Giz A Break is a registered health promotion charity that wraps a youth and social work approach into an off-road touring format. We work with individuals and small groups, from full-day adventures to 7-day camps. Our team consists of skilled and experienced youth workers, outdoor educators, and social workers. Our programs are consciously designed and resourced to support young people with high needs.
Program closure announcement
31 October 2026
After a great deal of thought, we have made the difficult decision to wind down Giz A Break's programs by 31 December 2026. We know this news is disappointing and may bring up a range of feelings and questions, particularly for young people and families who have been part of our programs. Please watch the video below to find out more, and read on below.
Why is this happening?
Over the past few years, the needs of the young people coming to Giz A Break have become increasingly complex. We are proud to work alongside young people experiencing significant challenges, and we also recognise how important it is that they have access to the right support for their individual needs. We’ve worked hard to enable this, adapting our staffing to match the need.
At the same time, funding has become increasingly difficult to secure. This means we cannot sustainably continue delivering our programs in their current form while ensuring that we have the resources and specialist support needed to meet participants' needs safely and appropriately. This decision is about the limits of our current organisation and funding model. It is not about the young people we support, and it does not diminish the importance of the work we have done together.
What does this mean for you?
We are working through the practical arrangements for the coming months. Our intention is to honour existing commitments where possible, communicate any changes directly and help participants and families explore other support options where appropriate.
If you are a current participant in our programs, we will already have contacted you by phone or email or both. Your scheduled camps or 1:1 appointments are going ahead and we're really looking forward to seeing you. If you are a recipient of one of our GV Medical Workforce Fund scholarships, there will be no change for you. The scholarships will continue as before. If you are a referrer or funder, we will already have reached out to you. We are no longer taking referrals. If you are a donor, we thank you for your support over the years. It has made a massive difference. If you make a regular (eg monthly) donation, you may choose to continue doing so (please check the "next steps" tab); alternatively, we recommend you redirect your donation to another small organisation that works at the coal face with families that are doing it tough.
We recognise that there is no simple replacement for a program, a trusted relationship or a place where a young person feels comfortable being themselves. We cannot promise that an equivalent service will be available for everyone, but we want to do what we reasonably can to help make this transition as supported as possible.
Is Giz A Break closing?
While we are closing programs, the charity Giz A Break itself will not close. Our dream is to develop a 6 and 12-months programs designed to suit young people at high risk of suicide, particularly young people who have experienced significant trauma. We think that using dialectical behaviour therapy for adolescents (DBT-A) is a useful framework for this development. We understand that this would mean Giz A Break becomes a mental health service provider - and this means we need to comply with different laws and regulations. This requires a significant investment of time and resources we do not have. Our hope is that we can attract support to undertake this development. We'd love to partner with other mental health and youth specialist organisations (public and private) to undertake this work.
What will staff do?
Giz A Break does not have sufficient resources to keep staff employed while trying to redevelop the service. This means that current staff, including Dallas and Zonk, will seek work elsewhere. While Dallas is now looking for her next calling and will be ready to start from late November or early December, Zonk will need to spend some extra weeks to make sure all programs are wound down properly and all our obligations are met.
What happens to all your gear?
We'll be selling two of our 4x4s (the two Hiluxes), and keep the two older Prados with the awesome artwork. We'll also keep our core adventure equipment like swags, chairs, and fishing gear. We're selling all the other things - lots of awesome sleeping bags, army tents, overnight hiking equipment, canoes, and so on. Keep an eye on our Facebook page where we'll be posting about items we're selling.
We have left the remainder of the website intact so you can see what our programs and services currently are. So, if this is your first time here and you're curious, have a gander :)
Youth Programs
To participate in our existing programs, head to the Youth Programs tab. All adventures currently open for registration will be there. Our offerings keep evolving - we're now providing resilience and capacity building camps for young people with disabilities and for young people experiencing significant mental health challenges, and more. We have also delivered programs for young people at high risk of engagement with the justice system, and are now preparing to deliver a program specifically designed for young people who survived sexual abuse. Destinations across VIC and NSW include the Victorian high country (two separate itineraries), the deserts along the VIC / SA border, the Otway National Park along the Great Ocean Road, the Grampians, Lake Eildon, and the NSW Outback (including Mungo, Kinchega, and Mutawintji National Parks). We're licensed and fully equipped and qualified for for 4x4 touring, bushwalking, fossicking, fishing, and canoeing.
Our focus.
Our goal is to support people at risk of poor health and social outcomes to achieve their full potential. We primarily support young people at risk of, or living with, mental health challenges and who existing services struggle to reach and connect with (or where no suitable services exist).
Our culture.
- We're always on our participants' side. We listen. We support. We focus on our participants' strengths.
- We are committed to providing everyone who engages with us with a safe, healthy, positive experience.
- We highly value the freedom to express ourselves fully, to have fun, to explore, and to take calculated risks.
- We also highly value a community that is more than the sum of its parts - one where we listen, care, and actively contribute.
- We foster a nurturing culture in which we feel safe to have open, honest, and constructive dialogue as a means to improve the status quo.
- We support and challenge each other to be the best we can be.
We live and work on Aboriginal land. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land our adventures take place on:
- Yorta Yorta and Bangerang (lower Goulburn River and Murray River)
- Taungurung (western Alpine region)
- Eastern Maar Country (Otways)
- Djab Wurrung and Jardwardjali (Gariwerd / Grampians)
- Barengi Gadjin (Victorian Deserts)
We are acutely aware of, and celebrate, the fact that Aboriginal cultures are the oldest surviving cultures in the world, and we include truth telling in our adventures.
Safety first
The safety and wellbeing of participants and everyone who engages with us, especially young and vulnerable people, is our top priority. You can access our Child Safety & Wellbeing Policy using the button below, and you can also provide us with feedback or make a complaint using the form (see the button below). You're also welcome to write to us on [email protected] or call us on 0401 833 110.
#lessgo
Community Initiatives
So, you'd like to arrange for an adventure or an initiative for your school or community to bring about change for some or many? This is for you.
Capacity Building Adventures
Want to boost your social skills, become more independent, and increase your community participation? Get off screens? Find out about our camps and 1:1 mentoring programs open to anyone, including self-funded and NDIS funded participants.
Custom Adventures
You're after something bespoke in terms of destination and structure? Tag-along or fully catered? Outback or Otways? Find out what we can do and get in touch.
#destinations
High Country
Mountain tops, water falls, crystal clear streams and amazing 4x4 tracks. Oh, and high country huts thrown into the mix as well. Our camps are between October and May, and our 1:1 Adventures go all year around.
Otway Magic
Come along for an unforgettable off-road adventure through the Great Otways. Rainforest, shipwrecks, beaches and waterfalls - all in the one day. This is true magic: The Great Ocean Road from an angle few get to experience.
VIC Deserts
Toboggan down white sand dunes, scale towering dunes in the four-wheel drive, and marvel at the desert spring flowering and sunsets over salt lakes. This is a breath-taking destination - and we bet you didn't even know we had these gems on our doorstep.
Strathbogie Ranges
So close to our base and yet sooooo goooooood! Slippery clay, creeks, rain forest and steep, rocky and rutted tracks. A real adventure playground!
The Rivers
We're so lucky to live in River Country: The Broken and Goulburn Rivers make for wonderful fishing and kayaking destinations, and the Murray's hidden sandy beaches and River Redgum forests are the perfect destination for some respite - and koala spotting!
Gariwerd (Grampians)
A spectacular and unique destination that has stunning rock art, thrilling hikes, refreshing waterfalls, and fantastic 4x4 tracks with views that will stay with you forever.
What do we do?
Giz A Break gives people the break they need, when they need it most. We specialise in delivering outdoor-based health promotion initiatives that we co-design with communities, organisations, and groups. The issues we tackle can be diverse - they include primary prevention, such as the working with young people to build their resilience and so prevent mental health issues down the track, right through to secondary prevention, such as working with people who are recovering from significant illness.
Permission to play.
We’re children at heart - think Pippi Longstocking, and you get the picture. We get excited about stuff. We believe in the good in people. We believe that finding time and space to play is good for young and old. Playing is how we practise being part of a community, coping with setbacks, and celebrating successes. It’s through making experiences in safe environments that we learn how to become resilient, how we learn new, healthier ways of doing things. The purpose of Giz A Break is to create that space.
In it for the right reasons.
We're a not-for-profit organisation and a registered charity with DGR (tax deductible gift recipient) status. This means three things:
- We don't aim to make a profit.
- All our revenue goes towards achieving our purpose.
- Donations can be deducted from your taxable income.
Skilled team & unique service.
Based in Shepparton (northern VIC), we get regional and rural life and everything that comes with it. With experience and qualifications in health and community services coupled with 4x4 certifications, we bring a unique set of skills to the table. Whether you're a school that wants to work creatively and intensively with a specific cohort of students, or whether you're an NDIS participant looking for capacity building initiatives that are different yet complementary to traditional clinical approaches, we've got you covered.
Insured and licensed
Giz A Break is a Licensed Tour Operator with Parks Victoria and also an EcoPass holder with NSW Parks and Wildlife Services. That means we have passed an assessment that enables us to operate guided tours on public land, including national and state parks on the SA boarder right through to the eastern section of the Victorian High Country, and from the parks bordering the Murray River in the north through to the Great Ocean Road in the south. We are licensed for Mungo National Park, Kinchega National Park, Mutawintji National Park, Willandra National Park, the Mt Kosciuszko area in the NSW high country, and a few more areas in NSW, too.