The Art Therapy First Aid workshops have been warmly embraced by the Art Therapy community. After the first workshop in January, I was invited to run a second workshop in Geelong. Forty art therapists have already attended the workshops, and tomorrow I head off on a tour to take this professional development training to Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane. By the time I return to Melbourne next week, the Art Therapy First Aid training will have reached nearly one hundred therapists around Australia!
There is another workshop being planned for Castlemaine in April, and interest from a group in Adelaide. The ripple effects are growing.
The Geelong workshop was documented by videographer Chas Jagger, and we are collaborating on the production of a video training resource so that the ripples can keep expanding.
The purpose of the Art Therapy First Aid Professional Development training is to provide participants with understanding, skills and confidence in adapting Psychological First Aid principles into Art Therapeutic responses. The training is eligible for 5 hours of art therapists annual CPD points with ANZACATA. Volunteer organisations have their own training programs and this workshop is complimentary to their compulsory training.
The content and delivery is designed to give attendees experiential understandings of the core principles of psychological first aid, build on this with an overview of the theory, make links between art therapeutic practices and psychological first aid principles, then work together using the arts and our imaginations to adapt these understandings into creative activities suitable for offering in disaster affected communities.
Each workshop is producing content that is being compiled into a practical resource that is a dynamic growing document of Art Therapy First Aid activities, and this is shared with all workshop attendees.
These workshops demonstrate how powerfully “when we works together, using the arts and our imaginations, the amazing, inspiring and unexpected become possible”!
Amazing things did indeed happen when 20 Art Therapists got together in Geelong to co-create healing vortexes of SAFETY, CALM, CONNECTEDNESS, SELF EFFICACY and HOPE. I was especially moved by the presence of art therapy’s international expert, Cornelia Elbrecht. As Cornelia pointed out, this is not merely ‘sophisticated fun’, this is trauma-informed practice in action. Looking forward to sharing more amazing moments creating healing vortexes around Australia this coming week. See you soon!
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