This presentation will explore the process of advocating for a creative arts therapy trial in community child and youth mental health services (CCYMHS), obtaining funding, and setting up the project. The creative arts therapies (CATs) trial is an innovative collaboration between music therapists, art therapists, consumers and carers (lived-experience experts), and multidisciplinary teams in CCYMHS.

A large percentage of young people do not readily engage with psychotherapy, which is predominantly verbal, and consequently discontinue therapy early. In CCYMHS in the 2021-22 financial year, 43% of consumers discontinued therapy before they had attended three sessions. The CATs in CCYMHS trial provides therapeutic options for consumers and carers closer to home, and earlier in their recovery journeys. Objectives include improving young people's engagement with therapy, therapeutic outcomes and multidisciplinary team efficiency. The idea for the trial began in early 2022 with a proposal which led to several funding applications. In early 2023, a start-up grant was received for a nine-month trial of art therapy and music therapy in one community clinic. A microgrant from Health Translation Queensland supported input from lived-experience experts into a research funding application to the Health Practitioner Research Scheme (HPRS). The HPRS application was successful, receiving funds to undertake a mixed-methods feasibility study. Soon afterwards, the trial was extended to an additional community clinic, resulting in the music therapist and art therapist becoming full-time across the two clinics. Additionally, the trial was extended by an additional 12 months.

In this presentation, the project coordinator (primary researcher) will explain the processes involved in setting up the research trial which took two years from initial idea to the start of data collection. The art therapist (co-researcher) will share her experience of implementing the trial on the ground. Challenges along the way included resistance and wariness from stakeholders, lack of established procedures for creative arts therapies in CCYMHS and unsuccessful grant applications. However, effective stakeholder engagement, pro bono project coordination, perseverance obtaining funding and taking a "leap-of-faith" ultimately resulted in the instigation, expansion, and extension of the trial.

Data collection will end in February 2025. It is intended that the findings from the feasibility study will support additional funding applications and business cases advocating the inclusion of creative arts therapies as business-as-usual in CCYMHS.

School refusal is a common concern for children and adolescents in Australia. Affecting about 5% of children, school refusal is non-discriminatory and can affect any young person, family, or school. Chronic school refusal is associated with anxiety disorders (including generalised anxiety disorder, separation anxiety or social anxiety) and can have detrimental impact on children's wellbeing (Garfi. J. 2018). Art therapy has been shown to be effective/ has the potential to help young people express themselves, improve interpersonal relationships and provide an increase in wellbeing (Shukla. A., et al 2022).

Art therapy can be an effective means to support young people who experience school refusal/ mental health concerns (Shukla. A., et al 2022; Braito. I., et al 2022).

This presentation will establish the common symptoms of school refusers who receive treatment in a child and youth mental health service. It will then showcase how art therapy, delivered as part of an integrative multi-disciplinary approach, can support young people’s well-being and recovery so they can return to school.

According to Moon (2012), art is a “natural action-language for adolescents” (pg. 5) to assist with the release or communicate in a safe way strong feelings that may be difficult to express through verbal therapy. The use of symbol and metaphor provides adolescents with control over sharing their personal information and allows for the exploration of multiple issues and relationships at once. Jacaranda Place, Day Program, Child and Youth Mental Health services uses art in therapy and art as therapy in both individual and group sessions with young people. Cross-discipline group work will be shared, including art, music and occupational therapy and the positive outcomes of this with young people aged 13 to 18. This will demonstrate the power of the creative arts, in particular art therapy and how it can be utilised across modalities and schools of psychotherapy.

Art therapy in a multidisciplinary team can enhance the outcomes of adolescents with school refusal utilising attachment theory with an overarching mentalisation framework. This program has the potential to contribute to the art therapy literature and inform policy development in Australia in addressing the wellbeing of adolescents. The benefits of integrating creative arts into mental health services for young people needs more exploration which in turn will strengthen practice and research.

This presentation introduces two Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) programs which are creating positive therapeutic change within family violence (FV) contexts- highlighting client experience and feedback around engaging in CATs during the crisis stage of their FV journey.

We will speak to the fluidity and accessibility of CATs within this context – recognising the challenges of somatic or embodied interventions within trauma work, whilst also highlighting the potency of CATs’ broad engagement options to meet the needs of a diverse population (Johnson, et al., 2009)

Both programs utilise drama therapeutic practices including role, embodiment, play, and story to meet clients where they’re at, whilst the client-led nature of CATs practice adapts to the clients’ evolving journey. An integral focus in the development of both programs was the accessibility of CATs when working with clients who identify as CALD, neurodiverse and/or living with dis/Ability due to its broad scope of practice (Hadley, 2013)

This presentation explores the efficacy and applicability of CATs within the context of broader FV crisis services. We examine how greatest therapeutic outcomes can be met within a limited number of sessions, whilst also recognising the impact of competing FV needs such as safety planning, housing goals, legal engagement, etc. (Clark, 2017).

A key approach utilised in both programs was to create the opportunity for strengths-based and empowerment-based exploration, while also ensuring the centralisation of client voice following their FV experience and acknowledging cultural and/or systemic oppression (Straka & Montminy, 2008)

Both programs informed policy development within their respective organisations, with increased recognition and understanding of the experiences of victim survivors, particularly children and young people (Berghs, et al., 2022).

These programs were the first established CATs initiatives within their organisations, leading to increased visibility and understanding of the work. Both programs included presentations and workshops of CAT frameworks and practice methodologies to broader multidisciplinary teams and allied health professionals.

These programs have offered tangible and potent therapeutic shifts evidenced through client feedback with identified outcomes including enhanced parent-child relationships, greater sense of body-safety and self-regulatory ability, and increased empowerment, hope and optimism. We hope that, through the amplification of client voices, the outcomes of these programs might contribute to systemic change within the sector.

Background: This paper investigates the implications of collaborative arts research for creative arts therapy, and provides some groundwork for extending understandings of collaboration as a therapeutic factor. This is done with reference to TIMMY, an ongoing multiform arts project in which the author is involved as co-artist/researcher with Dr Lousia Magrics. The initial stages of this process have been documented in a book chapter (Magrics & Schild, forthcoming), which provides examples of instigators, mechanisms and impacts of the collaborative process.

Collaboration is positioned with reference to its cultural, ecological and political treatment in the art therapy literature (Kapitan, 2022; Barton & Van Den Berg, 2023), along with complementary research from arts pedagogy on ecologies of collaboration (Rousell & Fell, 2024). Therapeutic factors are framed with reference to theorisations of active factors (Koch, 2016) and embodied-enactive theory (Koch & Fischman, 2011) in arts therapy.

Aim: Exploring the inner workings (instigators, mechanisms and impacts) of collaboration within artistic practice/research supports increased clarity on artistic collaboration as a therapeutic factor. The author is motivated to understand the therapeutic relevance of interactive encounters taking place in her 1:1 clinical work so that collaborative processes can be applied more intentionally, and framed in the broader landscape of the arts/arts therapy continuum.

Knowledge shared: Originating as a practice-based research inquiry, TIMMY draws on the artistic knowledge of the two participating artists and applies an experimental systems approach to exploring combinations of variables. The author reflects on this process as a case study of collaborative factors, with insights then considered in light of the author’s current practice as a creative arts therapist.

Contributions to field: The findings suggest novel frameworks for therapeutic practice, specifically in terms of the impacts of artistic collaboration on relational and intersubjective processes. Secondly, conditions for effective collaboration are suggested with reference to the case study. Finally, potential applications of these insights in the therapeutic setting are discussed, emphasising the relevance of findings from artistic research to innovation, as well as enhanced efficacy and depth, in creative arts therapy processes.