Stereotypical masculine norms place pressure on men to solve their problems alone, with nearly one-quarter of 18-45-year-old men never seeking help for personal issues. Despite increasing national focus on men’s mental health, this reluctance is often ingrained early, with many teenage boys internalising the unwritten rules that equate stoicism with strength and vulnerability with weakness.
Over the past decade, The Man Cave has worked with over 100,000 teenage boys across Australia through school-based interventions, generating compelling findings that link traditional masculine norms with lower confidence in seeking help from both informal (friends, adults, school staff) and formal (professional) support services. Our data also highlights the value of programs that broaden teenage boys’ understandings of masculinity and promote emotional literacy, particularly when engagement is sustained over time.
This presentation will explore how the beliefs of teenage boys aged 12-17 towards contemporary understandings of masculinity influence their attitudes toward help-seeking. This data demonstrates how a single, full-day workshop delivered by peers aged 21-35 can begin to shift these attitudes in a positive direction when teenage boys are provided with the space, safety, and tools to expand their mental health literacy. Longitudinal findings also show that annual reengagement deepens these shifts, reinforcing help-seeking as a courageous act.
Attendees will gain practical insights into how masculinity, emotional literacy, and early intervention intersect over time, as well as how to design environments that foster a sense of safety, support, and empowerment among boys, encouraging them to seek help when needed. This allows us all to reframe help-seeking not as a failure of self-reliance, but as an act of strength.