Carolyn Robinson: On Breaking the Blueprint & Developing Tech for Good
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Carolyn Robinson: On Breaking the Blueprint & Developing Tech for Good
There are people who disrupt the system by design. And then there are those who do it out of necessity.
Carolyn Robinson never set out to build a multi-pillar recovery model for survivors of domestic and family violence. But when her daughter became the victim of a violent assault, she moved from mother to movement-builder and reshaped the way recovery, prevention, and advocacy are imagined in Australia.
Carolyn is the founder of Beyond DV, a grassroots organisation built not just on empathy, but on insight. In a sometimes-territorial sector, she has challenged the status quo with a self-assuredness, a tenacity, introducing holistic support systems that span legal, housing, health, education, and financial recovery. What began with three volunteers and a willingness to listen has grown into an organisation driving real change – and more recently, into a tech-enabled prevention strategy that speaks directly to young men navigating the complexities of gender, masculinity, and consent.
A former educator of 36 years, Carolyn is clear about what works – and what doesn’t. She brings the sensibility of the classroom into advocacy spaces: listening first, customising programmatic responses, and refusing one-size-fits-all fixes. Beyond DV’s youth-facing app, Ask A Mate, connects young men with positive male role models to counteract the toxic influence of online figures like Andrew Tate. Its design was shaped directly by teenage boys, through questions they’d never dared ask in public – some painfully simple, others deeply thoughtful. That blend of care and insight defines all of Robinson’s work.
In this conversation, we explore what it means to build with – not for – women in situations of vulnerability. We talk about gatekeeping in the domestic violence sector, the cost of innovation without institutional backing, and why effective funding models must move beyond crisis response to support long-term recovery and early intervention. Carolyn shares what happens when schools trust grassroots partnerships over glossy campaigns – and what real change looks like when you refuse to take no for an answer.
Innovation born from lived experience and outsider insight
We begin with the moment that everything changed: a 5am call from a police officer informing Carolyn Robinson that her daughter had been physically assaulted by her then partner. What followed wasn’t just a personal reckoning – it became the catalyst for a structural response. From that trauma emerged Beyond DV, and with it, a new model for recovery grounded in lived experience, empathy, and systems thinking.
The catalyst for Beyond DV
In a sector where services for women escaping violence are often fragmented, under-resourced, and rigid, Beyond DV does things differently. It co-located services under one roof, removing the burden from women to navigate disconnected systems while in crisis, and evolves its services as women’s needs change, rather than forcing women to fit narrow service delivery models.
It's five pillars of recovery – social, health, housing, legal and financial – recognise women as whole people, not just cases to be managed. Social support addresses the isolation many women face by building community and connection. Health support goes beyond referrals, providing access to trauma-informed counselling, women’s health services, dental care and even self-defence lessons. Housing support includes transitional housing for women and their children. Legal support offers affordable legal representation and pro bono advice, critical for women navigating protection orders, custody arrangements, and divorce. Financial rebuilding helps women regain autonomy through financial counselling, debt minimisation and financial literacy programs.
Where services don’t exist, Beyond DV builds them. This commitment has allowed Carolyn’s team to address gaps and adapt quickly.
She embraces the role of disruptor in a sector often resistant to change.
Channelling outsider insight
“Recently I was described as an outlier. And I thought, you know, I’ll take that. Shortly after, a well-meaning journalist called me an agitator, and I thought, yeah…I’m not prepared to just say, ‘this is the best we can do’. We have to be prepared to take those calculated risks. We have to be prepared to keep on thinking outside the box.”
“We have to be prepared to take those calculated risks. We have to be prepared to keep on thinking outside the box.”
What she brings is the power of perspective. “Coming in with a fresh set of eyes where collaboration is just so critical. That was how we operated. Governments really do need to embrace people from outside of the sector coming in and looking at the problem with fresh eyes, and a different perspective.”
“The women we were working with were saying that their needs weren’t being met. It felt like the service that was being provided was all about what was suitable for the organisation. They’d tell me, ‘They didn’t really listen to me, they just told me what I needed’. And I just…that just never sat well with me. I do not want to dictate to people what they need, because I don’t know, and I think it’s really disrespectful to assume that we know what somebody needs.”
Her years in education have sharpened this sensibility. “The grit comes from 36 years as an educator, and knowing that within a classroom of 25, 30 children, we can never use a one-size-fits-all approach. We’re constantly looking at ways of modifying our strategies to reach every child because we know that they have unique needs, even more so when working with vulnerable communities.
This mindset continues to inform Beyond DV’s core services – and it has carried through to newer projects like the Ask A Mate app.
Developing Tech for Good
The Ask A Mate app: Rewriting the narrative for young men
The Ask A Mate app, created by Beyond DV embodies a prevention-first, youth-driven, and relationally inclusive approach to gender-based violence. The app allows young men to hear advice from public male figures – from football to comedy - ready to answer questions about relationships, gender identity, equality and consent. The idea had been shelved after an unsuccessful funding pitch – until a cultural shift made its urgency undeniable. As toxic influencers like Andrew Tate gained traction online, Carolyn recognised the growing void: boys were seeking answers, and the loudest voices filling that gap were often the most harmful.
Counteracting harmful messaging
Referring to figures like Tate, Robinson says “If these men are providing a platform for themselves, who is counteracting that?” Rather than simply counteract harmful messaging, Carolyn set out to create an entirely different kind of conversation – one rooted in empathy, credibility, and care. “It’s a compassionate approach welcoming young men into the fold and meeting their needs. They do have questions, but they don’t know where to go to find the right information.”
The questions young men are asking
To develop the app, her team surveyed students from diverse schools, asking what they genuinely wanted to know. The responses were revelatory.
“We are expecting young men to behave in a particular way, but they clearly don’t have the knowledge base to make better choices.”
“We said, give us a couple of questions about your concerns when it comes to relationships, masculinity, gender and violence. We ended up with 14 pages of questions. There were some very simple questions – ‘How do I make a girl feel comfortable on a first date?’ and ‘How do I let a girl know I want to be more than just friends?’ which almost broke my heart. It goes to show that we are expecting young men to behave in a particular way, but they clearly don’t have the knowledge base to make better choices. There were also some really complex questions coming through – ‘What do I do if a mate comes and says he’s been sexually assaulted? How can I support him? How can I call out my friends when they’re saying things that I don’t agree with about women?” The app is now more than a digital tool – it’s an engine of empathy, built with and for young men by tech outfit Moonward Apps.
Rethinking systems: sector gate-keeping, collaboration and government funding
Carolyn speaks candidly about the structural inertia she encountered when entering the domestic and family violence sector. As someone from outside the system, her presence – and her ideas – were often met with resistance from those long invested in maintaining the status quo and ‘their’ grant funding.
“The pushback came from people who’d been in the sector for a very long time. Their perspective was ‘this is the way things are done’. It’s just been about really developing a thick skin, because my team and I believe in what we’re doing, and we are told constantly that we are meeting needs.”
She quickly learned that collaboration, while often celebrated in theory, was tightly guarded in practice – especially when funding was at stake. “Collaboration was talked about, but everybody was very scared of collaboration as well, because that might mean that if something was successful, one organisation might lose funding. It was more so about patch guarding, keeping everything close. Collaboration came with a different agenda – keeping tabs on what you were thinking and what you were planning to do.” Far from being deterred, she’s used these experiences to sharpen her instincts – developing a strong sense of who to trust, and how to build partnerships grounded in shared values.
Systemic barriers to innovation and equity
Carolyn has also confronted the unspoken hierarchies within the sector where legacy funding, institutional cachet, and professional background often determine perceived legitimacy.
Systemic barriers to innovation
“I would hear that what was being said behind my back was, she’s just a teacher who helped her kid. There’s almost an elitism…unless you’re one of these regularly funded, larger organisations, you really don’t have a place in the sector. I challenge that.”
“There’s almost an elitism…unless you’re one of these regularly funded, larger organisations, you really don’t have a place in the sector. I challenge that.”
“Outdated funding models are holding the sector back,” she tells me. The siloed nature of government departments doesn’t align with the holistic work Beyond DV delivers – and that disconnect leaves critical needs unfunded. We are spanning so many different departmental portfolios. So, who funds us? You can fund an organisation who delivers just crisis. But what about those other needs that aren’t being met? We need to be more innovative with the way we fund organisations.”
Operating outside these rigid frameworks has forced Carolyn and her team to get creative. Working without prescriptive KPIs or top-down directives opened space for experimentation. Now, they’ve been able to pilot progams, evaluate their impact, and take that evidence to government.
Still, there’s a cost to that freedom. Inconsistent funding creates burnout and instability. “We’re losing good people with incredible knowledge and expertise and passion because they don’t have job security. That’s not really fair for them. They want to buy houses; they want to secure their own family’s future.”
Hope, tenacity and long-term vision
It takes extraordinary grit to transform crisis into innovation, but Carolyn has done just that – challenging institutional norms and becoming a force for broader cultural and policy change. “With every single thing we’ve done as an organisation, it’s being tenacious and not accepting no.”
“With every single thing we’ve done as an organisation, it’s being tenacious and not accepting no.”
After years of scrapping for resources and building relationships from the ground up, she’s beginning to see change – proof that grit and vision can shift the centre of gravity in even the most entrenched systems.
The role hope & tenacity play
“Our organisation has survived off the smell of an oily rag for so many years. We’ve met the adversity, and we’re seeing some really positive changes coming through.”
Carolyn’s work is a reminder that some of the most transformative ideas come from those closest to the ground and furthest from convention. In refusing to replicate broken systems, she’s shown what it means to rebuild from care, with courage, and in community.