Connect with the largest Community of Practice for Asian therapists in Australia.
Join our supportive network for Asian mental health professionals to connect with emerging literature and deepen your culturally-responsive practice.
All sessions are facilitated on Zoom, join us from any convenient location.
2025 sessions:
Session 1.
February 6th
Focus article: Maheen & King, 2023, Employment-related mental health outcomes among Australian migrants: A 19-year longitudinal study
Session 2.
May 8th
Focus article: Jobson et. al., 2023, Exploring the associations between social support and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder
among Malaysian and Australian trauma survivors
With special guests from Monash University’s Culture, Trauma and Mental Health research lab
Session 3.
August 7th
Focus article: Luu et al., 2023, Effectively supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) young people with their mental health and wellbeing – does this matter or exist in Australia?
Session 4.
November 6th
Focus article: Qiu et. al., 2025, Cultural influences on emotion regulation and affective outcomes among trauma survivors: An ecological momentary assessment study.
With special guests from Monash University’s Culture, Trauma and Mental Health research lab
Key benefits
Earn Continuing Professional Development points
You'll receive a CPD certificate (1 point) for each session that you attend.
Connect with really interesting, inspiring therapists
Past attendees have found supervisors, supervisees or just made new friends!
Stay relevant with access to emerging literature
We'll connect you with our partners at Monash University and friends across other institutions.
These sessions help me feel safe to share my clinical and cultural intersections. It is a valuable space and essential to my growth as a practitioner and Asian Australian.
- Will Vuong,
Wellspring Counselling
Who is this for?
Will I gain CPD points?
What is the investment?
Your lead facilitator.
Join Asami Koike, founder of Shapes and Sounds and registered music therapist, alongside our multi-disciplinary team who together have over 30+ years' expertise across trauma-informed and culturally-responsive mental health practice.
Learn more about our team
What happens in each session?
We're usually joined by around 15 - 20 practitioners from all over Australia, on Zoom.
An example of the session:
- 7.30pm: Welcome and introduction by Shapes and Sounds.
- 7.40pm: Speed introductions and warm up.
- 7.50pm: Content delivered by our facilitator, Asami; outlining key themes from the focus journal article.
- 8.15pm: Small breakout rooms of 2 - 3 practitioners to discuss reflective prompts, insights and strategies.
- 8.50pm: Whole group discussion and wrap up.
- 9.00pm: Close.
The timing and content may vary slightly depending on each session's theme and the group's emerging needs.
Just because you're a therapist of colour, doesn't mean that your practice is automatically "culturally-responsive".
...And that's completely okay.
Because relying purely on your lived experience can be both exhausting (for you) and haphazard (for your practice).
Our role at Shapes and Sounds is to support you to feel confident and resourced in supporting the mental health needs of the Asian community. We're led by a team of Asian therapists and here, you'll feel validated in your intersectional experiences, build greater structure and sustainability in your work, and be continually supported by our welcoming practitioner community.
We look forward to supporting you at our next session!
Register nowWith thanks to our partners:
