Access, Health & Wellbeing

Inclusive Workplace Toolkit

An anti-oppressive guide grounded in lived experience that provides an introduction about different kinds of discrimination. A resource by HUE. Colour the Conversation.

NewAccess for Small Business Owners

Beyond Blue’s NewAccess for Small Business Owners is a guided self-help mental health coaching program. It’s free, confidential and convenient. Available nationally by phone or video call, no GP referral is required. 

Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and a Practice

Written by Carolyn Lazard, U.S., 2019.

Support Act Wellbeing Helpline

Support Act Wellbeing Helpline is a free, confidential 24/7 counselling service for anyone in the arts industries who need to talk about any aspect of their mental health.

The Support Act Wellbeing Helpline is 1800 959 500.

On ‘female and non-binary’ frameworks, and working with trans and gender-variant communities

Written by Jackie De Lacy and Mika Benesh.

A 16 Point Guide on How to Get Paid Your Worth as a Person of Colour

This guide by Nafisa Bakkar for Forbes provides you with some crucial tips for negotiating your worth and getting remunerated for your labour fairly as a person of colour. 

Creative Equity Toolkit

The Creative Equity Toolkit is a knowledge sharing platform between Australia and the UK developed by Diversity Arts Australia and the British Council in Australia as part of the INTERSECT project.

Running Accessible Online Events

Top 10 Tips For Running Accessible Online Events from Accessible Arts.

An overview guide to Self-Care and Wellbeing

This guide provides some basic information and tips for practising self-care and maintaining good mental health.

Artists who work at the intersection of mental health and wellbeing

Here is an (incomplete) list of artists whose work deals with mental health issues and/or whose practice constitutes an intervention or social engagement in the field. 

Six toolkits for artists working in critical care and outreach

These toolkits have been prepared by artists based in the UK who are working in therapeutic and criminal justice institutions. They will help you think more critically about the relationship between art and rehabilitation, challenge current conventions and improve your practice.

50 Ways to take care of yourself if you are an artist

Feeling burned out? Here are practical tips and advice from community arts workers, artists, practitioners and managers on how to manage self-care in the arts.

12 points about anxiety

Resources to help deal with anxiety from the Big Anxiety Festival website. 

Checklist of 14 self-care ideas for Artists

Self care should be a part of everyday for the artist. Here are 14 self care strategies to improve your work and wellbeing.

An artist talks about Self Love

Tariro Mavondo, performance poet and actress, opens up about her experience growing up in Australia and what self-love means to her.

Self Help Arts Collective

Self Help Arts is a Sydney based collective of artists with lived experience of mental health issues. They make new and accessible immersive performance work.

The Big Feels Club

The Big Feels Club is an online peer support and occasional gathering space started by artist and writer Honor Eastly and Graham Panther in Melbourne. 

Black Rainbow

Black Rainbow is Australia’s first and only National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Trans* and Intersex (LGBQTI) Suicide Prevention National Advocacy Platform and National Touchpoint. They support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBQTI people who are homeless, leaving domestic violence relationships or the justice system. They are 100% Indigenous owned and operated.

An interactive flow chart for self care

An interactive Self-Care guide written by a Jace Harr, a trans man. This website features an interactive flow chart for people who struggle with self care, executive dysfunction, and/or who have trouble reading internal signals.

Self-care for people of colour experiencing racism

Exposure to racism has been shown to be processed in our brains as trauma and a kind of post traumatic stress syndrome can develop. The following article provides advice on a way to respond to the trauma in order to help discharge the fight-or-flight response and create homeostasis for your brain.

Books on Mental Health written by Black Folk

12 books on Mental Health written by Black Folk recommended by the Extraordinary Negroes site. 

4 Self-Care Resources for People of Colour

Self Care Resources for people experiencing trauma related to racialised violence. 

CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

Guidelines for institutions, galleries and curators working with trans, non-binary and gender diverse artists in Australia.

Mental health and wellbeing in the arts

The Wellbeing Collective provides excellent resources about mental health for artists and arts workers.

How to put on an accessible exhibition

Published by Shape Arts in the UK, this is a practical guide for installing and delivering an accessible exhibition.

A Language Guide: trans and gender diverse inclusion

This guide explains key terms that can help build inclusive environments for trans and gender diverse communities.

Guide to inclusive language in the workplace

Building inclusion through the power of language is a guide to inclusive language in the workplace published by the Diversity Council of Australia.

Art and You: a planning guide

Access a booklet to help people with disability, mental health issues or those who are Deaf talk about why art is important in their lives.

A Language Guide: talking about disability

This is a language guide to help you navigate the evolving language of disability.

Art for Everyone: inclusive practice in arts and mental health

This workbook offers ideas and resources to help you design projects that engage artists and people with disability, mental health issues and who are Deaf.