Melbourne, first group March 2027
Learning to find your way through what comes next.
A seven-month group for men rebuilding after a separation. Six weekends, twelve men, two facilitators in the room the whole way through.
Most support for men ends about the time the paperwork does. The hard part runs for years after that, and it is mostly spent alone, working out who you are now and how not to arrive back here.
Applications open closer to the start date. Register your interest and we will write to you first.
Why seven months
Almost everything a man is offered after a separation runs somewhere between four and twenty weeks. This is sixty-eight contact hours across seven months, and the length is not there to look serious.
Australian men who reported a recent relationship breakdown in 2022 were around 3.7 times as likely to report a suicide attempt two years later as men who had not. The raised risk does not drop away at the end of the first year. Whatever a separation sets off in a man runs on a longer clock than the services built around him.
Seven months will not resolve that either. It is long enough to still be there while it is happening, which a six-week course is not, and long enough that a man can try something, get it wrong, and bring it back four weeks later.
Figures from AIFS, Ten to Men, June 2026, from a cohort of more than 20,000 Australian men. Adjusted for age, employment, income, fatherhood, region, disadvantage, social support, alcohol use and earlier suicidality. It is an association rather than a cause, and most separated men do not attempt suicide.
Who the first group is for
Men who are through the worst of a separation and are now trying to work out what it meant and what to do differently. Far enough past it to think, close enough to it that the questions are live.
You do not need a diagnosis, a court matter, or a tidy account of what happened. You do need to be able to sit in a room with eleven other men for a weekend a month and stay curious about your own part in things.
If you are in the middle of it right now
Say so at intake. Sometimes the answer is that this group is right and the timing is not, and there is something better suited to the next few months. We would rather find that out with you in a conversation than have you discover it in month three. Nobody is knocked back for being honest about where they are.
What you should be able to do by September
See what is happening while it is happening, early enough to do something other than what you have always done, in the specific relationships in front of you now.
That is the whole promise. Not insight for its own sake, and not a framework you can explain at a barbecue. The test is whether you catch it in the moment, with your kids or your ex-partner or someone new, and have somewhere else to go.
What this is, and what it is not
This is relational development and life-transition education. It is a structured program for men rebuilding after separation, run as a group, over long enough for something to actually change.
It is not therapy, and it does not replace it. It is not a Men's Behaviour Change Program and cannot be used to satisfy a court or a service that has directed you to one. It is not legal or financial advice. It is not crisis support. And it is not a course about masculinity.
Plenty of men come here while also seeing a therapist or a lawyer. That works well. The two do different jobs, and we will say so if what you need is the other one.
The shape of it
- Length Seven months, March to September 2027
- Core sessions Six weekends, one a month
- Hours Friday 6pm to 9pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm
- Group size Twelve men
- Facilitators Two, present throughout
- Before you start A 90-minute intake conversation
- Halfway An hour, one to one
- Total contact time About 68 hours
- Where Melbourne, in person
What happens in the gaps
A weekend a month with nothing in between is six events, not a program. Three things run through the gaps and they are where most of the change actually happens.
A braintrust
A small group of the men, meeting at least once between weekends. It is where you report back on what you tried and what happened.
A buddy
One man, matched with you. He is the one who notices when you go quiet, which is the thing nobody else is positioned to see.
Optional workshops
Sessions between the core weekends for men who want to go further into a piece of the material.
None of these are facilitated, and here is what that means
Your braintrust and your buddy are other participants, not clinicians. If something comes up between weekends that is beyond what a peer should be carrying, there is a direct route to us and you will be given it in writing on the first weekend. Using it is not a failure of the group. It is what it is there for.
The six weekends
Each one ends the same way, with something specific you are going to try before the next one, and starts with what happened when you did. The material widens and then closes back in on you. Your own life is in the room from the first weekend, not saved for later.
One. Ground
Who you are in this room, and what your body does under pressure. Regulation comes first because everything else stands on it. You write a self-portrait and set a goal in your own words.
Before the next weekend: one thing you are going to notice.
Two. Inheritance
The oldest patterns, at the widest scale. Deliberately the furthest from your own pain, and usually where the first relief arrives, because you see that this is a pattern rather than a personal defect.
Before the next weekend: one thing you are going to try.
Three. Power
The world you were handed. What the culture told you a man is for, how the law works, and how control operates in relationships, including the forms of it that leave no mark.
Before the next weekend: one thing you are going to try.
Four. Pattern
Your family. What was modelled, what you inherited, what you chose without noticing you were choosing. The hardest weekend of the six, and the one everything before it has been building toward.
Before the next weekend: one thing you are going to try.
Five. Practice
From understanding to doing. Boundaries, repair, consent, and how to stay in a hard conversation. Also how to tell conflict from abuse, and a relationship worth repairing from one that should end.
Before the next weekend: one thing you are going to try.
Six. Integration
What you carry out. A second self-portrait against the first, your goal reviewed against both, and a clear-eyed look at what you are walking into next.
After: what you do with it is yours.
This is the first group. The container is fixed and the detail of the last two weekends is still being shaped.
Conditions of being in the room
Some things in this program the group decides together. These are not among them. They are set before you arrive and they do not get negotiated, because the room does not work without them.
- No threats and no intimidation, of anyone, at any point.
- Nothing identifying about a former partner leaves the room. Not to a friend, not online, not in a document.
- The group is not used to build a case against anybody.
- No recording of any session.
- No retaliation against a man who gives you honest feedback.
- No recruiting other men into grievance communities.
- No sexualised conduct.
- Facilitators will interrupt the group when it is needed, and will say so when they do.
What is said here stays here, with limits we will set out in full before you start. Those limits involve risk to you, to a child, or to another person. You will know exactly where they sit before you commit to anything.
Why a man and a woman run it
Every weekend is facilitated by both of us, together, the whole time. We could not find another men's program in Australia that does this, and it is the part people ask about most.
The short answer is that a room of men working out how they relate to women, run entirely by men, has a hole in it. You can talk about it accurately for seven months and never have to do it. Here you are doing it in the room, with someone who will tell you what she is actually seeing.
The longer answer is that this is not a program where a woman comes in to represent all women, or to be apologised to. That would be its own kind of useless.
Rudi Doku
Somatic and leadership practitioner
A first career in technology, then years of organisational and leadership development, and now somatic work. He’s trained in Somatic Experiencing and in Internal Family Systems, and works with the nervous system rather than around it.
He's been through a separation and the years that follow one. That isn't a reason to trust him with yours. It's why he knows what the middle of it looks like, and why the program runs for seven months instead of six weeks.
Caroline Shahbaz
MPsych, MA (Depth Liberation Psychology), MAPS
A background in clinical psychology, then thirty years in management consulting, leading transformation and leadership work inside large organisations and often the only woman in the room. She works now in a depth-psychology frame and runs Transforming Relationships, her own long-form program on how people relate.
She's been working with groups for a long time. In this one she's the person who'll tell you what she's actually seeing.
Both of us are in the room for every weekend. Neither of us sits it out.
How you get in
One. Apply
A written application. It asks about your situation and what you want out of seven months, and it takes a while, on purpose.
Two. Talk
Ninety minutes with us if the application progresses. This is where fit gets worked out, in both directions. You are assessing us too.
Three. Hold your place
A deposit on acceptance, which holds one of the twelve. The balance follows on the payment plan.
Not everyone who applies will be offered a place, and that is not a judgement on anybody. Twelve men have to be able to work together for seven months.
What it costs
- Founding group, March 2027 $2,900
- Paying in full $2,700
- Otherwise Spread across the seven months
- Funded places Two, at no cost
The two funded places are real and are awarded on application. If money is the reason you would not apply, apply and say so.
The first group builds the thing. The container is set, and the detail of the later weekends is still being shaped, which means what you say in month two changes what happens in month five. Later groups will get a finished program at a higher price. This one gets a say in it.
Seven months is a long time to give something.
It is also roughly how long it takes. If you want to know when applications open, put your name down and we will write to you before anyone else hears about it.
No obligation, and no sales calls. One email when applications open.