Newsletter
Monthly(ish) Updates December 2025
8 mins
Reading Time
Summary / Most Important Things
Several events hosted!
Award nominations: Auspire and Global Health and Pharma 2026
Caring With Integrity, Workshops and Community events updates
Looking for new members of the Integrity Army!
FOUR new blog pieces
Join the Integrity Army
Integrity Initiative has been growing rapidly and exponentially, faster than I could have anticipated. We are keen to get new minds and hands on board, especially those of folks who have interest and/ or expertise in:
Volunteer management and support
Strategic planning
Social media management
Workshop delivery
Regional engagement
Art and graphic design
If you are interested in volunteering or would like to find out more, please email rachael@integrityinitiative.com.au
News
Integrity Initiative is up for two awards!
The Integrity Army has been named a finalist in the Auspire Active Citizen awards. I am also a finalist in the Young Community Citizen of the Year category. Because the awards are taking place on the 26th of January - a day which I believe should not be one of celebration - we will not be attending these awards.
Integrity Initiative is also a nominee in the GHP Mental Health Award, more on this to come soon!
Blogs
This month has seen the release of FOUR new blog pieces (...ummm what! That’s one per week!!).
‘Tis The Season to Eat Cabbage explores the infiltration of Christmas and New Year by diet culture and the steps that we can take to avoid this (this one is my personal favourite)
Reflections from Parliament House, which talks about the key learnings and takeaways from my trip to Canberra in November… so if politics and policy is your thing, this is the one for you!
In collaboration with The Embrace Collective, I wrote about my thoughts on the social media ban and its limitation on agency, dignity and autonomy.
A recap of all the extra questions from the Unfiltered panel discussion, which was part of our Unfiltered International Day of People with Disability event.
Outreach and Partnership
December was a busy month outreach wise, and whilst I can’t tell you all of what this entailed (hehe), I can certainly share a few insights. I had the honour of chatting with Aimee Riddell from Health Consumers’ Council, Tahlia Clements from Kai Fella, Dave Parsons from Notre Dame OT department, Karen Silverthorne from Where Is The Door, folks from WACHS Albany, WACHS Geraldton, Neami Albany, Exmouth Shire, City of Melville, Town of Vic Park, Lived Experience Australia and many more.
If you are from an organisation that might be interested in collaborating or partnering in the New Year, you can fill out this form here or send me an email directly to rachael@integrityinitiative.com.au.
I am always happy to grab a coffee and have a chat!
PROGRAM UPDATE: Workshops
It has been an absolutely CHOKKAS time in the land of workshop development. My Christmas and New Year has been writing workshops and creating activities to populate them.
Here is a link to request a workshop from one of our existing modules
Some of what will be delivered throughout 2026, includes:
Create, Critique, Collaborate
A combination of ‘Compassionate Creation’, ‘Grow Up’ (for meaningful youth engagement) and ‘Peers, Professions and Partnership’, this workshop is comprehensive and endlessly creative, combining the best of several modules. It is designed uniquely for its purpose… speaking of which, if you would like us to create a custom workshop for you, here is a form to fill!
Talk About Talking
Developed to increase confidence in initiating and engaging in conversations about mental health and mental health challenges with nuance, compassion and kindness.
Integral Language
Created for clinicians and those working within healthcare settings to explore the importance and the role of language in the care they provide, with recognition of the role of biomedical perspectives and the limitations it creates.
Peers, Professions and Partnership
To explore Peer work, the realities of working from Lived Experience and the distinction between Lived Experience and Lived Experience Expertise. It is perfect for those working alongside Peer workers or interested in being a part of the growing and exciting workforce.
Care In Practice
This is a mini 1-hour workshop that introduces the values that drive Peer work and create space for participants to reconnect with the values that guide their practice.
Compassionate Creation
Based on workshops already hosted at the WA Peer Supporters Network and TheMHS conferences in 2025, this workshop creates a non-traditional, creative and explorative space to examine compassion, giving and innovation and change-making.
Stretch and Learn
A dynamic movement session that outlines common misconceptions about eating disorders and disordered eating, the differences between them, and how to support whilst respecting boundaries.
Word Travels
Hosted by Integrity Initiative and Maeson’s Soapbox, this workshop creates a space to slow down, connect, and explore how we share our lived experiences intentionally and with conscious care for ourselves and others. (See more below!)
Word Travels (a workshop and a whole dang project)
Myself and Maeson Harvey from Maeson’s Soapbox are creating a creative, informative and exciting workshop to help people explore what Lived Experience means to them, and how to take conscious care whilst sharing their stories, and the importance of stories as a form of advocacy.
Word Travels is a series of workshops (developed with a regional audience in mind) which utilises creativity and zine-making as a form of expression, advocacy, storytelling and community empowerment.
Whether you are regional or metropolitan-based, we would love to collaborate!
We are thrilled to be offering:
Pilot workshops in Perth throughout January to March of 2026.
Travelling workshops to you in May of 2026. Our proposed locations include (but are not limited to): Geraldton (Mid West), Carnarvon (Gascoyne), Exmouth (Gascoyne), Onslow (Pilbara), Mirabooka (Metropolitan), Pinjarra (Peel region), Bunbury (South West), Albany (Great Southern), Busselton (South West). NOTE: if you are not located in one of these regions but are interested in holding or engaging in a workshop, we would still love to chat.
Ongoing workshops after our travelling tour upon request.
The zines created through these workshops will travel far beyond the spaces they are created. True to the project name, the creations will continue their journey around Western Australia and more broadly through Maeson’s zine library and through Integrity Initiative’s Caring With Integrity, community events, and other work.
About the workshop
Word Travels is designed to provide a creative, entry-level exploration of safe sharing and storytelling from a Lived Experience, Peer-led lens. It guides participants through the history of storytelling as a method of advocacy and explores how to do this whilst respecting one’s own and others’ boundaries and taking ‘conscious care’. Participants will leave with:
Ability to translate Lived Experience into Expertise that can be used in future advocacy
A zine (or meaningful draft) that belongs to them, that can be shared publicly through Integrity Initiative and Maesons Soapbox.
Whilst we are awaiting the results of several grant applications, we are busy creating and refining (...and soon to be piloting) the workshop model.
Collaborate on our Word Travels
We have an opportunity for UP TO 16 people with Lived Experience and who are already engaged in advocacy spaces to pilot the module on Sunday January 18th, 11:00 - 3:30pm at Vic Park Community Space. Unit 10/660 Albany Highway, Victoria Park WA 610. If you are interested, please express your interest HERE
If you are interested in hosting a Word Travels workshop, you can complete this form or send an email to rachael@integrityinitiative.com.au
We are currently looking into venues in Fremantle to host a Word Travels workshop in April, so stay tuned!
If you know of funding opportunities for capacity building, community engagement and youth empowerment in regional communities, be sure to let us know! We look forward to seeing Word Travels come to life, and we hope you are equally as excited as we are!
Bonus - Word Travels zine!
Trail of Integrity 2026: Fremantle
As announced in our November newsletter, we are excited to be delivering ‘Trail of Integrity’ throughout 2026, which will consist of a series of 5 workshops throughout the year. Whilst we are still cementing our plans, we anticipate that the selected workshops will include:
Word Travels Fremantle pilot (our Lived Experience storytelling workshop utilising zine-making as a medium, in partnership with Maeson’s Soapbox)
Stretch and Learn (gentle movement and exploration of eating disorders)
Talk About Talking (an exploration of how to navigate conversations about mental health respectfully and supportively whilst maintaining personal boundaries)
Integral Language (exploring the role of language in mental health care, support, and within society more broadly)
Compassionate Creation (re-defining creativity and what it means to embed creativity within mental health).
You can see the basic descriptions for each of these modules above.
If you work, volunteer or live within or near Fremantle, we would love to chat about collaboration and the potential to work together in this delivery. Send an email to rachael@integrityinitiative.com.au
We will be releasing more information very soon, but for now here is our web page which also contains links to surveys through which you can give your opinions and help shape the workshops we deliver!
https://integrityinitiative.com.au/trail-of-integrity-26
PROGRAM UPDATE: Caring With Integrity
Receive Care Packages through Caring With Integrity
Caring With Integrity is continuing into 2026, and we are on the hunt for hospitals, communities and mental health services who are wanting to get involved. Following the implementation of our majorly successful pilot in October of 2025, we have taken some time to reflect and refine as to streamline the process for involvement even further.
Regardless, we already have collaboration planned in 2026… so watch this space!
You can learn more through the Caring With Integrity web-page or send us an email!
If you are interested in receiving care packages through Caring With Integrity: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=ugIA263uJkKBaiAp22EEOf2gFmzzmNpIkpZiLkTMiG5UNTlFQ01XSFE1NTI2OFJLV09EV1JMVUpKNy4u
PROGRAM UPDATE: Community engagement
December Events Recap
Bun Intended
On Saturday December 6th, we held a burger-themed comedy games night at Grill’d Applecross. It was a lovely celebration of community and - if I do say so myself - provided some pretty top-quality bad burger jokes.
Some of my favourite bad jokes were:
Unfiltered for International Day of People with Disability
On Saturday 13th December, Integrity Initiative celebrated International Day of People with Disability by hosting a screening of our lived experience film (co-produced with How To Be Well), Unfiltered, paired with a panel discussion and disability pride inspired creative activities.
Unfiltered trailer:
You can watch the panel discussions here: PART ONE and PART TWO
Book a screening of Unfiltered here: Book a screening of Unfiltered – Fill in form
Unfiltered webpage to learn more: https://integrityinitiative.com.au/unfiltered
Bah-Humbug in-person
On Friday the 19th December we held our inaugural Bah-Humbug (anti-Christmas, festive season with nuance) event at Victoria Park Community Centre. It was a fantastic evening, and one that brought a lot of nuance, insight, reflection and emotion.
Thank you to our fabulous panellists: Kieran Silvie, Alessia Maio, and Rahul Seth.
Thank you also to everyone who attended. It was lovely to see everyone leaning into discomfort and the realities of Christmas without feeling a need to perform happiness, which in turn created space to find the glimmers within it.
We anticipate we will have a recording of my speech and of the panel discussion to share with you shortly.
Bah-Humbug online
Unfortunately, we experienced some technical difficulties… so we had to adapt. We couldn’t host the event as planned but did still record a wonderful panel discussion with Varsha Yajman, Amalea Halls, Tyesha Shelton and Lily Gresele… so whilst The Grinch may have stolen our Zoom link, they didn’t take all of Bah-Humbug
Watch the digital panel here:
Letters to the Grinch
My favourite part of Christmas was receiving letters addressed to The Grinch and getting the opportunity to provide a heartfelt response in character. It was this activity above all else that reminded me of the true meaning of Christmas - kindness and giving beyond materialism and beyond performative joy. Because I loved it so much, I (oops, I mean The Grinch) wrote you all a letter too…
Shout-outs
Massive thank you to Josh Porteus, who has been an incredible photographer throughout December and has come along to several of our events to help us capture the happenings!
Resources
We already have a very healthy library of resources, including:
Nervous system regulation cards
Conversation starter cards
Non-verbal communication cards
Language guides
Zines exploring lived Experience
Brochures on effective communication, coping skills, intersectionality, healthcare rights and beyond.
A healthcare information zine to help navigate mental health services.
Navigation guides and service directories
In 2026, we are hoping to make this vast collection of resources more widely available both for free and for purchase. This is still an idea yet to be properly set into motion, but if you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to reach out!
Would you like to see our resource library available?
Would you like to be able to order them or request custom resources?
Links
If you are interested in collaborating: here
If you are interested in receiving care packages through Caring With Integrity: here
If you want to book a screening of Unfiltered: here
Book an Integrity Initiative workshop: here
Request a custom workshop: here
Book a Word Travels workshop: here
Team spotlight
Sophie has been my absolute rock this past month, thank you so so so much Soph. Thank you for driving me to-and-fro, listening to my rambles, and reliably being there to help me through the chaos (lesson learned, 5 events in the last 5 weeks of the year is too much). Sophie, I couldn’t ask for a better supporter and friend.
Slay Takeaways
Frogs aren’t traditional Christmas symbols, but they appeared surprisingly often on Victorian Christmas cards, sometimes in whimsical, nonsensical scenes with festive morals, and a notable story involves a little green tree frog found in a Christmas salad, highlighting climate change migration
Take care froglets,
Rachael and the Integrity Army
Join the Ingetrity Army
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