At Strength Heroes, we have had the privilege of empowering over 6000 children and families through process-based art and creative resilience training. From vibrant after-school sessions and holiday maker workshops to school incursions, parent-child sessions, and educator professional development, every experience is designed to nurture a growth mindset, build self-advocacy, and silence the “Inner Critic.”
Drawing on over two decades of experience across education, community services, and corporate training, we design bespoke programs tailored to your community’s unique goals. Whether you are looking for drop-in family activations, multi-week youth programs, collaborative public installations, or keynote speaking, we bring creative autonomy and practical resilience tools to life.
To support families navigating childhood cancer journeys, we partnered with Camp Quality to deliver a fluid, 4.5-hour drop-in creative space. Designed for total creative autonomy across all ages, younger children engaged with tactile sensory mark-making and mask/crown stamping, while primary-aged kids and siblings built 3D structures using open-ended loose parts. The self-directed setup allowed families to drop in around rest times and build alongside one another in a low-pressure, joyful environment.
In collaboration with City of Joondalup Youth Development, we facilitated The Art of Strength—a multi-week empowerment series for young people. Using VIA Character Strengths as a foundation, participants explored their personal values, tackled perfectionism, and created individual strength totems. The program culminated in participants presenting and defending their artistic vision through a creative pitch, leaving youth feeling empowered, heard, and confident in their creative agency.
“We were just allowed to express ourselves.” Participant, The Art of Strength Youth Empowerment Program
Partnering with Arthritis & Osteoporosis WA for their annual Camp Freedom, Strength Heroes facilitated an engaging “Brain House” clay workshop for 60 older children and teens through to Year 12 (aged up to 17). Supporting young people living with persistent pain requires a delicate, highly tailored approach. Rather than using rigid or dismissive language around resilience, we delivered an age-appropriate session in small group settings that gently explored mental resilience and emotional regulation. Using air-dry clay as a tactile, low-pressure medium, teens designed individual “Brain Houses” to visually map their emotions and coping strategies. Our inclusive programs are designed for all physical abilities, neurodivergent participants, and young people managing chronic health conditions—providing a safe, empowering space where youth feel truly supported and understood.
Commissioned by the City of Stirling, Strength Heroes facilitated an interactive, community-wide art installation where families created individual air-dry clay pieces illustrating what a “safe space” means to them. Each participant’s sculpture contributed to a larger collaborative diorama, bringing community members together to celebrate belonging, emotional safety, and shared artistic expression.
“Working with Strength Heroes was wonderfully collaborative and so organised. The way Fiona engaged our community to create a shared piece of art made everyone feel included and heard.”
Working alongside Naala Djookan, we delivered gentle, strengths-focused creative sessions tailored for women and children. Centred on building self-esteem and emotional regulation, participants designed personal strength totems to serve as visual anchors for their inner resilience. The session offered a safe, supportive space for families to reconnect with their creative voice and personal agency.
“The experience was transformational… it gave children practical ways to manage big emotions while reconnecting with their inner strengths.”
— Naala Djookan Healing Centre
Strength Heroes was awarded the 2026 WA Children’s Event Winner at the WA Fringe Festival, Fringe Beast Fun combines process drawing with cognitive-behavioural resilience concepts. Using taxidermied animal specimens as visual anchors, children learn to identify “fixed mindset” thoughts, turn mistakes into creative opportunities, and build a “can-do” toolkit through playful, open-ended art making.
To celebrate Little Quokka’s birthday across a vibrant two-day family event on Rottnest Island, Strength Heroes hosted an interactive, eco-friendly quokka portrait workshop. Channeling our commitment to sustainability and creative freedom, children used recycled materials—including bright paper wrappers and magazines sourced from REmida—to collage abstract quokka faces in profile and full view. Kids personalised their artworks using paint sticks, markers, and loose parts to craft custom ears, noses, and celebratory birthday hats. The activation gave participating families a fun, tactile way to celebrate a local island icon while embracing open-ended, eco-conscious art-making.
Strength Heroes delivers multi-generational art and resilience experiences that bridge generations, building deep community connection, emotional wellbeing, and shared joy. Having designed and facilitated a tailored six-week intergenerational program in partnership with the City of Canning, we have seen firsthand how process-based art creates a natural, low-pressure bridge between young people and older adults. Building on this success, we now host a weekly intergenerational program at our dedicated community creative hub, The Maker Space, delivered in collaboration with Floreat Forum. Through engaging, sensory-rich art projects, participants of all ages explore resilience concepts, share creative choices, and strengthen their emotional wellbeing side by side. As proud members of Perth Kids Hub, our inclusive workshops are designed for all abilities and neurodivergent participants, providing a safe, welcoming environment where parents and carers trust us to deliver meaningful, connected experiences.
Kids made a card using mono printing to express gratitude for someone in their community. They also made flowers using craft materials.
Our Back to School activities included making a Pocket Pal which they can put in their pocket or school as a comfort to calm nerves. Parents also picked up a Back to School Kit with activities to help the transition to school.
We designed and ran a day of activities at the Perth Modern Art enrichment camp, 2019. We used the camp themes of aboriginality, landscape and sustainability in the workshops. To view the artwork click here.
Fiona Perrella has spoken at events such as City of Canning’s Women in Business Forum, Perth College’s Flourish Conference in 2019 and 2020. Another example is the State Teacher Union of Western Australia in 2018.
A variety of organisations have hosted to run our incursions at their venues. This includes Perth College Junior school, Quintilian School, Kidz Active (out of hours care), The Art Garage Mount Hawthorn and The Art Space. in Scarborough.
Harmony Week 2022 Shire of Serpentine and Jarrahdale
Grow your strong: Terrarium workshop for city of Vincent library. In this workshop we designed a strengths based workshop to fit in with the client’s request to run a terrarium workshop to help the library celebrate Youth Week 2019.
Holiday program for City of Bayswater, January 2020
“Fiona enabled participants to learn about a subject like harmony while enjoying a fun arts activity along the way. The lanterns enabled participants to use their lantern later on the walk trail. All participants were able to make a lantern for themselves for their trail walk. Participants learnt about Harmony week and the meaning for the week. They also learnt to not judge people by first looks as everyone has something in common with each other.”
Jason Parker, Coordinator Sport and Recreation, Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale.
As part of our partnership with Scarborough Primary School we designed a strategy to address their core need of improving communication between parents and the school. We developed a program linked to the school values. This included guides to improve students communication skills.
We also implemented a Gratitude Project for the school. This resulted in developing relationships and improving. Studies have documented that “positive relationships and even improved school satisfaction can result from introducing the practice of gratitude in schools.” (Heart-Mind Online, 2018)
Karrinyup Primary School and Strength Heroes worked side by side to design a project to address the need to increase staff collaboration. We designed and administered a organisational cultural survey for staff. Then we analysed the results and used these to recommend and implement different strategies for the leadership to implement. As a result, we also ran team development and professional development sessions workshops.
We worked with the school to design and develop Growth Mindset Professional Development for staff and parent education.
We have worked with various community groups to run creative activities at a number of events. These have included Big Splash 2018 for Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation, Mount Hawthorn Streets and Laneways Festival for Mt Hawthorn Hub and Made on the Left markets.
We have run a number of fun short, sharp engaging team building workshops for various local netball teams. Through a number of play based activities, teams explored what successful teams look like and behaviours to deal with challenges they face on and off the court.
The Artspace Collective engaged us to design and deliver fun activities for kids in their community. We designed and delivered The Gods, Goddesses and Strength Heroes workshops as an creative way for children to build resilience. The children also contributed to a collaborative artwork for the project. We have also run this workshop for students at Perth Modern School and Dyslexia Spelled Foundation.
We designed a series of workshops for children with dyslexia. This was commissioned by Dyslexia Spelled Foundation and Mo, Evie, Otis Maslin Foundation
“The Mo, Evie & Otis Maslin Foundation are passionate about helping dyslexic kids who regularly feel like they are not succeeding in mainstream school. This often causes kids self doubt and worry. So to be able to team up with Fiona at Strength Heroes and offer art workshops during the school holidays that focused on finding inner strengths and resilience, was a really fantastic way to celebrate these amazing, creative kids who think ‘outside the square’. And to have the opportunity to do this during Dyslexia Awareness Week 2020 was an even greater joy for the Maslin Foundation. Fiona’s passion and energy made the kids feel very welcome, and it was incredibly lovely to see the room filled with smiles, laughter and like-minded kids enjoying themselves together. We can’t wait to team up with Strength Heroes again!”
Karinda Lobb, Mo, Evie, Otis Maslin Foundation
So we can notify you about our upcoming workshops and tips on the art of developing resilient children.
