Creative Recovery Mentoring Program

 This was a Creative Recovery Project, and was responding to specific criteria for that project. The aim of the Creative Recovery Mentoring Program was to support local creatives to develop and implement effective and meaningful creative recovery projects and support community towards resilience and recovery through active participation in cultural and creative processes.

In this context:

• Resilience refers to the building of social capital relating to social connection.

• Recovery is the building of community psychosocial wellbeing to ensure a more resilient community.

• Social capital refers to shared values, relationships, and networks enabling the achievement of common goals.

• Need refers to the key vulnerability, trauma, issue, situation, or other need to be addressed.

The top three outcomes of Rainbow Connections were:

1. Connecting people (mainly older women) who were either recent arrivals to the community, or were isolated through various factors, via stories through the mediums of writing, talking, listening, walking and visual art (collage).

2. Connecting and forming ongoing relationships with organisations such as Rainbow Cares - planning a future project of memory and stories with their clients; and with Gympie Womens Health Centre - they provided support and assistance with the Active Listening project at Silk & Stone then the Sports Club. There is also a plan for future work on stories and writing with them.

3. People reconnected with the idea of creativity and their creative selves, remembering what they used to do as children, or young adults, and stating what kinds of activities and projects they would like to take part in, in the future.

Holding Hope was a 12-month program utilising the arts as a bridge for communities and to foster unity by engaging First Nations and non-Indigenous people in deep listening-focused gatherings. Through trauma-informed events, the program shared skills and stories, promoted reconciliation and a lasting legacy of healing and understanding. Holding Hope aims to inspire a future of unity and hope.

The project commenced with consultation with diverse Gympie organisations, groups and service providers to initiate interest and engagement with the Holding Hope and Healing project.

• Undertook creative and cultural activities to begin with - conversations, storytelling and brief interactive activities to provide a sense of the deeper levels of engagement to build and strengthen relationships.
• Hosted school engagement sessions and talks.
• Participated in the Gympie Studio Trails 2025 with the One Mob Cultural Collectives.
• Reconciliation Week 2025 event and the anniversary of National Apology Day 2025 event coordination and delivery.
• Created an organising committee for NAIDOC Week Family Fun Day 2024 &2025: establishing themes, event coordination and delivery, engagement with key stakeholders, Traditional Owners, Elders, Community Leaders, service providers and Gympie Regional Council.