Access Alliance Arts for Family Health
The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants’ (OCASI) Initiative to End Gender-Based Violence (GBV), in collaboration with Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services, is pleased to present a webinar focused on integrating arts-based approaches into existing settlement, health, and community-based practices.
This webinar series is designed for service providers seeking innovative, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed ways to support newcomer communities, particularly those impacted by gender-based violence. Participants will explore how creative practices can be meaningfully embedded into frontline services to foster healing, expression, and connection, while strengthening organizational capacity and cross-sector collaboration. The series will also highlight real-world examples, practical tools, and lessons learned from arts-based initiatives working alongside newcomer communities. Together, these sessions aim to inspire reflective practice, knowledge-sharing, and sustainable integration of the arts across service systems.
Expressive arts are ancient and powerful practices that support healing through sensory and body-based approaches. In this session, participants will be introduced to arts-based practices as tools for trauma recovery, with a focus on newcomer mental health.
Drawing from Expressive Arts (EA) programs at Access Alliance, the webinar highlights work with newcomer women who are survivors of domestic violence. Participants will gain new perspectives on mental health and a deeper understanding of how creative practices can foster safety, expression, and resilience in culturally meaningful ways.
Learn about expressive arts as an intervention for trauma recovery among newcomers individuals and their communities.
Gain evidence on the benefits of arts-based, body-centered approaches to healing emphasizing arts as holistic.
Understand different arts-based methods used in settlement and healthcare settings to be adapted to your context and needs as a practitioner.
Increase knowledge of culturally responsive and trauma-informed expressive arts practices.
Explore practical ways to integrate expressive arts into their own agency’s work as part of the foundations of newcomer mental health strategies.
Presented by Christen Kong, a Health Promoter specializing in improving the mental well-being of newcomer individuals and communities through the Expressive Arts Therapy approach. She is also the Project Coordinator for Hubs of Expressive Arts for Life (HEAL)—a multi-year implementation research study funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
