Marete Wester, Senior Director of Arts Policy at Americans for the Arts, took part in the Global Alliance for Arts & Health’s conference in Houston, April 9-12. The Global Alliance, a long-time partner with Americans for the Arts, celebrated the 25^th Anniversary of its founding with more than 300 of its worldwide members including professionals, students and organizations in the arts, humanities and medicine. The conference provided a unique opportunity to share the report Arts, Health, and Well-Being Across the Military Continuum - White Paper and Framing a National Plan for Action, from the National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military co-chaired by Americans for the Arts with this important constituency. Marete also discussed updates on the National Initiative with participants in the SHARE: Service-Member Healing through Restorative and Creative Engagement pre-conference. Funded by the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, SHARE addresses one of the key recommendations in the white paper concerning the need to nurture development of arts and health programs designed for active military members, as well as veterans and their families by working collaboratively over the arts, health, military and veteran domains.

"Hello Koalas" is a public art project designed by Arts and Health Australia at the Global Alliance for Arts & Health Conference. Each conference attendee, including our own Marete Wester, was invited to contribute their fingerprint to the meter-high Koala. Each fingerprint will celebrate a person's distinctive and unique sense of identity and place within the global arts and health community and create a permanent record of the 25th anniversary arts and health conference - through the acquisition of the koala sculpture for the art collection of the Texas Children's Hospital. It is also significant that endangered Koala's are one of only two animals that have their own unique fingerprint, like humans. 

Houston Center for Photography also converted an out-of-service ambulance and transform it into a mobile photography studio and art car, with a mission to inspire and heal to merge arts and health. This served as a portable extension of HCP's "Picture This!" outreach program currently serving children and their families at Texas Children's Hospital. This photography-based arts program, started in 2002, enables young patients to focus on cultivating imagination and dreaming, while also learning new technologies, art practices, and tools and skills that cross numerous disciplines.