Creative Australia (CA) as announced a new two-year initiative that aims to strengthen the role of the arts in health and community care.
The impetus comes from consistent recent research that demonstrates that the arts can assist – and alleviate – mental health triggers, and assist in better wellbeing. It is important to note that this project is focused on supporting artists working in community health settings, rather than art therapy – which is a related, but a different specialised field.
Creative Australia: quick links
Creative Australia: what will it deliver?
Creative Australia CEO Adrian Collette AM explained: ‘There is growing national and international recognition of the role the arts can play in supporting health and wellbeing. This initiative builds on that momentum, supporting the practitioners already doing this work so they can reach more people and build stronger more connected communities.’
To be known as the Creative Health Alliance Australia, the two-year partnership will work to deliver:
- A co-designed national quality framework for creative health.
- A practitioner-facing badge system and toolkit based on the quality framework.
- A searchable database of creative health practitioners.
- Peer mentoring, residencies, and training for creative health workers.
- A robust three-tier fundraising strategy (government, philanthropy, self-generating).
- Sustainable long-term stewardship and coalition-building across clinical, cultural, and community sectors.
What is creative health?
Creative Australia outlines that Creative health refers to arts-based practices that support individual and community wellbeing, grounded in evidence and delivered across diverse community health settings including education, aged care, and justice settings. In contrast, but related, Art therapy is a specialised field of therapy that already has established professional standards and a membership body.
Loneliness is part of creative health
Creative Australia used last week’s focus as National Loneliness Awareness Week to make that point that wellness can also be about building stronger community connectivity, which in turn reduce loneliness.
Professor Stuart Kinner, from partner organisation on the initiative, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) said: ‘The 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.’
Read: How art helps us develop healthier minds
Creative Australia has partnered with the Foundation for Social Health and leading researchers from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) Justice Health Group to build the foundations for this new initiative.
Australia trails in Creative Health
Launched in 2024, the Foundation for Social Health (FSH) is Australia’s first organisation dedicated to addressing loneliness and advancing social connection as a public health priority.
It’s CEO, Melanie Wilde, said of the new initiative: ‘We’ve spent years diagnosing the problem. Now is the time to fund what works — and treat connection as essential infrastructure.’
She continued: ‘Australia is behind, and it’s time to invest in community-based, culturally relevant supports that actually work. We keep telling people to reach out. But what if there’s no one there to catch them? Creative Australia’s 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.’
As part of the Foundation for Social Health’s contribution to the Alliance, it has established a Creative Health Taskforce, led by human rights advocate Nyadol Nyuon and mental health reformer Sebastian Rosenberg. This Taskforce will work with sector leaders to address critical gaps across Australia’s arts and health infrastructure.
Read: Gallery visits do good for youth mental health
Creative Australia Research Fellow and Manager Research Partnerships, Dr Christen Cornell added that, ‘this initiative lays the foundations for a more coordinated and sustainable future for creative health – not as charity or enrichment, but as a core component of Australia’s public health future.’
Discover more screen, games & arts news and reviews on ScreenHub and ArtsHub. Sign up for our free ArtsHub and ScreenHub newsletters.
