"Bright Hearts acknowledges and pays respects to Australia's First Nations Peoples, Their Ancestors and this precious and beautiful living Country which sustains and teaches us all and holds both our stories and our future.
We also acknowledge that we are imperfect allies on an intentional journey toward peace and healing.
We recognise a
"Bright Hearts acknowledges and pays respects to Australia's First Nations Peoples, Their Ancestors and this precious and beautiful living Country which sustains and teaches us all and holds both our stories and our future.
We also acknowledge that we are imperfect allies on an intentional journey toward peace and healing.
We recognise and repent for the ongoing colonial trauma experienced by many of our First Nations people and the great need for truth-telling and healing we have as a nation.
We commit our hearts and our hands to the work of reaching for this truth and healing and to breaking the negative cycles of the past for the well-being of this land's greatest and most beautiful treasure, our future generations."
BRIGHT HEARTS
The Fractal Future of the Child
Children are both the most vulnerable and vital members of the human race.
They are our past and our future; therefore, arguably, the holistic biological, psychological, and sociological well-being experienced by every child within their holistic and systemic context determines the future of humanity itself.
Keeping this in mind, too many of the systems in the world today that exist to advocate for and serve children do not resemble the image of the child they were created to uphold. Instead, they are distorted into the shape of other powerful influences, buried truths, finance and funding, red tape, compartmentalisation, disconnection, missed marks, middlemen, status, votes, opposing sides, and, perhaps, worst of all, silence.
Systems that exist to safeguard, serve, and support today's children would be wise to judge their virtue and efficacy by how much the 'big picture' of that system as a whole still resembles the shape of the smallest, most vital, and vulnerable fractal image at the inception of their heart: the individual child.
Ignoring these very real and powerful influences that often distort these systems and twist them away from their purpose isn't helpful either; ignorance will not serve or save the world.
What might well define the future of humanity is ensuring that the individuals within these systems, from those in the trenches to those in the towers, work together to keep these systems intentionally, strategically, and assertively child-centred.
That we who hold the future of the world in our fingertips and treasure it, be motivated and guided by the individual child. Anchored through and through, from the depths of the individual self, and throughout the larger systems we function within.
All the way to the highest place and back again, while keeping our most powerful motivation, the art and practice of knowing and responding to the image and lived truth of the individual child.
Chloe Webster MaCPT
Bright Hearts
At Bright Hearts, we offer an evidence-based, holistic and creative approach to child and youth wellbeing. We work with families and young people from conception through to 25 years of age.
Bright Hearts offers five interconnected services designed to support children and young people who haven't found success in conventional models of therapy.
We provide play therapy, therapeutic mentorship, and strengths-focused group work — all grounded in humanistic, child- and client-centred principles.
Our team collaborates with families, schools, and systems to support the unique growth of each young person.
MENTORSHIP WELLFORGED
PLAY THERAPY & CREATIVITY
PLAY THERAPY & CREATIVITY
PLAY THERAPY & CREATIVITY
THERAPEUTIC ANIMALS
DIVERGENT & FRIENDS
EDUCATION SUPPORTS
NDIS SUPPORT & COACHING
Vision
The Bright Hearts Vision
Bright Hearts was founded by Mark and Chloe to establish various therapeutic services that bridge the gaps in life for young people who need support around kids' mental health, well-being, and resilience.
We support young people aged 0-25 and their parents who have had adverse life experiences. This could be due to childhood trauma, disadvantage, disability, challenges in the out-of-home care system, or many other causes.
After a combined 30 years of working with young people and the complex, often compartmentalised systems that support them, Mark and Chloe saw an urgent need to provide targeted, evidence-based therapies that foster positive healing connections between young people and the people in their lives.
Each young person we work with has a team of people around them, including family, teachers, social workers, allied health practitioners, and other therapists.
No matter the young person, this group of stakeholders in their life represents the bricks, while Bright Hearts' work serves as the scaffolding and mortar.
We seek to provide therapeutic programs that adapt to each young person's needs for strength, well-being, and the breaking of negative generational cycles of trauma. Our programs are designed to build these young people up and create a stable base for their future.
About the Founders
Chloe
Chloe Webster holds a Master of Child Play Therapy (AQF Level 9) at Deakin University — Australia’s first university-accredited postgraduate qualification in play therapy.
She is currently finalising provisional membership with the Australasian Pacific Play Therapy Association (APPTA) and will commence professional practice as a Provisional Play Therapist in early 2026.
She has 20 years of experience in the context of child mental health and trauma, responding to client needs, including supporting mental health following trauma, grief, and loss. In this work, Chloe places great importance on each young person's systemic context and utilises child-centred approaches. She is already working as a Registered Therapeutic Life Story Work Practitioner with TLSWi and as a Wellbeing Officer for the Department of Education, NSW.
Chloe has been passionate about using creativity and play as therapeutic tools for healing throughout her career. She has spent hundreds of hours studying and practising the science behind why this works and how to apply evidence-based, humanistic, and psychodynamic principles to the young people she supports in her therapeutic practice.
She is passionate about leading systemic change across many government and non-government systems intended to support young people, which fall short, cause harm, and perpetuate negative generational cycles. Breaking these generational cycles of trauma and hurt in her nation is why she does what she does.
Mark
Marks was saved from himself and his behaviours by Therapeutic Mentorship in a voluntary wilderness program in the late 90s. The power that one mentor had to reach him through all his anger, fear, and dangerous choices—when no one else could—has never left him. He often says that his mentor stood in the gap between where he was and the life he could have. Soon after that, he began training in youth work and outdoor recreation. He became a qualified carpenter and builder, and enjoys teaching trade skills to the young people who come through our Well Forged Mentorship program (including blacksmithing).
Throughout it all, he never stopped mentoring young men who needed his help. He practises unconditional positive regard for the youth who come to him by enacting a social-learning, humanistic approach to mentoring, meeting each young person where they are and standing in the gap for them. Mark currently works for Bight Hearts Support and our Well Forged programs as a Therapeutic Youth Mentor and is the heart and brains behind our Well Forged Youth Mentorship. Like Chloe, he has faith in Jesus, and like Jesus, he doesn't exclude or judge anyone for who they are but rather stands in the gap for them between pain and freedom.
