Contributors

Contributions to the site have been made by a range of presenters and participants within the Artists Training Program (ATP) of the Festival for Healthy Living (FHL), a statewide community-based initiative of the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

	Helen Butler Helen Butler is Senior Lecturer in Education, Australian Catholic University. Building on a background in secondary teaching, student welfare and community health promotion, Helen’s recent work has bridged research and practice, health promotion and education at the Centre for Adolescent Health (1997–2007) and Australian catholic University (2008–). Helen has worked extensively with schools and school-based projects and research in Australia and internationally. Helen is currently developing and teaching courses for pre-service and practising teachers in the area of student wellbeing and inclusive schooling. Her research interests include student wellbeing, school community development, teacher professional identity, building school community partnerships, using arts for promoting student wellbeing and community development, and restorative practices in schools and communities.
	Michelle Chiller Michelle Chiller is Executive Officer with Victorian community arts organisation The Torch. She brings a range of skills and experience to this role, particularly in the area of health promotion and community development. She has worked with a diverse range of communities, including Indigenous communities in remote north-east Arnhem Land and in Vietnam with the World Health Organization, where she evaluated a youth strategy based on the capacity of the arts to empower young people to have a voice about community issues important to them. Michelle has broad networks within the government and non-government sector and enjoys the challenge of identifying and forming “out of the ordinary” relationships, to provide the best outcomes for the project and community. Michelle is an advocate for social justice and equity and has witnessed the power the arts can have in influencing change in individuals, communities and society as a whole.
	Caitlin Dullard Caitlin Dullard is a Community Theatre Director, Facilitator and Educator. Since her first community show at La Mama, she has been involved in numerous community projects with a wide range of participants. Locally, she has worked extensively with communities from the Carlton High Rise Estate, presenting work both at La Mama and at the estate. Caitlin is President of the Board and Performance Facilitator at DVA, a theatre company for people with physical and intellectual disabilities. Other recent positions include Artists Coordinator and Performing Artist for the Festival for Healthy Living, Director for Platform Youth Theatre and Performance Artist at Arts Access. A qualified Drama teacher, Caitlin is currently completing a Masters Research Project facilitating cross-generational workshops to explore a local history through performance.
	Mary French Mary lives near the small Wimmera town of Natimuk well known for its eclectic Frinj Festival and daring aerial performances on the local grain silos. With a background in graphic design and photography, in recent years Mary has enjoyed venturing into the fields of puppetry, model making for animated films and community performance. As an Education Officer with Horsham Regional Art Gallery and a teacher at a local Primary School she has had many exciting opportunities to collaborate with students and artists in the development of school based and community arts projects. Mary has worked on festivals across the state including the Ararat Festival for Healthy Living in 2006 and Warracknabeal Festival for Healthy Living in 2008 and 2009.
	Rosalie Hastwell Rosalie Hastwell is the Artists Training Program Director, Festival for Healthy Living, Royal Children’s Hospital. Melbourne. She is passionate about strengthening artists’ capacity to promote the mental health of children and young people. Prior to joining the FHL in 2008 Rosalie worked extensively in community cultural development; with communities in public housing, Indigenous and non-indigenous communities, and with refugee and asylum seeker communities. Throughout her roles as an artist, creative practitioner, planning consultant and program manager, Rosalie has had a strong focus on building bridges between communities and between the arts and other sectors, especially community health.
	Gillian Howell Gillian Howell is a Melbourne-based musician and director of music collaborations and compositions, who works with diverse groups to devise and perform original music. Gillian’s work takes her to arts organisations and community groups throughout Australia and overseas, including the Melbourne Symphony and Australia Chamber Orchestras, the Song Room, the Australian Art Orchestra, and Musica Viva, and most recently as a 2010 Asialink artist-in-residence in East Timor. She teaches at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education in the Artistic and Creative Education cluster, and is Program Director of the Australian National Academy of Music’s Outreach and Community program.
	Judy Jack Judy is an Education Officer in the Student Wellbeing Unit of the Catholic Education Office Melbourne (CEOM). She coordinates the School Community team and is also developing and coordinating a Community Arts Portfolio that promotes links between student wellbeing, the arts and the school community. Judy has a strong belief in the value of Arts education and its place within the school curriculum. She supports the view that the arts are one of the most powerful means for forging bonds between parents, schools and communities and within the classroom fostering student-centred learning, collaborative and co-operative work processes, self-evaluation and critical thinking – all of which empower students to achieve their personal best and tap into their creative spirit. Judy has taught Drama at all year levels in several Catholic Secondary schools across Melbourne over the past 25 years. She has directed and managed large-scale school musical productions and has been a VCAA, VCE Drama Assessor for the last six years.
	Ralph Kerle Ralph Kerle is Executive Chair of the Creative Leadership Forum and Founder of the Creative Skills Training Council. He is a globally respected consultant, presenter, educator, program designer and writer on creative leadership, creativity and innovation. Ralph is a former Associate Director of the Sydney Theatre Company. He is a drama graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, holds a Masters Degree in Creative Industries and is currently completing his Professional Doctorate in Creative Industries at Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty, Brisbane, Australia. In 1992, he founded Eventures Australia Pty Ltd and built it into one of Australia’s leading event design and production companies. His academic appointments include faculty adjunct and Programme Director at the AGSM Executive Education Programme, University of NSW, Sydney Australia, faculty adjunct at the Banff Centre, Banff, Canada as an Innovation Coach in their Leadership Development Programme and International Thought Leader in their Leadership Learning Lab, and a member of the Advisory Board of Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology, Utter Pradesh, India. He is a writer, theatre director and events producer, a former owner of a comedy cabaret and a published photographer.
	Sharon des Landes Dr Sharon des Landes has been working as a clinical psychologist for 30 years. She has worked with adults, children and families in a wide range of community and health settings. The influence of parenting and the impact of trauma are areas she has specialised in. For the last thirteen years she has worked in the Hume region, initially with Specialist Children’s services, then CAMHS and Take Two and most recently as a consultant to Berry Street’s bushfire recovery program. She became passionately interested in dance at the age of five, and performed with a semi-professional jazz dance company in New Zealand as a young adult. So You Think You Can Dance is her favourite TV show. Part of her role with Berry Street is that she is the clinical leader for the Cathedral Cluster FIH project.
	Anna Loewendahl Anna Loewendahl, Co-Director of TransVision Arts, is committed to theatre-making with communities that improves the world in which we live and how we inhabit it together. Anna has practiced and developed techniques using forum theatre with a range of artists and groups exploring subjects from Teen pregnancy to Adult financial literacy. Anna has been involved with FHL since 2008. She also directs professional theatre work currently as Artistic Director of Thieves Theatre a regionally based performance company.
	Stefan Markworth Over the past ten years Stefan Markworth has work as a writer, director, cameraman, interviewer, editor and producer on various documentaries, dramas, comedies, community cultural development film projects, educational and promotional films – for television broadcast, distribution via DVD and the Internet. Stefan´s films are beautifully crafted, emotional portraits with engaging characters and vivid narratives. His films illuminate and humanise sensitive issues of social justice, human rights, culture and spirituality. Stefan has worked on various community cultural development filmmaking projects around Victoria, mostly with Indigenous communities working with The Torch Project. He has more recently begun working on projects in schools. Stefan facilitates an open creative working environment, guiding the group to a consensus about the best approach. Stefan designed and constructed the Creating for Wellbeing website and made the film There’s Magic in the Mix that appears on this site. website: www.markworthmedia.com - email: stefan@markworthmedia.com
	Lyn O’Grady Lyn O’Grady is a Community Psychologist with 20 years’ experience working with children and young people, parents, schools and communities. As a parent of two young adults she understands the complexities of supporting children and young people as they face the transitions through childhood and adolescence into adulthood. The Festival for Healthy Living was a particularly exciting project that combined her interest in creative work with children, whole-school approaches to mental health promotion and collaboration between workers. Building on this interest, she has recently left the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to take up a role with the Australian Psychological Society as National Co-ordinator of KidsMatter Primary, an Australian promotion, prevention and early intervention initiative for Primary Schools aiming to enhance mental health outcomes for children. In her spare time Lyn volunteers with the Youth Referral and Independent Person Program to continue her support of young people.
	Katrina Rank Katrina is a leading Australian educator, researcher and community dance artist. In 2007, Katrina was engaged as the Caroline Plummer Fellow of Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand. In 2009 she was the Artist in Residence for the City of Darebin and in 2010 is Artist in Residence for Arts Victoria situated in St Stephen’s primary school. Katrina has taught dance across education sectors, ranging from P–6, 7–10, VCE and Vocational Education and Training to tertiary settings and special schools. She is currently the Manager of Education and Training at Ausdance (Victoria), the peak body for dance in Victoria. In this position she has developed specific training programs, delivery resource materials, promotional material and has provided training to primary, secondary and dance studio teachers. Her work with Ausdance also focuses on contribution to major changes affecting the Dance Education landscape, including the development of Vocational Education and Training’s Live Performing Arts Training Package (Dance) and the development of the Australian Curriculum (Performing Arts). Katrina is also currently engaged as a Dance Education lecturer at Deakin University.
	Rebecca Russell Rebecca Russell is a director and devisor of new visual theatre work, an educator, and a researcher. She collaborates on mixed media projects maintaining a theatrical basis. Her most recent work has been collaborating with Designer/Puppeteer Ken Evans as The Becken Project. With an emphasis on thinking, challenging perception and professional artistic and creative practice, the Becken Project creates original works in collaboration with artists and children as an entry point into both generating and experiencing art. Rebecca’s early career in education continues to feed her work; she is interested in the artistic and creative pedagogy embedded in her practice and the creative exchange between artists and their very young children. email: rhr28@tpg.com.au - mobile: 0409 359 525
	Shahin Shafaei Playwright, Performer and Director Shahin Shafaei graduated from Karam Rezaee’s Arts College in writing/acting, and from the University of Tehran with a Master in English Literature. He began writing plays in 1993 and has written/directed stage productions in festivals of the arts throughout Iran. Shahin received the Best Actor award from Isfahan’s Festival of Theatre in Iran 1997. Refugitive is his first play in English, a one-man show based on his experience of 22 months in an Immigration Detention Centre. It has toured throughout Australia. In 2007, Shahin finished his Masters in Community Cultural Development at the Victoria College of the Arts, where he has also been working as the Creative and Artistic Director of the Horn of Africa Arts Project.
	Geoff Spillane Geoff is currently a Mental Health Promotion Officer with the Austin Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Heidelberg, Melbourne. His professional background includes work with non-government organisations in the youth and community development field, and in the education, local government and mental health sectors. He has worked in the southern, western and northern regions of Melbourne since 1994.
	Bernie Weckmann Bernie Weckmann is a mental health nurse and family therapist who has worked in child and youth mental settings for over 25 years across a wide range of settings. For the past eight years he has worked in roles that focus on mental health promotion and prevention activities with young people. Bernie has a particular interest in understanding and supporting young people experiencing depression and suicide risk issues, based on his own personal experience of the impact of mental health problems as both a client and carer.

Photographic Credits

Jorge de Araujo
Malcolm Hansford
Gillian Howell
Becken Project
Stefan Markworth
Pia Smith
Warracknabeal Festival for Healthy Living Project
Wyndham Festival for Healthy Living Project
Artists Training Program

Illustration Acknowledgements

In 2009 Festival for Healthy Living artist Lifon Henderson was funded by the School Focused Youth Service to teach the children at Dimboola PS songwriting and circus skills. When Creating for Wellbeing was in development, Festival for Healthy Living artist Mary French asked children in Grades Three and Four at Dimboola PS to illustrate some of the learnings and memorable experiences resulting from their work with Lifon. The children used lovely free line work to explore concepts such as partnerships, working and growing together, the roller coaster ride of life and the joy of being part of a creative process. List of all contributors: Claire, Amy, Stacey, Jessica, Danni, Sophie, Rebeca, Charlotte, Kaylee, Maddie, Chris, Nicole, Bianca, Caitlyn.

Website Concept, Project Management and Text

Rosalie Hastwell

Website Design and Construction

Stefan Markworth

Editor and Project Support

Pia Smith

Resources Advisory Group

Tim Dakin
Sue Davis
Caitlin Dullard
Kerry Francis
Bobbie Hodge
Dave Houston
Charles Jenkins
John Lane
Amina Schutz
Lea Trafford

Thanks to

Marion Crooke
Michelle Fifer
Harry Gelber OAM
Malcolm Hansford


Development and production of website and documentary film There’s Magic in the Mix have been made possible through the generous support of The Harcourts Foundation, Mr Marc Besen AO and Mrs Eva Besen AO and the Ray and Joyce Uebergang Foundation.

The Festival for Healthy Living Artists Training Program is supported by the Australia Council, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, through its Community Partnerships Section.