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About Us

Making therapeutic change through arts therapies and creative play

At Evolution Creative Arts Therapies, we’ve created a much-needed space in Melbourne’s west to support and improve the mental health and wellbeing of kids, teens, adults, and communities through our arts therapy programs.

 

Arts therapy is not about making pretty pictures. It’s about using the arts and a person’s creativity to reduce stress, anxiety and depression while increasing a person’s ability to build healthy, meaningful relationships and better interact with the world around us.

Kids and teenagers and therapeutic change

Through creative play for kids and arts therapy for teenagers, they improve their ability to learn and process information. They learn how to manage and express their feelings in a healthy way, which leads to better relationships with their family, peers, and social groups. Arts therapy helps builds their confidence and self-esteem.

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“It’s not about learning to be a good artist, picking up a paintbrush, or just having fun. We help people of all ages experience the benefits of therapeutic change through the arts.”

Nyrelle Bade, Founder

Arts therapy as treatment

Early in her career as a therapist, Evolution Creative Arts Therapies’ founder, Nyrelle Bade, discovered the positive outcomes of arts therapy after working with some very complex cases. She saw kids, teens, and adults thrive under an arts therapy program when other therapeutic and talking-based treatments hadn’t delivered the results they were striving for.

 

Arts therapy gives people the chance to use their body to create something meaningful. The process of creating something can give a person a sense of vitality that wasn’t there before. People can express their emotions in a way they can’t through therapy that is purely talk-based.  During arts therapy, we talk about and reflect on what they created. Creating art and talking use different parts of our brain, and this can lead to better therapeutic results, sooner, especially for complex cases.

After working as an arts therapist for more than a decade, Nyrelle realised her vision to build a creative arts therapy clinical practice in Werribee.

 

It wasn’t long before Nyrelle started attracting other highly qualified and experienced arts therapists to work under our Evolution Creative Arts Therapies banner. Her vision was to give the community greater choice so each person can work with the therapist who is the best fit for their situation.

 

While art classes are plentiful in the Wyndham and Hobson’s Bay region, there’s nothing quite like our practice with its clinical focus. We use the arts in therapy to improve the mental health and wellbeing of the people who join our programs.

Who we help through arts therapy

Everyone has the potential to grow and flourish—kids, teenagers, and adults—regardless of their background, life experience or disability. Using arts therapy, our therapists encourage and support that growth.

 

We offer a range of programs for kids, teenagers, and adults.

How we deliver our arts therapy programs

We’re flexible. Our team of arts therapists design and deliver tailored arts therapy programs in 1:1 individual sessions, group sessions, and via online workshops. We deliver our programs at our practice in Werribee or via TeleHealth. We deliver outreach programs to schools. Our therapists deliver 1:1 programs in homes for NDIS participants who cannot travel because of their disability or medical condition.

 

We use a range of creative arts therapies—from visual arts, music and drama to play, sand play, and sensory art and movement.

 

Through our intake process, we do an initial assessment. Because our therapists have a clinical background, we can review a person’s medical and therapeutic history to help us tailor a unique program.

 

After we deliver the program, we follow up with another assessment. For NDIS participants or if requested, that assessment is accompanied by a report that outlines what we did and the therapeutic results.

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We’re NDIS registered

We’re a registered NDIS provider. If you have an approved NDIS plan, we can tailor a program to help you reach your goals.

We recognise that meaningful and long-term change can take time. Our assessment and reporting process helps make it easier to set and monitor short, medium and longer-term goals and secure further funding to help a person progress towards those goals.

Our provider number is 4050000894

Take a peek inside Evolution Creative Arts Therapies, Werribee

Arts therapy is not about making pretty pictures. It’s about using the arts and a person’s creativity to reduce stress, anxiety and depression and their symptoms.

Making art and being creative engages your whole brain and calms your nervous system. You don't need to consider yourself artistic to get the full benefit of arts therapy.

Our eCat Team

Nyrelle Bade, AThR

Founder and Senior Arts Therapist

Master of Arts Therapy (by Research)

Nyrelle has created a space in Melbourne’s west dedicated to providing creative arts therapies to support the mental health and wellbeing of the communities of Wyndham and Hobsons Bay.

Nyrelle is an arts therapist with a diverse therapeutic tool kit. She specialises in working with children who have low play skills, and teens and adults who have experienced complex trauma.

She is also a somatic experiencing practitioner. Integral somatic psychology, sand play, clay field therapy, and therapeutic touch are a part of her practice.

Using a mixed therapeutic style that reflects the diverse areas of therapy she has trained in, Nyrelle incorporates creativity, embodiment, and education into her approach. She helps those she treats to better understand their mental health condition.

Nyrelle is a ANZACATA and ACA approved supervisor.

She is a registered NDIS provider.

Learn more about Nyrelle

Julia Kok, AThR

Creative Arts Therapist (Drama Therapist)

Julia’s background as a trained actor informs her therapeutic approach where she uses the creative arts to explore different perspectives, discover personalised coping strategies and develop real-life problem-solving skills.

Learn more about Julia

Xinyi Tan (Cindy), CAThR

Creative Arts Therapist (Dance and Movement)

Cindy believes that movement is our way home to the self. Her practice is rooted in the idea that our bodies hold emotional truth—and that through dance, art, and creative expression, we can access parts of ourselves beyond words.

With a background in psychology and a deep respect for cultural sensitivity and embodied presence, Cindy creates safe spaces for self-exploration, play, and healing. Whether working with children navigating neurodevelopmental challenges or adult facing self-doubt and life transitions, she combines body-based methods with art and creative rituals to support emotional resilience, relational insight, and a return to inner alignment.

Learn more about Cindy

Jasmine Kaur Ahluwalia, CAThR

Creative Arts Therapist (CAThR)
Certified Counsellor (PACFA)

Jasmine’s sessions invite imagination, movement, art-making, storytelling, and mindfulness. She believes therapy is not just a space to manage distress but a place for co-creating meaning, deepening self-understanding, and cultivating belonging. She is a professional member of ANZACATA and a Registered Certified Practising Counsellor with PACFA.

Her work primarily supports neurodivergent children, with a focus on emotional regulation, self-expression, and social connection. She has facilitated therapy in schools, community programs, and individual sessions, drawing on relational and strength-based approaches. She holds experience working towards Mental Health development in both India and Australia. She is passionate about creating safe, playful, and inclusive spaces where creativity and movement become pathways for resilience, identity-building, and wellbeing.

Learn more about Jasmine

Jessele Vinluan, AThR

Creative Arts Therapist (Art Therapist)

Jess has been an art therapist for Evolution Creative Arts Therapies since 2018.

Jess is a professional member of the Australia, New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association (ANZACATA). She completed her Master of Art Therapy and Graduate Diploma in Mental Health at La Trobe University, Bundoora Victoria. She also completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in psychology and art history at Victoria University and La Trobe University.

Jess uses modalities that incorporates creative writing, photography, music, learn-to-play, mindfulness, and from a trauma-informed care. She works with children, youths and adults, specifically in areas such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit and hyperactive disorder, dementia and stroke. She utilises a person-centred, approach and with evidence-based practice guides the individual to work through their treatment goals using creative arts.

Learn more about Jessele

Lorna Parker

With an educational background in psychology and specialist training in psychotherapeutic approaches to art therapy, Lorna’s therapeutic style focusses on helping people to explore emotions, experiences, identity, expression and social connectivity through visual arts in relation to relevant psychological frameworks.

Person centred practice is an important part of Lorna’s therapeutic work, embracing the flexibility of art making to meet different needs. For example, as a way to externalise the mental experience and explore this in a safe, contained, trauma informed space or in a less directive sense to explore self soothing, creative play and reflection.

Learn more about Lorna