Hey Mate appointed as Wellbeing Partner for Regional Arts Australia’s national Practice in Community program
(L - R) Caddie Brain, Samara Cunningham, Rona Glynn-McDonald, Colleen Hughson, Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung
Practice in Community: Embedding Wellbeing into Regional Creative Practice
Hey Mate appointed as Wellbeing Partner for Regional Arts Australia’s national Practice in Community program
Hey Mate is proud to be the Wellbeing Partner for Practice in Community, a national initiative designed and delivered by Regional Arts Australia, supported by Minderoo Foundation.
Practice in Community invests in independent artists working in regional Australia through long-term, place-based Community Arts and Cultural Development practice. The program recognises that meaningful community-engaged arts work takes time, trust, care and sustained support.
As the wellbeing partner, Hey Mate supports artists and mentors across the program through a specialist model that brings together mental health literacy, counselling, psychosocial safety, reflective practice and practical wellbeing tools.
This partnership reflects a growing understanding across the creative sector: artist wellbeing is not an optional extra. It is part of the infrastructure that makes ethical, sustainable and impactful creative practice possible.
The context
Artists working in community often hold complex roles. They are not only making creative work. They are building relationships, listening deeply, navigating community expectations, holding stories, responding to local priorities and working across cultural, social and emotional dynamics.
This kind of practice can be powerful, but it can also be demanding.
Community Arts and Cultural Development work can involve emotional labour, blurred boundaries, regional isolation, power dynamics, ethical decision-making, cultural responsibility and long-term relational accountability. For artists working in place-based settings, wellbeing support needs to be more than a crisis response.
It needs to be embedded from the beginning.
Practice in Community does exactly that by placing wellbeing alongside artist funding, mentoring, professional development and evaluation. Hey Mate’s role is to help ensure artists and mentors have access to support that is proactive, trauma-aware, culturally responsive and grounded in the realities of creative practice.
These five projects show what creativity can do when it’s centred in community. It sparks connection for people experiencing isolation, turns environmental action into collective expression, and ensures that important histories and cultural knowledge aren’t lost — they’re shared, celebrated, and carried forward.”
— Ros Abercrombie, Executive Director, Regional Arts Australia
Hey Mate’s role
Hey Mate is delivering an integrated wellbeing model across the life of the program.
This includes:
Mental Health First Aid training
Accredited Mental Health First Aid training supports artists and mentors to build shared language, confidence and early intervention skills around mental health. Hey Mate contextualises this training for creative and community-based practice, including emotional labour, burnout, boundaries, regional access challenges and responding safely in interconnected communities.
Individual counselling support
Participating artists and mentors have access to confidential, sector-informed counselling and wellbeing support. Sessions can support burnout prevention, boundary clarity, community conflict navigation, role sustainability, ethical decision-making, and the emotional load of long-term community-engaged work.
Psychosocial risk and sustainability planning
Artists are supported through structured psychosocial risk mapping sessions designed to identify pressure points early and revisit them as projects evolve. This proactive approach helps artists consider relational complexity, emotional load, cultural safety, power dynamics, isolation and sustainability before challenges escalate.
Wellbeing Circles
Facilitated group reflection spaces provide opportunities for artists to connect, reflect and learn from one another. These sessions are not therapy groups, but structured peer spaces that support relational sustainability, reduce isolation and strengthen collective resilience.
Creative wellbeing tools and resources
Hey Mate provides practical resources to support self-reflection and sustainable practice, including tools for boundary setting, emotional labour, conflict navigation, sustainability planning and referral pathways.
Program-level insight and collaboration
Hey Mate works collaboratively with the Practice in Community team, mentors and evaluation partners. De-identified wellbeing insights support program learning while maintaining participant confidentiality.
Why this model matters
Too often, mental health support in the creative industries is treated as something that sits outside the work. A hotline. A referral pathway. A service that appears when things have already become difficult.
Practice in Community demonstrates a different approach.
By embedding wellbeing into the structure of the program, artists are supported before crisis points emerge. Wellbeing becomes part of the way the work is designed, held and sustained.
This is especially important in regional, rural and remote contexts where artists may be working with limited local services, deep community relationships and complex place-based responsibilities.
For Hey Mate, this partnership reflects our broader belief that creative workforce wellbeing must be specialised, preventative and sector-informed. Creative practice has its own pressures, rhythms and risks. Support needs to understand that.
“Practice in Community is a bold initiative that we are proud to back, shining a light on regional creativity and the role artists play in building stronger, more connected communities.”
— John Hartman, CEO, Minderoo Foundation
Our approach
Hey Mate’s approach is grounded in the understanding that sustained community impact requires sustained artist wellbeing.
We work at the intersection of arts, mental health and community practice. Our model combines clinical support with creative-sector insight, allowing us to respond to the real conditions artists and arts workers face.
In Practice in Community, this means supporting not only individual wellbeing, but also the broader conditions that help artists work safely, ethically and sustainably.
Our work is:
Proactive
We support artists to identify risks, pressure points and support needs early.
Trauma-aware
We recognise that community-engaged creative practice can involve complex stories, histories and experiences.
Culturally responsive
We respect local cultural governance, First Nations cultural authority, community protocols and self-determination.
Practical
We provide tools artists can actually use in their work, not abstract wellbeing advice.
Creative-sector specific
Our clinicians and facilitators understand the realities of creative practice, project-based work, community engagement and arts-sector precarity.
Confidential and ethical
Individual support remains private, while de-identified insights can help strengthen program learning and future practice.
What this partnership shows
Practice in Community is a strong example of what it looks like to embed wellbeing into creative program design.
Rather than treating mental health as separate from artistic practice, the program recognises that artists need support to sustain the deep relational work that community practice requires.
For the broader sector, this partnership offers an important model: wellbeing support is most effective when it is designed around the specific context, risks and responsibilities of the work itself.
For creative programs, festivals, residencies, fellowships, touring initiatives, labs and community arts projects, the question is no longer simply: “Do we have support available?”
The stronger question is:
How is wellbeing built into the structure of the program from the beginning?
About Practice in Community
Practice in Community is a national initiative designed and delivered by Regional Arts Australia, supported by Minderoo Foundation. The program supports independent artists living and working in regional communities across Australia to undertake long-term, community-engaged creative practice.
The program invests in artists working through Community Arts and Cultural Development approaches, supporting projects that are place-based, relational, community-led and focused on long-term social and cultural impact.
Learn more about Practice in Community via Regional Arts Australia.
About Hey Mate
Hey Mate is a national social enterprise delivering specialised mental health, wellbeing and psychosocial safety support for Australia’s creative industries.
We support artists, arts workers, creative organisations, festivals, screen workers, music communities and cultural leaders through counselling, EAP-style support, Mental Health First Aid training, workshops, psychosocial safety frameworks, wellbeing resources and embedded program partnerships.
Our work is grounded in a simple belief: creative people deserve mental health support that understands creative work.
Interested in embedding wellbeing into your creative program?
Hey Mate partners with arts organisations, festivals, councils, funders, creative industry bodies and community programs to design wellbeing support that fits the work, the people and the context.
For programs involving artists, mentors, communities or long-term creative development, we can provide tailored support through counselling, training, reflective practice, psychosocial risk planning and practical wellbeing tools.
Get in touch with Hey Mate to explore how wellbeing can be embedded into your next creative program.
