Clinical Placements
The minimum requirement for all clinical placements, set by the Canadian Art Therapy Association, is 600 hours. At least 300 of these hours should involve direct client contact. Indirect practicum hours include record keeping, consultation, and organization of artwork and studio.
In addition, students must receive 180 hours of supervision.
Clinical placements include five to ten hours of direct client contact each week, plus time for set up, clean up, and record keeping of the art and client notes.
Student clinical placements include local government and independent schools (elementary, middle, and high school), seniors’ facilities, in-patient psychiatric hospital programs, educational programs for adults with special needs, residential tertiary-care facilities, community-based programs to support marginalized populations, and residential addiction recovery programs. Individual and group art therapy services are offered at KATI for children, youth, and adults with issues ranging from loss and grief, physical illness (chronic and life threatening), trauma, impact of refugee experience, and parental separation.
Supervision
Supervision refers to a process or the work that takes place between an experienced art therapy supervisor and a graduate art therapy student/intern who is training as a therapist in an approved clinical placement setting.
Supervision usually takes place in a weekly small group meeting but may also be supplemented with an individual consultation as needed. Guest supervisors are also invited to offer additional perspectives and approaches. Supervision includes:
Review of client art and clinical work;
Case review of clinical files (includes intakes, progress notes, summary reports, treatment plans, termination);
Discussion of referrals, agency relationships;
Crisis intervention, limit setting, ethics;
Exploration of transference and countertransference dynamics as they pertain to clinical work;
Discussion of group work: designing, planning, setting goals, and exploring issues and dynamics.
Current Supervisors
BSc, DKATI, RCAT
Laura (she/her) is an art maker, traveler, and art therapist who is passionate about land-based healing and environmental arts therapy. She is a faculty member and a supervisor in KATI’s online hybrid program. She has a private practice where she works in person and online with children, youth and adults, offering in-studio and land-based art therapy sessions. She holds space for her clients and students from a trauma-informed, feminist therapy framework, working in a person-centered manner.
Laura holds a post-graduate diploma from the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute and a BSc in Zoology from the University of Calgary. She is a registered art therapist with the Canadian Art Therapy Association.
MA, RCAT, RP
Heidi is a radiant creator, playful by nature, a powerful leader, intelligent to a fault and believes in providing sanctuary to those who need it. She believes art can be the bridge to good stuff we didn't know we needed. A graduate of The Toronto Art Therapy Institute and Martin Luther University, Heidi is in private practice working with marginalized sexualities, neurodiverse folks and young adults. Heidi serves as President for the Canadian Art Therapy Association (CATA), is a teacher and instructor.
RCAT, MPS-AT, CCC, SEP, REAT (in process)
Lindsay (she/her/they) is a Métis woman residing in Amiskwaciwâskahikan, Treaty 6 Territory, Metis Nation Region 4. Her roots include Indigenous and settler origins, holding Metis and Cree ancestry as well as Celtic, Scottish, French and Ukrainian; as such, walking in two worlds has been an instrumental part of her life path.
Lindsay is a body-centered, expressive-arts psychotherapist, coach, and guide. Her professional practice lies at the intersection of transformational learning, embodiment, creativity, and personal development. She offers trauma-responsive, creative, and resource-based guidance for all seasons of life - to bloom where you are planted.
She has a particular interest in clinical supervision and in supporting other emerging therapists in the praxis of their own personal and professional identities, along with supporting helping professionals in health and learning systems in developing the capacity for self-awareness and presence as reflective practice as a means to ethical practice through the process of embodiment.
BA, BFA, RCAT
Evie Dunville was born, raised and is currently practicing Art Therapy in the beautiful K’jipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia.
Evie began her journey to art therapy at Mount Saint Vincent University (2004), completing a BA in Psychology and English, followed by a quick trip around the world, teaching English in South Korea. Once back in Nova Scotia, she completed a BFA in Jewellery Design and Metalsmithing from NSCAD University (2010), before earning her certification as an art therapist from the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute (2016). She continues learning each day, from her clients, from the earth, and through her colleagues and other professionals.
Evie believes in creating a sustainable and accessible environment for creativity and wellness to flourish. She often intertwines the written word with art, creating a body of work wherein the form is either emphasized or accentuated by prose and inspired by nature.
BAACS, DKATI, RCAT
Nikki Featherstone is a Registered Canadian Art Therapist who enjoys lifelong passions for art, healing, spirituality, cats, trees, and the sacredness of the everyday. Her therapeutic approach is Feminist, Anti-Oppressive, Person-Centered, Trauma Informed, and Spiritually Integrated.
Nikki is the author of an e-book titled, Shapeshifter: One Woman’s Journey through Creative Spiritual Transformation as part of the completion of her studies with the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute.
BFA, DKATI, RCAT, MA (in progress)
Jennifer graduated from the institute in 2004. Having completed her thesis on the benefits of art therapy with the elderly, she went on to work in private practice at Clear Water Art Therapy Services and specialized in the area of brain injury. She continued to pursue this interest with her work at the West Kootenay Brain Injury Association, and then co-founded the Brain Harmony Centre in Nelson, BC.
After years in the field of art therapy Jen still is amazed at the empowering and reflective qualities the work inspires. Jen enjoys supporting the student's journey to becoming Canada's next art therapists.
BA, DKATI, RCAT
Chelsea (she/her) is a graduate of KATI and has been working as a private practice art therapy clinician since 2017. She is passionate about healing and connection through land based practices and integrates a relational approach to her work and way of being in the world.
Chelsea is a mother, a friend, a teacher and art therapist committed to ongoing learning and growth.
MCP:AT, RCAT, RCC, CCC
Shadi is a mixed media artist, educator, clinical supervisor, and experienced art therapist & somatic psychotherapist of Iranian descent. Holding a third-culture perspective, she is based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). Shadi’s work weaves together trauma-informed and decolonized approaches that honour the wisdom of the land and the healing power of art. Her paintings explore identity, cultural reclamation, and belonging through connection to ancestral wisdom. She has taught art therapy courses in ethics and intersectionality, supporting students to cultivate self-awareness, compassion, and anti-oppressive practice. Shadi specializes in working with highly sensitive people (HSPs), neurodivergent folks, survivors of trauma and violence, and QT-BIPOC communities. She offers individual and group art therapy, clinical supervision, and community art therapy workshops. For Shadi, art therapy is not just a method; it is a way of being and knowing, rooted in embodiment, relationality, and innate creative possibilities.
BFA, DTATI, RCAT, RP
Afsaneh Shafai is an interdisciplinary artist, Registered Art Therapist and Psychotherapist, and a person of diaspora of Iranian-Canadian heritage. She graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba and she continued her studies in Art Therapy at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute. She is based in Tkaronto (Toronto), the ancestral territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and the home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. She has decades of clinical experience helping a diverse population of all ages with their mental health struggles. She has considerable knowledge in working with neuro-diverse populations, BIPOC, LGBTQ2S+, refugees, newcomers, and war and torture survivor.