Art Therapy First Aid update: the national tour, and the move to online.

Looking back on the happy pictures taken only a few weeks ago during the first week of March, I already experience a strange new wistfulness and an awareness of how incredible the timing of these gatherings was.

How very special these simple acts of coming together, sharing space and art materials, sitting around a small table and giving each other hugs now seem.

During the ANAZACTA Art Therapy First Aid tour I was privileged to work in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane with a total of 43 therapists from around Australia.

The workshops were hosted by local venues Belconnen Community Service, Western Sydney University and Gestalt Art Therapy Centre and big thank yous go out to Su Hanfling, Meg Appleton, Johanna Jaaniste, Sheridan Linnell, Yaro and Gemma Stark from these venues as well as ANZACATA’s Kate Dempsey for your work, help and good will in enabling this national training event to happen.

Our focus was all about responding to disaster, using psychological first aid principles and adapting them into art therapeutic responses.

The core principles of psychological first aid are safety, calm, connection, efficacy and hope. When these qualities were offered to the creative professionals attending my workshops, they came to life in ways that were tangible, see-able, touchable, alive, and very very real.

While the Art Therapy First Aid approach was born out of responding to Australia’s bush fire crisis, we noted how the core principles of safety, calm, connection, efficacy and hope are relevant when working with people facing other kinds of disasters too – like personal disasters of becoming homeless or escaping violence, or global disasters like our current pandemic.

The Art Therapy First Aid approach always begins with the core principles, and then adapts in creative ways to the specific situation, culture and context that we find ourselves responding to.

The situation we are now faced with is social distancing and lock down. Art Therapy First Aid continues to adapt to this new and current situation.

The next Art Therapy First Aid training event is on Sunday 19th April and will be run online. This is being organised by GRAT (Group of Registered Regional Art Therapists). If you would like to book in for it please contact Natalya at enquiries.grat@mail.com

The Art Therapy First Aid training video is coming soon and will be viewable on my web site from where ever you are distancing.

The Community Exhibition “COVID-19 Lock Down Art” is a virtual gallery where we can collectively share our art works during this time, and an example of an online Art Therapy First Aid response.

Let’s stay safe by distancing, calm by practicing creative activities, connected by sharing together, efficacious in our efforts to care for others in our community, and hopeful that this too will pass and we can come together again in person soon. With lots of love to you and yours. x Carla.

Summary of feedback from ANZACATA Art Therapy First Aid professional development workshops, March 2020.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Attendees expressed a range of benefits, and these had common themes:

• Appreciation of the balance of experiential learning with theoretical content.

• Community building opportunity to spend the day with other like-minded therapists.

• Confidence and inspiration to take the Art Therapy First Aid approach into their own communities.

• Personal development and space for healing from the impact of bush fires.

Here are some examples of comments that illustrate these core themes:

“I liked the gentle facilitation of community building and healing.”

“I have gained confidence in my capacity to do this work safely.”

“I am taking confidence in going back to community and delving into the work.”

“Thank you for an amazing day alongside fellow art therapists.”

“Wonderful workshop that stimulated ideas and took some of the fear away about working in a First Aid capacity using Art Therapy.”

“I felt very seen and heard in my own healing around the fires. Thank you.”

“I feel inspired to be able to work in the community – thank you!”

“Loved the balance of active participation and theoretical background.”

“The content was delivered thoroughly, yet concisely, and well-balanced with the alternation between theory and experiential activities. I’m so glad I came.”

“I am excited about taking this out into my world. It is powerful, so needed and makes a big difference in a different way.”

“I want more!”