Satellite at the CAWRI Conference: Youth Mental Health, Arts and Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne
22 April 2026
Satellite recently attended the CAWRI Conference 2026 at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, joining leading voices in youth mental health, arts, and creative therapy across Australia.
On Friday 10 April, our Director of Programs & Engagement, Kelly Way, and Creative Manager, Melinda Hetzel, attended alongside two of our youth representatives, Chrissy and Harley. Bringing young people into spaces like this is an important part of how we work, ensuring lived experience is not only represented, but actively shaping conversations.
The conference brought together researchers, practitioners and creatives to explore how the arts can support young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
What is the CAWRI conference?
The CAWRI Conference focuses on the intersection of arts, health, and therapy. It brings together people working across sectors to share research, practice and emerging ideas about how creative approaches can support wellbeing.
In the context of rising youth mental health challenges in Australia, the conference provided an opportunity to reflect on the role that creativity can play in supporting emotional expression, connection and resilience.
This Year’s Theme: Creating Wellbeing-Youth, Arts, and Mental Health
This year’s theme, Creating Wellbeing: Youth, Arts and Mental Health, explored how creative practices can be meaningfully integrated into youth support systems.
Across the day, discussions prompted reflection on how the arts can move beyond being an “add-on” to becoming a more integrated part of how we design and deliver mental health supports for young people.
Key areas of focus included:
- embedding arts-based approaches within mental health programs
- supporting genuine youth-led co-creation
- improving access for diverse and underrepresented communities
Key insights from the day
Throughout the conference, Satellite engaged in a range of sessions exploring program design, impact measurement and access to arts-based support. Several key themes strongly resonated with our work.
A strong theme was the importance of lived experience and co-creation, with a clear emphasis on moving beyond consultation towards genuine partnership with young people in the design and delivery of programs.
There was also a focus on better measuring what matters, particularly outcomes such as connection, confidence and self-expression, which are central to wellbeing but not always easily captured through traditional evaluation approaches.
Equitable access was another key theme, highlighting the need to ensure arts-based programs are accessible to all young people, particularly those who may face additional barriers to participation.
With presenters from 13 universities, 5 health, 9 cultural organisations, as well as independent artists, consultants, social enterprises and start-ups from across Australia, the conference offered rich insights and valuable conversations. The breadth of perspectives created a dynamic and practice-informed discussion across research, service delivery and lived experience.
What this means for Satellite
The themes explored at CAWRI strongly align with Satellite’s approach, where creativity is not an add-on, but central to how we support young people who are impacted by family mental health challenges.
Our programs are designed to create safe, supportive spaces where young people can express themselves, build connections and feel understood, often in ways that traditional services cannot offer.
Attending CAWRI provided an opportunity to both contribute to and learn from a growing national conversation about the role of the arts in mental health. We left feeling inspired and energised, and look forward to bringing these insights back into our programs and sharing them with the broader Satellite community.
