Art sessions to help with healing

WITH experience in social service and the arts, Maegan Boundey saw the perfect opportunity to combine her two interests.

Working at the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency and Frontyard Youth Services in Melbourne, she said she could see a better link between how both fields interact.

“I noticed there was a gap in these services where people’s lives are full of therapeutic things and deficit-focused activities and they don’t have anything for fun,” she said.

“I’ve sat down with clients and I’ll ask them ‘what do you do for fun?’ and they’d say they don’t do anything or that they have no hobbies.”

Since about March, Ms Boundey has sought to give those utilising social services something to do, offering therapeutic creative workshops through her Red Tree Community Arts venture.

She said her aim is to give people a chance at healthy creative expression.

“A lot of time people don’t have access to the arts or to try things out,” she said. “There’s a potential for empowerment and healing for doing these kinds of activities.

“When I was working with people at Frontyard, I saw that art was the thing that brought something positive into their lives that wasn’t focused on what was wrong with them.”

Workshops are delivered on-site, tailored to suit each client’s needs and ranging from visual art classes to graffiti, instrument, and choir workshops.

Red Tree Community Arts has serviced The Ballarat and District Aboriginal Co-operative and currently holds sessions for families through the McAuley Community Services for Women.

Ms Boundey said she’s keen to help more people in the region.

“We’re still relatively new so we’re really wanting to make partnerships in the Ballarat area,” she said.

“Everyone should have the opportunity to engage with the arts especially someone who’s faced a hardship or disadvantage.”

With Ms Boundey’s mother handling the administrative side, Red Tree Community Arts is currently a family initiative.

The duo aims to expand to expand their workforce by hiring people having trouble finding employment as well as advocating for creative opportunities like exhibition spaces for their artists.

Red Tree Community Arts can be contacted through their website.