AIM:
Our aim is to present an interactive learning experience where we, as a culturally and professionally diverse team, discuss our lived experience of applied Community Psychology using our bespoke arts-based conference workshop techniques. Members of our group will be travelling to Montevideo, Uruguay in September 2024 to present at the International Conference of Community Psychology, we intend to use our immersive method of engagement to discuss the outcomes of this experience along with our combined lived experience of applying community psychology principals in our diverse practices from mental health and drug and alcohol counselling, Aboriginal health, arts-based healing practices, and the fertile intersection of traditional botanical knowledges and human wellbeing.

CONTENT:
In Uruguay we are co-creating, with the other conference attendees, a plant-based natural mandala in a plaza adjacent to the conference venue. Ourselves and the other conference attendees will be yarning about Indigenous edible and medicinal plants and how these relate to wellbeing, physical, spiritual and economic wellbeing, particularly for Indigenous populations. We do not want to replicate this presentation but to build on its success so far and share these unique methods. We propose that we conduct a new creative installation for the APS on the Gold Coast, this time creating an amalgam between Yunkaporta’s Sandtalk (Yunkaporta, 2019) method, with his permission (initial contact has been made) and Jungian Sandplay methods, both of which employ symbolism, storytelling and ceremony to navigate complex and layered understandings of human and planetary wellbeing.

GOAL:
Our team is cross cultural, most of us reside in mid to far western NSW, and are employed by various and relevant institutions from the Royal Flying Doctor Service Wellbeing Place (Mental Health, AoD and Wellbeing unit https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/nswact/visit/wellbeing-places/) to community-based Project Zone (https://www.theprojectzone.com.au) to the University of New England. We have won APS awards, numerous grants, have co-designed educational resources, significant community projects (https://vimeo.com/theprojectzone/made) and are currently installing a Wellbeing Garden for the Royal Flying Doctors, Broken Hill during for our collaborative research and applied Community Psychology practice. Our goal is to deliver this interwoven and complex amalgam of information in an inspired, cohesive and engaging way.