Mental health in performing arts: Arts Wellbeing Collective
Find out how the Arts Wellbeing Collective supports the mental health and wellbeing of individuals and organisations in the performing arts industry.
- Arts and Entertainment Services
- All locations
- The Arts Wellbeing Collective uses collaborative design to produce resources, programs and initiatives that support mental health and wellbeing in the arts industry.
- The collective conducts activities at the individual, organisation and industry level.
- Finding out what was important to people in the performing arts industry was crucial, and not making assumptions.
- The collective drew on members’ past experiences as well as experiences in other industries to develop effective solutions.
Research showed poor mental health was widespread across the performing arts industry. It prompted concerns about the adequacy of current approaches, which focused on picking people up when they fall, not stopping them from falling in the first place.
The Arts Wellbeing Collective unites over 400 members from the performing arts industry to find ways to improve mental health and wellbeing for people in their industry. In the beginning, the collective focused on 3 issues:
- What is contributing to poor mental health in the industry?
- Why didn’t existing programs hit the mark?
- How ready is the industry for change?
Every element of the collective’s activities is co-designed with subject matter experts including the Arts Wellbeing Collective Lived Experience Advisory Group, practitioners and performing arts workers.
The collective focuses on protecting and promoting mental health and addressing mental health problems, with activities at the individual, organisation and industry level. Elements include:
- resources and toolkits, e.g. posters, videos, podcasts and webinars
- training program
- a strategic framework to help companies develop their own mentally healthy workplace
- broader advocacy for change.
The Arts Wellbeing Collective identified some key lessons for others:
- Be curious about what people are experiencing so you can clearly identify problems. Without a clear problem, the solutions will be meaningless or harmful.
- Focus on preventing mental health issues.
- Look at what your organisation does well and find ways to do even better.
- Recognise the value of connections within and between industries, to learn from others’ experience.
