Clinical Placements

The minimum requirement for all clinical placements, set by the Canadian Art Therapy Association, is 700 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