PROP, People Reaching Out to People

17/02/2026

The news cycle feels relentless these days. Social media even more so. Whether someone follows every headline or just absorbs fragments while scrolling, the same material keeps appearing. Stories about child sexual abuse. Allegations involving powerful people. A justice system many see as failing survivors while protecting the guilty and powerful.

This anger makes sense. Few issues cut deeper than this. Across political lines there’s something close to shared moral instinct. People react because, frankly, we should. Yet something easily slips past in the emotion.

Chances are you already know a child sexual assault survivor. You just don’t know it’s them.

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study recently put the prevalence at roughly one in four Australians. More than one in three women, and close to one in five men. These numbers aren’t unique to Australia. Global studies put the figures at roughly the same levels.

Most sexual assault survivors never disclose, not to family or friends. Male survivors, on average, wait near thirty years before speaking up. Too many carry it silently for life.

That reality changes how the public conversation lands.

Inside every family, workplace, or online network sit people who lived through exactly what today’s headlines describe. They scroll past commentary, imagery, and graphic detail while holding dark memories they never volunteered to revisit.

Circulating explicit material does not raise awareness, it only redistributes the content of abuse. It can reopen injuries that took years to stabilise. The person on the other end of that share didn’t get to prepare for it. Something posted in thirty seconds can reach someone in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday and take them somewhere they’ve worked years to climb out of.

For once, the algorithm is pulling people together rather than apart. Unlike most other posts on social media sites, the horror at what’s emerging is shared across every political line we usually fight over. Yet some are using it as ammunition, and survivors watching that happen don’t just feel forgotten. They feel vulnerable and open to shame all over again.

None of this argues for restraint of concern or outrage. People are right to demand justice. Public pressure for accountability matters and survivors want to see it as much as anyone else.

But inevitably, tone and judgement rise as well. Many sexual assault survivors are watching these developments closely, hoping justice will finally be served. What they don’t need, however, is to scroll past remarks that minimise what happened, reframe victims as “nearly old enough to consent”, or reduce genuine suffering to a “not that big of a deal” argument. Every post, every shared link, every casual remark contributes to an environment survivors read all too closely. They draw conclusions about safety from how others speak on the subject.

In any audience, survivors remain quietly present. Please don’t give them a reason to keep hiding.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to Lifeline on 13 11 14, available 24 hours a day.

31/01/2026

Don’t know about you but I rarely scroll past social media posts where someone rescues a stray and malnourished animal. We hit a ❤️ emoji and scroll on. But I was reminded recently how we don’t always stop and see when the homeless need our equal attention.

Yesterday, here in New York, the temperature was -10 C. A homeless man outside a coffee shop asked for change. His jacket was thin cotton. Nothing close to what you need, specially when wind chill feels even lower. I asked if he had a winter coat; he didn’t. He told me how the hospital had discharged him the day before and that he’d been outside since.

I rushed back to my hotel. Gave him my spare winter coat, bought him coffee and breakfast.

The graph attached says enough. We didn’t close mental health institutions, we only moved them. Closing hospital beds looks like fiscal savings; immediate and visible. But these costs didn’t just vanish. They were just relocated to places that cost more yet help less.

Emergency departments became holding areas. Jails often became long-term care. In the US, about one in five people in jail live with serious mental illness. Streets become the gap between discharge and nowhere. Someone moves through emergency, gets released with minimal follow-up, ends up back in crisis. Then it happens again and the bill grows. A false economy. In some places, nearly three dollars are spent on prisons for every dollar spent on mental health treatment. Families stretch trying to fill gaps the system left open. Treatment becomes less likely.

Some countries have made different choices. Australia hasn’t always. We’ve found our own shallow savings by cutting back on mental health spending too. Places that funded community mental health early, and kept services accessible, see measurable returns. Research suggests spending on treatment brings value back through productivity and health. Some studies show four dollars returned for every dollar invested. People stay in work more often. Treating mental health as a utility instead of an expense changes what gets funded and when.

That man I met yesterday walked out of a hospital into freezing weather with no coat and nowhere to go. He’ll hopefully find somewhere tonight. Tomorrow the same question returns.

Society pays for mental health either way. Fund care earlier, when it still works and ultimately costs less. Leave it late and the bill expands through emergency services or incarceration. Calling it “savings” by shifting expense from treatment to criminal justice won’t reduce the total. It only moves the line item and decides who bears the weight.

Mental health isn’t an expense problem, it’s a social utility. Until we treat it that way, the cycle keeps turning and people keep falling through the gaps we pretend aren’t there.

If this piece has brought up difficult emotions for you, please know that support is available. You can call Lifeline at 13 11 14 for 24/7 confidential crisis support.

30/01/2026

28/01/2026

🙏🏼

15/12/2025

Nearly 24 hours have passed since the shooting in Bondi, and I’m still sitting with a mix of emotions.

There’s disbelief at how senseless it all was. Anger that this could happen here, carried out by Australians against other Australians. And a soul-deep sadness for the families who are now living inside shock and grief.

A ten-year-old child. The oldest living Holocaust survivor in Australia. Families who will go to bed tonight with rooms left untouched, beds still made, the quiet louder than anything else.

At the same time, there were moments of courage. Ordinary Australians who ran toward danger, not away from it. People who put their own lives at risk to protect others and help strangers get to safety. That doesn’t erase anyone’s loss, but it spared other families from the same senseless grief.

Empathy doesn’t hold a passport. It doesn’t belong to a religion or a label. It only asks that we feel what others are going through.

As I sit with this, melancholy, I notice the physical weight of it. Holding back my tears. Containing my rage. Head lowered in disbelief. They say Melbourne can give you four seasons in one day. In Sydney, today, it’s been four emotions in one day.

It will take time to recover. My worry now is what comes next. That grief, fear, and anger get packaged by others for their own gain. That people start talking past each other while families are still mourning.

I don’t want that.

So I’m choosing to reach out instead. To stand with others who are grieving. To hold space rather than look for answers too quickly.

We are one, but we are many;
And from all the lands on earth we come;
We'll share a dream and sing with one voice;
"I am, you are, we are Australian"

27/11/2025

Pooh,” said Piglet quietly, “do you ever think about the ones who aren’t sitting beside us, but still feel close anyway?”

Pooh nodded very slowly. “Yes, Piglet. I think about them often. Especially about my mother. She may not always be here with me, but I feel her in every good thing I try to do. When I am kind, it is because she taught me kindness. When I am brave, it is because she once told me I could be. And when I feel small and a bit lost, I remember that she always made me believe I was enough.”

Piglet sat down beside him on the bench. “So even if she isn’t here, she still is?”

Pooh gave a little smile. “Exactly, Piglet. Mothers are like that. They don’t stop being part of your story, even when they’re not in the middle of it anymore. They’re in the way you see the world, in the way you hold onto hope, and in the way you keep going when days feel heavy.”

Piglet sighed softly, a happy sort of sigh. “That sounds like love that never ends.”

And Pooh, still looking at the little picture in his paws, whispered, “Yes, Piglet. That’s what mothers are—love that never ends.”

17/11/2025

The latest Quiet Man piece is live: “Quiet Man #7: Boundaries”.

These pieces try to slow things down for a moment, to notice what sits underneath the day. This one stays close to the small moments where we lose ourselves: a buzzing phone, a late-night work email or text, a distraction other than the one right in front of us.

It’s not advice. It’s not self-help. It’s a gentle reminder that presence is built in tiny choices, and those choices shape a life.

If this stirs something familiar, share it with someone who might need it.

I used to tell myself I’d do things differently. I wouldn’t follow the same work-first rhythm I grew up with. Then I caught myself looking at my phone while my kids were talking to me. They waited for me to come back to the moment. That pause said more than any Harry Chapin song ever could.

31/10/2025

We’ve added our sixth Quiet Man piece, “The Shape of Kindness”. This series gives men a place to pause, a quiet corner to notice what sits underneath the day. The things we feel but rarely say.

This one turns to kindness. The quiet sort that doesn’t ask for credit. The kind that waits, steadies a room, makes space when the world feels too loud. These days everything can feel counted, scored, or divided. Kindness cuts through that noise. It isn’t a virtue. It’s the muscle memory of being human.

Quiet Man isn’t advice, and it isn’t therapy. It’s just a small reflection, a way of naming what’s quiet so it doesn’t sit there alone.

If it speaks to you, please pass it forward.

He lived in a small flat above the cliff. A kettle on the stove. A window that watched the edge where rock meets water. When someone stood too near, he crossed the road. He offered tea and time. Simple moves. The kind that steady a shaking day. He’s gone now, though his legacy will last lifetimes.