Big Trauma, Big Change
Building strength-based community resources for transformative change
The problem
The current mental health system is failing. Outside the privileged metropolitan areas, there is little or no support for those dealing with trauma, suicidality and ongoing distress. Unprocessed trauma costs the nation around $25 billion a year.
Some 65% of Australians with mental health needs dont access clinical support and most people who die by suicide dont reach out at all.
The World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Australian Productivity Commission all agree that we need an approach that moves beyond the medical model.
Scientia Professor Jill Bennett, Founder of the Big Anxiety Research Centre (BARC): We need to ask why we treat mental health as purely a disorder of the brain rather than something that is profoundly linked to experience, trauma, culture and community.
The biggest problem with mainstream treatment of suicide prevention and mental health is the institutionalised environments that people are put in to try to treat their illnesses. Aaron Blades, artist, cultural facilitator and Mandandanji man, from Changing Our Ways, 2023, feature film on BARCs work.
Our strategy
The future of mental health depends on empowering people and communities. Big Trauma, Big Change, a project within BARC, works closely with communities to reimagine support for mental health and trauma and to develop accessible resources to enable big change, in ourselves and in the world.
Rather than treating people for disorders, Big Trauma, Big Change offers inspiration, discovery and validation, using experiential media, such as virtual reality (VR), to engage the senses and emotions, and to explore the questions that enable growth and transformation:
- How do we change the way we feel inside when we are broken and disconnected?
- How do we connect to ourselves, to community, to culture and to Country?
- How do we build a viable alternative to the system a culture that is supportive and sustaining, that fills us with awe, hope and wonder, and offers genuine practical help?
In one day, we can bring a community together. In ten minutes, we can be transformed by a powerful immersive experience.
Prof. Bennett, BARC: Big Trauma, Big Change is prefiguring a world where services are holistic, led by lived experience and embedded in culture and in community. We fill a gap thats created by a medical model that has traditionally excluded experience.
What were trying to create is a bottom-up approach to health and healing thats Indigenous-led. -泭Marianne Wobcke, midwife, workshop facilitator and Girrimay woman.
Our partners
- Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Womens Council [NPYWC]
- Queensland Mental Health Commission
- Waminda Aboriginal Health Centre, NSW
- Youturn Youth Mental Health Service, Queensland
- We Al-li
- Githabul community, Warwick
- Momentum Health
- Leigh Place aged care
- Whiddon Group
- Out the Back Ventures [OTB]
- TOA Japan
- Bridging Hope Charity Foundation
As soon as I saw [the approach], I knew that this was something really different, a really powerful tool, it was helping us as a community think differently about mental health. Ben McKinnon, Addiction and Mental Health Services, Queensland Health.
Our impact
BARC developed the first VR for suicide prevention. They have delivered award-winning Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR) and VR for trauma support through transformative community programs and at large-scale festivals across Australia.
Their immersive tools and community programs have been proven to work in a remarkably short time frame:
Brisbane participant: Its like doing ten years of therapy in one morning.
Warwick (a regional town in Queensland) participant: Its maybe ten years of growth in a very short time.
The project is currently working with communities in regional, rural and remote areas to develop the tools they need to make change.
Using immersive technology radically changes the way we connect, feel and experience the world. Working from the bottom up and delivering these powerful experiences to communities does change peoples worlds, inside and out.
Our team
BARC has an unparalleled track record of developing creative ways to work with trauma. They recognise that people are experts in their own lives with agency over their futures.
Project Lead:泭Jill Bennett
Project Manager:泭Annie Zhao (current) & Jenni Tyler (past)
Research Collaborator:泭Gail Kenning泭
Design Strategist:泭Chloe Cassidy泭
Spatial and experience specialist:泭Katherine Bond
Lead Immersive Designer:泭Volker Kuchelmeister
Art & Design Student Collaborator:泭Alina Wirtz
Partner with this project and be泭a part of big change. Immerse yourself in hope. Its time to invest in people and a better future.
Were looking at how we can equip people with powerful immersive tools that support them to work with very complex feelings of distress and memories of trauma.