Arts engagement and newcomer mental wellness: a scoping review of community-based approaches in Canada

BACKGROUND: Immigration drives approximately 75% of Canada's population growth. While demographic impacts of immigration are well studied, other aspects like social wellness - described by concepts such as belonging, inclusion, and other health-adjacent phenomena - remain underexplored. Given data indicating positive perceptions of arts engagement in Canadian society, community-engaged arts programs offer promising approaches for advancing newcomer mental wellness research and practice. METHODS: This scoping review examined the impact of arts engagement initiatives in community that address newcomer mental wellness in Canada. A comprehensive search strategy was developed in consultation with a research librarian to identify peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2026. RESULTS: 1265 records were retrieved from six databases and supplementary searches; 60 met inclusion criteria. In addition to a baseline summary of study characteristics (arts modalities, organization type, geographic distribution, etc.), four top-level themes were identified to describe how community arts support newcomer mental wellness in Canada: by negotiating difference and displacement; serving as accessible support infrastructure; fostering collective, relational identity formation; and sustaining future-oriented forms of mental wellness. CONCLUSIONS: Framed through concepts including cultural humility and cultural brokering, findings indicate that community arts constitute a culturally responsive, relational, and future-oriented mental wellness practice that operates across personal, communal, and structural dimensions of settlement. Recommendations include 1) broader, multi-sectoral recognition of community arts engagement as a key component of newcomer wellness infrastructure, supported by 2) long-term, community-led partnerships between researchers, artists, and settlement organizations, to enable 3) longitudinal impact studies of community arts for newcomer populations.