Consent Craft is a movement
Towards creating a culture of ethical and empowered relationships built on body awareness and choice
The conventional view of consent is often reduced to a "yes" or "no" answer, focused on rules, legalities, and potential risks.
This narrow understanding overlooks the complexities of real-life interactions, in contrast, Consent Craft offers a broader perspective, recognising that people need comprehensive and practical skills and frameworks to match the nuances of their relational experiences.
Consent is a lifelong skill that applies to all relationships, personal and professional. It’s not just about preventing harm, but empowering individuals with the knowledge and tools to create stronger, healthier, and more fulfilling connections.
What’s in a name?
The word ‘consent’ comes from Latin roots…
CON meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’
SENT(IRE) meaning ‘to sense’ or ‘feel’
CON-SENT meaning ‘to feel together’
CONSENT is about feeling with / engaging with others in a way that prioritises mutual understanding, empathy, respect, and choice.
CRAFT, in this context, refers to the embodied and communicative tools and skills necessary to create and maintain great relationships.
Consent Craft isn’t about teaching right or wrong, or imposing rules for ethical relationships. Instead, it focuses on helping you develop YOUR inner strengths and resources.
Just as an artist hones their craft over time, learning to trust how their mind and body work together to create their art, Consent Craft helps you refine your relationship skills by offering tools and practices that support a similar mind-body (embodied) learning.
Think of it like going to the gym to build stronger muscles for better movement, at Consent Craft, you build stronger inner skills to be better equipped to handle complex interactions with clarity and confidence.
Our Mission
Consent Craft’s mission is to empower individuals to build ethical, respectful, and fulfilling relationships through embodied consent, self-awareness, and creative practices.
Our aim to bridge the gap between traditional relationship and consent education, which often focuses on problems and oversimplified solutions, and a more practical approach that connects to real-life experiences, offering frameworks and practices that foster meaningful personal change. Consent Craft believes that lasting cultural change begins with inner transformation and is committed to advancing the movement toward creating a culture of consent.
Our Approach
Consent Craft’s approach combines somatic education and creative arts therapies to help you safely and creatively explore new experiences while challenging old habits, mindsets, and ways of relating. Humans have long used creative arts to teach, learn, process challenging experiences, and celebrate connection. Art, movement, play, and storytelling are innate to us, and modern research shows they are powerful methods for whole-body learning.
While Consent Craft’s offering is innovative and unique it is also grounded in the well-established theories and practices of somatic education and creative arts therapies, offering you tools that are not only transformative but also backed by research and proven effectiveness.
What to expect
Through a commitment to inclusivity, authenticity, consent, empowerment, and growth, Consent Craft supports all kinds of people in all types of relationships.
Consent Craft provides personal education resources and skill development for ethical and empowering relationships for people of all ages and backgrounds. Whether you're joining a workshop, taking an online course, doing 1:1 coaching, or simply following our socials each experience helps you build self-awareness, improve relational effectiveness, and understand embodied consent.
Consent Craft learning sessions
Sessions combine somatic education, creative arts therapies, and trauma-informed theory and practices. Through self-reflection and interactive activities, you'll explore new ideas and develop embodied skills. Some challenging thoughts or feelings may arise as you un-learn old habits and discover new awarenesses in the body, but respect, choice, and boundaries are at the heart of our work, ensuring a safe, supportive space for exploration.
Consent Craft workshops, courses or coaching are not therapy, they are learning spaces
Where you can experiment, play, and apply what you’ve learned to your own experiences. As you work towards your personal goals, which may include setting healthy boundaries, enhancing communication, or increasing understanding of complex relational dynamics, by the end of our time together, you’ll have gained tools and insights to make more informed choices in your relationships.
Whether you're improving personal connections, navigating intimate or professional challenges, or working to create a more respectful community, the skills you develop will support you in your everyday interactions.
At Consent Craft, I strive for inclusivity in both content and delivery
Unlike other consent frameworks, Consent Craft delivers content that is not centred on gender or sexual topics, making it accessible to a wide range of people, ages, and backgrounds. However, gender and sex related topics may arise in your exploration, and that’s completely welcome. The work is sometimes tailored to address topics or issues within particular groups, and I welcome enquiries about your needs when booking. I aim to create a space where everyone is respected and valued, with care and sensitivity given to the needs of diverse populations.
Meet Vanessa K. Vance
Founder & Lead Educator of Consent Craft
B. Couns MCAT AthR
Consent Craft was born out of my commitment to helping people with the complexities of human connection and my belief that social change can be influenced by individual growth and empowerment.
I founded Consent Craft as a space to offer a new way of understanding, learning, and practicing consent, that can be used to create practical change in personal, professional relationships, and communities.
I grew up in a sex - and body - positive household, surrounded by supportive family relationships that fostered a strong sense of self and a feeling of safety in my body. However, as a cis-gendered girl and young woman out in the world, I became starkly aware of the restrictive societal expectations and negative messaging around gender and sexuality. Like many, I internalised these ideas, performing for others and going along with experiences that weren’t authentic or fulfilling. I lacked the awareness and skills to feel my own power and communicate my wants and limits effectively.
Discovering mindful, embodied practices changed my life.
I explored many approaches, including breathwork, movement, emotional expression, and pleasure-focused mindfulness, which helped me reconnect with my body and respond from my authentic self. Combined with my background in the performing and visual arts I became deeply curious about the generative space between myself and others. This led to over a decade of training in diverse methods to support people with relational and embodied challenges.
My professional journey
I’ve worked with individuals and couples in private practice and facilitated groups on embodiment, intimacy and consent. Through this, I became a passionate advocate for embodied consent and its transformative impact. This passion inspired me to create Consent Craft, a space dedicated to providing tools and practices that support personal and relational embodied transformation.
Qualifications
I bring a diverse and interdisciplinary background to Consent Craft, combining my qualifications in somatic sex education, creative arts therapies, and trauma-informed care. I’m also committed to continuous learning and engage in regular professional supervision and ongoing training to refine my approach. I ensure that my practice remains informed by the latest research and best practices in the field.
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Master of Creative Arts Therapies
Bachelor of Counselling
Certificate in Sexological Bodywork
Certified Wheel of Consent ® Facilitator with the School of Consent ®
Registered Art Therapist with the Australian, New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association (ANZACATA)
Level 3 member of The Australian Counselling Association (ACA)
Professional member of the Somatic Sex Educators Association of Australasia (SSEAA)
Consent Craft is more than just a business for me, it’s a way to contribute to the global conversation on consent, relationships, and ethical decision-making. It’s a way for me to continue my own journey of learning, growing, and empowering others to do the same.