Softening into Sustainable Practice: Creative Care for Those Who Hold Others
With , Mara Takiwa
Working alongside trauma, distress and emotional intensity asks something of us. While we are trained to support others, we don't always pause to consider what remains with us after the work.
Softening into Sustainable Practice: Creative Care for those who hold others, offers a warm, reflective and practical space for mental health and allied professionals to explore practitioner sustainability through an arts-informed, trauma-responsive lens.
Facilitated by mental health practitioner and creative arts therapy researcher, Mara Takiwa, this workshop draws on approximately sixteen years of experience working across youth, adult, trauma, crisis, community and private practice settings, together with emerging findings from her Master of Creative Arts Therapy (Clinical) research at Whitecliffe.
Rather than presenting a fixed model or toolkit, Mara invites participants into an unfolding conversation about sustainable practice. Through story, research reflections, and gentle creative experiences, participants will be encouraged to notice their own responses to the work they do and consider what sustainable practice might look like for themselves and their teams.
Current themes emerging from Mara's research include softening as sustainable practice, shared and relational holding, boundaries, thresholds and closure, recognizing the practitioner as a whole person with a body, relationships and life beyond work, and the arts as both a holding and opening process.
Interactive experiences may include brief mark-making, reflective writing, micro-movement, breathing or voice practices, and simple closing or threshold rituals. Participation in all activities is entirely optional, with opportunities to engage in ways that feel comfortable for you.
No artistic experience is required. This workshop is not about creating art, but about using simple, accessible creative processes to support reflection, awareness and professional well-being.
Whether you are new to the profession or have many years of experience, this workshop offers an opportunity to pause, reconnect with your practice, and invest in your own sustainability alongside the important work you do for others.
What you'll learn
By the end of the workshop, participants will be invited to:
- Reflect – on what remains after trauma and mental health work, including embodied, emotional, relations and spiritual residue.
- Develop – a deeper understanding of burnout, compassion fatigue and practitioner sustainability through a non-blaming, relational lens.
- Explore – the idea of softening as a professional practice, including softening time, emotional presence and the relationship between therapist-as-role and therapist-as-whole-person.
- Experience – gentle arts-informed micro-practices that may support awareness, metabolisation and closure.
- Identify – one small, sustainable action, ritual or boundary that can be integrated into your own practice or shared within your team.
About the Presenter
Mara Takiwa
Mental Health Practitioner | Registered Social Worker | Final year Master of Creative Arts Therapy (Clinical) student at Whitecliffe
Mara brings approximately sixteen years’ experience in mental health practice, including work with young people, adults, trauma, crisis, community services and private practice.
Her current Master’s research explores what remains in mental health professionals after working with trauma, and how arts-based reflection, shared holding and softening may contribute to sustainable practice.
Mara offers this workshop as a practitioner-researcher sharing and evolving inquiry, rather than presenting herself as an expert with a completed model. Participants are invited into a thoughtful and collaborative learning experience grounded in both practice and emerging research.
Who is this for?
This session is designed for counsellors, social workers, therapists, educators, and others supporting individuals, and whānau/families in any care industries across Aotearoa. Professional Development: This workshop provides 3 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). A certificate of attendance will be available for participants who attend.
What people say
Awesome sharing of skills and knowledge, very useful for my practice.
From previous evaluations
Really appreciate Dr Ruth McConnell’s presentation and rich experiences in attachment therapy. Hope to learn more from her in the future.
This was incredibly useful training for me in my work and to share with my team. Lovely presenter and great link from theory to practice.
I would recommend Life A Plenty PD to anyone working in this space.
Upcoming events
Additional professional development sessions are being scheduled. Dates, topics and speakers will be published once confirmed.
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