December Newsletter: 2024 Wrap Up.

December: 2024 Wrap Up. 

Hello!

Thank you for all your support this year, without a doubt 2024 was a huge one for Shapes and Sounds:

🧚🏻We welcomed 4 new people to the team, Yeo, Tanya, Michelle and Daleney, making us a strong team of 9.

⛵️We delivered 8x Creative Arts Therapy workshops, registering 1117 Asian international students.

🐣We produced and released 16 episodes of the Asian Mental Health podcast (which hit the Spotify top 40 health and fitness podcasts), interviewing 8 guests and gaining close to 4,000 downloads.

🤗We partnered with the Department of Health, La Trobe University and I became a consortium member at headspace Box Hill.

🔥We started delivering trainings for the mental health sector about the stigma that impacts Asian communities and supported organisations like headspace Syndal and the Australasian Society of Genetic Counsellors.

🏆We became a certified social enterprise with Social Traders.

👩🏻‍💻We ran 4x CPD and networking sessions for Asian therapists and welcomed 47 new therapists and one new Practice Partner to the Asian Mental Health Practitioner List.

🥔We had 3 team dinners and... I'm sure there are so many more wins that I've missed!

Anyway, it was an incredible year for us but no doubt, we're in need of a rest. We'll be working up until Friday December 20th, and then we'll be offline until Monday January 6th, just so you know😉

Wishing you a beautiful end of year and transition into 2025, let's see what the new year will bring.

❤️Asami

🦉 Interesting things relating to mental health and Asian Australian identity

📚 Academia: This article explores some key cultural groundings for understanding autism, and points out how Western ideas of 'normal' have heavily influenced contemporary understandings of neurodivergence.

🤳🏻 Events: The NGV will be showcasing Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's mesmerising artworks in December, including a diverse display of her popular immersive rooms. 

📚 Books: Check out the Amplify bookstore pop up in Melbourne - which focuses on promoting BIPOC books!

🍵 Food: For all matcha lovers, Nana's green tea has just opened up a shop in Melbourne! 

🔎 Searching for a therapist?

Connect with our new practitioners below, or share this page with someone who may need this

🎤 Therapist spotlight.

Get to know marriage and family therapist, Ronald Hoang via our interview:

"Compassion is recognising and accepting our shared humanity, so we treat ourselves and others with loving kindness, in beauty and in pain."

Get to know registered psychologist, Ray Wondal via our interview:

"No matter how hard things get, choose love. Love yourself, love your friends, love your family, love your community."

✨Thank you for reading up to this point!

We rely heavily on your generous support to provide ongoing and free mental health resources to Asian communities in Australia.

Support Shapes and Sounds HERE.

🐌 And last but not least:

Recently in social media land,

We shared our interview with this season's VIP - Beverley Wang!  Explore our instagram to hear about navigating mental health in creative careers, facing COVID challenges, and handling everyday stress.

Make sure to check out Season 2 on your favourite podcast streaming platform!