'They're Going To Be Very Happy With Having Made That Call': Support Act Extends Its Wellbeing Helpline To All Creative Industries Workers

For seven years now, the top job of Support Act, the music industry's crisis relief charity, has been occupied by CEO Clive Miller. 

Taking over from non-profit veteran Joanna Cave, Miller arrived with a wealth of experience, having spent years working for the likes of triple j, for public radio, as a band manager, the Fred Hollows Foundation, and much more. He even used to live next door to The Go-Betweens' Lindy Morrison, who was Support Act's first employee upon its launch in 1998.

When Miller joined the organisation in May 2018 though, he came onboard just in time for the launch of their Wellbeing Helpline, which officially found itself taking its first calls in June.

"Jo had set up the helpline, and I think that was following a consultation that they'd had at BIGSOUND the year prior," Miller recalls. "Managers in particular were just saying, 'On top of everything else, we're having to deal with these really complex issues that our artists are dealing with and we don't feel equipped to do that, so we need help.'

"Off the back of that, they did the work to set up the Support Act Wellbeing Helpline, and when I came into this role seven years ago, that was the handover to me; 'Okay, here it is, see what you can do with it.'

"I think that it's such an important resource for the music industry and it's been really satisfying just to see how it has continued to grow and evolve in the sense that people are continuing to get more and more comfortable in accessing it themselves," he explains. "Also, encouraging and referring their artists, their colleagues or their staff or whoever to use it as well."

The idea behind the Helpline is for those who need help in areas related to mental health (e.g. depression, anxiety, addiction, suicidal ideation) and issues which can be mental health related (such as loneliness, relationship breakdown, financial worries, illness and workplace conflict) to be given access to professional counsellors who can provide expertise in those areas.

In the years since, the Helpline has been an invaluable resource for those in need. It's also expanded to include the First Nations Support Line, which is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander counsellors or those with cultural awareness training,  and the LGBTQI+ Support Line, which is staffed by counsellors and professionals who have ACON Pride Inclusion training.

As one would expect, the usage of the Helpline has increased in these past seven years, with the likes of COVID being a large instigator for members of the music industry to reach out for support.

After its first year, stats showed that the service had been racked up almost 400 hours in counselling and support with 74% of users being artists, 14% music workers and 12% crew. 

In the last calendar year alone, the Helpline provided more than 2,000 hours of counselling support, a 13.4% increase on the previous year. Per records from Support Act, most of the issues presented by callers related to the likes of anxiety, depression, and career concerns.

"Not long into my tenure, in relative terms, COVID came along and that obviously had a huge impact on the music industry," Miller recalls. "I'm really amazed at the resilience that people have to not only stay working in the sector, but to overcome the challenges and actually thrive and be successful. 

"One of the things that has struck me most over the years is just how collegiate the industry is now compared to the early days when I was involved, when I don't think anyone really seemed to talk to each other or support each other in nearly the same way that they do now.

"Observing that and seeing the kind of support structures, the mentoring programs, the professional development programs, the conferences, and the access that people have to resources if they choose to access them is fantastic," he adds. "Even though I think it's incredibly hard to really be successful and make a living in the music industry, I think the tools are there for people to really have a red hot go."

This month, Support Act officially expands its Wellbeing Helpline. Previously, the Helpline had been set up as a resource for those working in the music industry, but now the lines have been opened to include all workers across Australia’s diverse creative industries. This includes those working across screen, visual arts, literature, music, theatre, and more.

The decision to expand the Helpline is supported by findings from the Mental Health And Wellbeing In Music And Creative Arts Survey from October 2024. 

This survey spoke to 1,518 professional workers across the music and creative arts industries and discovered that 53.3% had high levels of psychological distress – a number almost four times greater than the general Australian population.

The findings also noted that 57% had experienced suicidal thoughts (a figure 3.4 times the average population), 35% had a current mental health condition (1.6 times the average), and 43% have used alcohol or other substances to cope with the stress of life over the past two years.

Additionally, almost 20% reported an annual income below the Australian poverty line, while 43.2% had been exposed to unsafe work conditions in the past 12 months. Needless to say, it was time for those outside the immediate music industry to have an outlet to be heard.

"Just prior to COVID we had started to work with the Arts Wellbeing Collective, which are a group out of the Arts Centre Melbourne," Miller recalls. "They were developing and implementing mental health and wellbeing programs for the performing arts community, and we kind of struck an arrangement whereby they would refer performing artists to the helpline for a fee

"Then COVID came along and we said, 'Forget the fee, we're just making this available to everybody,' including people across the wider creative industries. Then when COVID finished, we just thought, 'Well, we're not just going to turn off the tap here. We think it's important that we continue to do this.'

"Then when Creative Workplaces was created the federal Government had very kindly indicated that they were going to provide some funding to us through creative workplaces," he adds. "They said they want to support the continued expansion of the helpline across all creative industries."

In theory, as Miller notes, the service was there but it wasn't being actively promoted until now. However, thanks to funding from Creative Workplaces, Support Act is now able to take a much more systematic approach to increasing its availability to those outside of the immediate music industry.

"Our board have recently determined that we are first, foremost, and always a music industry charity," he notes. "But we're formalising this expansion across the wider creative industries because we recognise that so many people in those different industries are experiencing mental health challenges which are very similar to the ones that we experience in music.

"So what it means is that it's available now to people who work in performing arts, visual arts and craft, screen arts and digital games, literature, regional arts, First Nations arts and museums and galleries."

With Support Act's recent survey noting startling figures, the expansion of the Helpline aims to – first and foremost – get those figures down as much as possible. Though Miller admits there is ultimately only so much they can do, with the focus placed upon the counselling side of things in order to aid callers.

"There are some systemic challenges that, to be honest, I'm not sure that it's us to try and overcome," he notes. "We can't really do much about the cost of living, for example, or how much people are actually paid for their work, or those sorts of things.

"But where we think that we can make a contribution is by just providing people with access to some level of support that will, on an individual level, help them manage the sorts of issues that tend to present to the helpline with. So that's people that are experiencing anxiety or have career concerns, suffering from burnout, depression, struggling financially, or any of those sorts of things.

"By offering a service like the helpline, it delivers high quality counseling in a solutions focused approach," Miller adds. "So it really gives people not only somebody to talk to and to vent to and offload, which is incredibly important across the board, but the counselors that work on the helpline, they either have experience working in music or the creative industries, or they work with us long enough now that they know the key issues are that face people working in the sector."

While the previous calendar year featured 2,000 hours of counselling support provided, marking a 13.4% increase on the previous calendar year, Government support undoubtedly makes an expansion of the Helpline much more manageable. After all, if the figures increased this much across the music industry alone, what sort of increase is Support Act expecting with the addition of the myriad creative industries Australia boasts?

"We've been grappling with this question, and it's interesting in the sense that it is hard to predict," Miller admits. "But we've been servicing one industry and let's just say, for simplicity's sake, we're providing roughly 2,000 hours of counseling support in a year, and now we're going out to seven or eight other industries, even if we did half of that, I think it's easily going to double or triple pretty quickly."

While the expansion of Support Act's Wellbeing Helpline is a massive step forward for the organisation, Miller admits there are still barriers that they face in terms of ensuring accessibility is provided to all who need it in the creative industries.

Though usage has increased, it could still increase further, with Support Act trying to erode any roadblocks that may present themselves, including destigmatising the act of reaching out for help.

"Prior to COVID for us working in the music industry, I remember experiences working with crew in particular, and they absolutely were never going to put up their hand and say, 'I've got all this stuff that I'm having to deal with,'" Miller remembers. "Interestingly, when we said we can offer training in the form of mental health first aid training, they absolutely put up their hand. 

"In fact, the work we've done with CrewCare in providing that training to their members has been just incredible, and they continue to do that on a regular basis. COVID, funnily enough, I think for a lot of people, tended to destigmatise things because everybody was just obviously dealing with mental health issues, sso a lot of that stigma seemed to disappear.

"But it obviously hasn't gone away because it's shown up fairly significantly in this report," Miller adds. "We saw this in COVID, so it's not a surprise, but it's just significant that it still was raised in the report about how people are embarrassed to talk about their financial situation and to admit to anybody that they're in distress."

As Miller points out, it's an important undertaking to try and overcome the sense of pride that many respondents have when it comes to reaching out and asking for support. Sometimes though, it also just comes down to the difficulty of talking to a completely unknown individual about deeply personal issues that affect them.

"People are, perhaps rightly, a little bit nervous about picking up the phone and talking to a stranger and sharing these sorts of issues," he notes. "On the positive side, I think the other thing that came out of the evaluation was when we looked at the quality of the service, we got a really high rating and people were in fact, really pleased.

"I think some were very surprised at just how helpful it was to be able to talk to somebody, first and foremost, to get that emotional support, but then to get somebody that's quite objective, can often provide more measured support than maybe somebody talking to a friend, a family member or colleague. They actually get tangible guidance and strategies for how to better manage their health.

"Once people do overcome those barriers, I think they're going to be very happy with having made that call."

The Support Act Wellbeing Helpline can be accessed by phoning 1800 959 500, or via the contact form on the Support Act website.