Creative Australia has today announced a new two-year initiative that aims to strengthen the role of the arts in health and community care, helping to improve\u00a0wellbeing and support stronger, more socially connected communities.<\/p>\n
The launch today of the Creative Health Alliance Australia coincides with\u00a0National Loneliness Awareness Week (4-10 August), offering a timely and\u00a0positive\u00a0response to the need to\u00a0reduce loneliness and strengthen social connection.<\/p>\n
The initiative brings together partners from\u00a0the\u00a0Foundation for Social Health and leading researchers from the Murdoch Children\u2019s Research Institute (MCRI) Justice Health Group to lay the foundations for national creative health infrastructure, delivering new tools, support structures and standards to recognise the vital role of creative practitioners in supporting individual and community wellbeing.<\/p>\n
Creative Australia initiated the partnership in response to strong demand from the sector and growing evidence of the value of creative health.<\/p>\n
Creative Australia CEO Adrian Collette AM said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is growing national and international recognition of the role the arts can play in supporting health and wellbeing.\u00a0This initiative builds on that momentum, supporting the practitioners already doing this work so they can reach more people and build stronger more connected communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Creative Australia Research Fellow and Manager Research Partnerships, Dr Christen Cornell said:<\/p>\n
\u201cOur\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0sector engagement<\/a>\u00a0show that creative health programs are already having powerful impacts in communities across Australia, but often without the recognition and support they deserve. This initiative lays the foundations for a more coordinated and sustainable future for creative\u00a0health \u2013 not as charity or enrichment, but as a core component of Australia\u2019s public health future.\u201d<\/p>\n The two-year partnership will work to deliver:\u00a0<\/p>\n A co-designed national quality framework for creative health.\u00a0A practitioner-facing badge system and toolkit based on the quality framework.\u00a0A searchable database of creative health practitioners.\u00a0Peer mentoring, residencies, and training for creative health workers.\u00a0A robust three-tier fundraising strategy (government, philanthropy, self-generating).\u00a0Sustainable long-term stewardship and coalition-building across clinical, cultural, and community sectors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Melanie Wilde, CEO of the\u00a0Foundation for Social Health\u00a0said:<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve spent years diagnosing the problem. Now is the time to fund what works \u2014 and treat connection as essential infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia is behind and it\u2019s time to invest in community-based, culturally relevant supports that actually work. We keep telling people to reach out. But what if there\u2019s no one there to catch them?<\/p>\n \u201cCreative Australia\u2019s leadership support for this work is a critical first step to expanding and developing arts-based approaches as a scalable, non-clinical solution to mental distress.\u201d<\/p>\n Professor Stuart Kinner from the\u00a0Murdoch Children\u2019s Research Institute (MCRI)\u00a0said:<\/p>\n \u201cThe latest evidence suggests that three quarters of young people experience clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety, and despite their connected digital world are some of the loneliest people in recorded history.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, if we can harness the talents, creativity, and hopes of our children and adolescents, we can change the world for the better.\u00a0Initiatives\u00a0like this represent a step towards this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of the Foundation for Social Health\u2019s contribution to the Alliance, it has established a\u00a0Creative Health Taskforce,\u00a0led by human rights advocate\u00a0Nyadol Nyuon\u00a0and mental health reformer\u00a0Sebastian Rosenberg. This Taskforce will work with sector leaders to address critical gaps across Australia\u2019s arts and health infrastructure. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Creative Australia has today announced a new two-year initiative that aims to strengthen the role of the arts in health and community care, helping to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26123,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26122,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26121\/revisions\/26122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seasiaonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}