Western Plains Cultural Centre mural focuses on resilience among children

Leanne Watt from Uniting and a local artist herself says the mural, which now sits outside of the Western Plains Cultural Centre, was drawn and painted by the kids.

"To complete the whole mural, it took a couple of weeks maybe three weeks, over the school holidays I got the kids to come help paint and draw the design and then I incorporated it into the mural but the kids painted it so everything on there (the mural) was done by the kids of Dubbo," Ms Watt said.

The Dubbo Youth Interagency, which consists of local support networks including Headspace, Uniting and PCYC Dubbo all came together to assist in the mural.

Eighty children in total took part in the designing, drawing and painting the mural after the Bounceback event held at the Dubbo Aquatic Leisure Centre.

"As each kid came through the gate at the pool we got them to hand print the mural, so there were a lot of children involved in that panel and about six or seven helped me with the rest of the mural," Ms Watt said.

Amy Mines from Headspace says before the mural a lot of young people did not know what resilience was.

"A lot of young people were told to have a bit more resilience but they actually don't know what that means, so to be able to define resilience as bouncing back it was really important for us to be able to do that," Ms Mines said.

"This was a really good way for them to align themselves with that attribute,"

"We had contribution from young people as to what bouncing back means to them and that is what was included in the mural,"

At the Bounceback event run in January all the groups involved in the Dubbo Youth Interagency attended to show a different side of themselves.

"To mingle with the different service providers in an informal setting, so they know who they are and that they will be available to them this year when they feel like they can't bounce back then they can tap into these services,"

"We wanted to come down on their level and just be a fun environment out of context and we still wore our uniform so they could identify who we were but we felt it was important to get on their level and have some fun,"

Jo Whale from Uniting echoed Ms Mines thoughts.

"Even having the police come in their uniforms showed them a bit more normal and the programs that they run,"

"It's all about the young kids at the end of the day,"

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