Summary / Most Important Things

• We have had an exceptionally busy month this June! We have been fundraising at numerous events, presenting at the WAPSN conference, and applying for opportunities left right and centre. For this reason, we will be breaking this month's newsletter into two parts!

• We have our launch event ENCORE coming up on Tuesday the 17th, at The Backlot Perth 10:30 - 1:30pm We would LOVE for you to be there or for you to help us with our last-minute push for ticket sales! Here is the link

• We have started to get REAL flyers, brochures and other merchandise coming in, which is absolutely mind blowing! We are real, folks!

• We are at Grill’d Applecross all throughout June, so if you want a burger be sure to head there and give us your tokens :)

Events

Upcoming Events

• As mentioned, we have an encore of our launch event that will be taking place Tuesday the 17th, 10:30-1:30 at the Backlot Perth. It will be catered, will have a Lived Experience presentation, will have a Lived Experience speaker, a raffle, and SO much more! Please do consider coming along, or pass on the details through your networks! Here is the link

• IT’S OFFICIAL - we are presenting at the TheMHS conference later this year. Myself, Sophie and Eliza will be hosting a workshop, Compassionate Creation. We will also be presenting a snappy 5-minute ‘Ignite Integrity’ presentation AND creating a poster that will also highlight our partners! You can view our abstracts in the official program here

Past Events

• ‘Get Grilled at Grill’d’ mental health quiz night fundraiser - this was a fantastic night and was incredibly successful fundraising! We managed to raise just over $1,000!!!!

• WAPSN Conference - Creating Compassion was a lovely introduction for Integrity Initiative into the world of conferences. Myself, Sophie Seinemeier , and Briana Toy presented and facilitated (and - might I say - absolutely CRUSHED it!) We look forward to many presentations to come!

Partnerships

• Consortium for Research in Eating Disorders - we are officially a partner!

• Grill’d Applecross hosted our quiz night and is CURRENTLY hosting our Local Matters jar (go get a burger and vote for us!). They were so impressed with our work that they have asked us to collaborate with them on an ongoing basis - stay tuned!

• 1000 Hearts is a social enterprise founded by Sarah DeJonge which delivers hearts in random acts of kindness. We intend to deliver these through our packages, host heart-making events, and give them out at our events and engagements!

  • See more information about this partnership here: https://integrityinitiative.com.au/1000-hearts

Ways you can help

• Share the word about our launch encore! As far and wise as you can!

• Nominate us for any of the upcoming awards - some that are still open for nomination include YACWA Youth Awards, WAAMH Mental Health Awards,

  • The deadline to nominate for the 2025 WA Youth Awards is 4 pm, Friday, July 4, 2025. You can nominate here.

  • The nominations for the WAAMH Mental Health Awards closes on the 30th July. You can nominate here.

• Let us know if you are happy to use your logo or a statement on our poster for TheMHS (good free advertising for you!)

• Continue to provide feedback and any quotes around our impact that we can use in applications!

• We have also finalised our ‘ways that you can help’ resource, which we would love for you to peruse! This will be in the attachments of this e-newsletter!

Care Package Updates

• We currently have three confirmed wards on board and one step-up-step-down facility who we are in conversation with. We are taking our time to do this right, and are expecting that we will commence with the first deliveries around October.

Workshop Updates

• I have been INCREDIBLY busy developing an array of workshops that I look forward to eventually implementing across many clinical settings. Some of these include:

Workshop title

Brief description

Integral Language

What language is and is not appropriate in mental health settings?

You Can’t Ask That

Inspired by ABC’s You Can’t Ask That, this would feature a live panel discussion of questions that typically can’t be posed!

Eating Disorders 101

All about eating disorders - myths and facts, how to help, Forget What You Think You Know (international feature film finalist) screening

Clinical practice and Lived Experience, together.

How to combine Lived Experience and Clinical practice harmoniously and examples of what this might look like.

Is it empowering or just patronising?

The truth behind youth activism - how to be an empowered young person and know when you are not being valued.

Hearts for Hope

Creative workshop to make and deliver felt hearts, as a part of the 1000 Hearts partnership

Creating Compassion

Why creativity is important in Peer work and mental health, what this actually means, and an opportunity to contribute towards Integrity Initiative’s care packages

Real Talk, Real Change

What is medical trauma and iatrogenic harm, the myth of ‘do no harm’, the reality of restrictive practice and how to embed compassion into care.

…plus MANY more (and yes, I have created detailed run sheets for each of these workshops, each lasting from 2-5 hours in duration)

Donations

• Our events and prizes have been generously made possible thanks to generous donations from organisations and communities. some that we would like to highlight include:

  • The Backlot Perth is hosting our launch encore!

  • Sue Lewis Chocolatier has donated a prize for our quiz night - thank you!

  • The Rowing Pavilion has donated a raffle prize for upcoming launch encore

  • Escapade Escape Rooms donated a prize for our quiz night

  • 1000 Hearts has supplied enough hearts to get us started with the campaign!

  • The Cheesecake Shop Myaree donated a gorgeous, personalised cake for our first event - this was so beautiful, it quite literally brought a tear to my eye!

Resources

• As always, we have ALSO been busy with resource development. We have made several, however one that I would love to share with you is a small zine (and I promise this was made BEFORE the WAPSN conference!)

Team spotlight

• Bri and Sophie have been absolutely fantastic help this month - they have really stepped up to the mark and have been my go-to helpers. Thank you Bri and Sophie! Thank you also to Jas for scoring at our quiz night!

What we’ve learned

• Besides the fact that cardboard boxes are NOT reliable for transporting materials to and from a conference (ahem), we have learned that we are capable of far more than we initially imagined. I’d like to link this back to a short video I saw recently on ‘learned helplessness’. In fact, we’ve embedded this video into one of our workshops currently in development… “Is it empowering or is it just patronising?”

Slay Takeaways

• A species of frog that lives around Lake Titicaca - the Telmatobius Culeus - has developed the habit of doing push-ups at the bottom of the lake to increase the water flow around its body, which, in turn, allows it to take in more oxygen.

Thank you for coming along on this newsletter journey with me! Hopefully there were not too many typos (I am a very clumsy typer!)

All my love, Rachael