their sexuality in positive and healthy ways.

Coupled with the education guide, Valiant aims to provide an entertaining, judgement-free tool to help start conversations about relationships for people with disability.

How the film came about

The idea for this project came from experiences seen during filmmaking classes for people with disability run by Bus Stop Films. With participants forming relationships while attending its programs, Bus Stop Films identified a need to support these young people in building safe and respectful relationships and understanding consent. From our work supporting customers in this area, Northcott had also identified a lack of resources.

Using its expertise in inclusive filmmaking, Bus Stop Films saw an opportunity to develop an educational resource that could enable young people with disability to feel empowered, while also addressing a gap in education.

As a leader in sexuality and relationship services for people with disability, Northcott was invited to collaborate with Bus Stop Films on the project.

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