
June 2022 Celebration of 2019-2022 Graduates
An online graduation ceremony was held in June 2022 to celebrate students who graduated between 2019-2022. Congratulations to all the graduates!
An online graduation ceremony was held in June 2022 to celebrate students who graduated between 2019-2022. Congratulations to all the graduates!
Graduates Stephanie Thorson Jane Halverson Lara Walker Celia Fung Evguenia Khilov Natalie Floros-Wright Hayllie Durette Taylor Bourassa Savina Ioannou Kristyn Freeland Susan (Mindy) Alexander Elizabeth
Graduates Lily Hoban Stephanie Jackson Cecilia Ho See Chau Catherine Anne MacDonald Tamara Louise Reynolds Tisha Nathene Summers Tania Marina Santer Nga Lai Bertha Fung
Graduates Chantal Taylor Claire Nicholls Rebecca Young Debbie Malcolm Marcela Boechat Torres De OliveiraKelly Setter Teresa Petosa Harper Johnston Sarah Graham Shelley Long Melanie Gray
On June 4, 2018 TATI celebrated the graduation of the following new Professional Art Therapists: Victoria GrendysKathryn CummingsPearl LeeSharon TrottierEmily WhelanEmily ArnoldSally ChungRebekah GravesLaura SimmonsJane
April 2022:
TATI wishes to congratulate Alexandra Hanania, MA, DTATI (Cand) on her new position with Sheena’s Place as Program Manager. She is doing both program and facilitator managing, and also running art therapy and BIPOC support groups.
Way to go Alexandra!
March 2022:
Tamar Millar, DTATI, RP shares how she became a full-time employee at Lumenus Community Services:
“Professionally, I am working as an art therapist four days a week at Lumenus Community Services (formerly Griffin Centre, Adventure Place, Etobicoke Children’s Centre, and Skylark, who merged in 2020). As you may remember I had my practicum at ECC with Laurel Choat as my supervisor in 2014. I went back as a volunteer in the Fall of 2016 and gradually became a paid employee, first at one day a week, then two, and now up to four! I work in one of our day treatment programs doing individual trauma-informed and attachment-based art therapy. It’s a wonderful program and it’s so special to be part of a multidisciplinary team – I have learned so much in my time there!”
Thanks for sharing your journey, Tamar—sometimes we come into our positions in unique ways!
—–
Tammy Reynolds, our graduate from the September 2019 DL Program, shares an update below on her progress as an Art Therapist in Thunder Bay:
“Just a quick update about what’s been going on in Thunder Bay and art therapy. I’ve been doing well and have clients which is good and get new ones weekly! I’ve been fortunate to be a provider for NIHB which has been a very good thing to help clients who have suffered from intergenerational Trauma associated with the residential schools. I also have a standing contract with the March of Dimes of Ontario, a provider for veteran affairs and I’m also a couple hundred hours away from independent practice with the CRPO so that’s exciting too! It seemed so daunting at one time to get those hours but it’s close now !! I remember after just graduating in 2019 thinking that I would never get there ! Just let students know that it’s possible and doesn’t really take long! If anyone has any questions about the process, they are more than welcome to reach out! “
It’s great to hear from you Tammy and you are doing terrific work up there!
February 2022:
We have an update on one of our graduates, Martine Guay, DTATI, RP, in Peterborough who tells us:
“I am currently working full-time as an art therapist and RP at Gateway which is a branch of EHN Canada, same company as Bellwood. We specialize in the treatment for addiction and PTSD for first responders and military. The clientele is mainly males, for now but it keeps growing.”
This is great news Martine and all the best in your new position!
December 2021:
TATI wishes to congratulate Saba Rizvi, DTATI (Cand), soon to graduate, on being hired by two agencies to provide art therapy services. Saba writes:
I have been hired as an DTATI (Cand), RP (Qualifying) at the following locations:
At NRIO (formerly Bayshore healthcare) I have been hired to provide open group Art Therapy to clients who have been diagnosed with a brain injury. They are also looking into potential group and one-on-one Art Therapy for their clients who fall under the NRIO/Bayshore umbrella. As this has not yet been developed yet, I am working with them to possible include Art Therapy as a service to their residents.
At Anderson Therapy Services I will be providing assessments and therapy to individuals of all ages and who present with a broad spectrum of social and cognitive challenges. I will also be working virtually with the First Nation’s community.
Thank you for your support!
-Saba
November 2021:
TATI congratulates Lori Deeley, DTATI on her great news of having received an arts grant from the province of Newfoundland to do art therapy with older adults. She has been awarded a Professional Projects Grant from ArtNL to do the following project with a group of seniors in her local Long Term Care Facility in Bay St. George. The project is outlined below. It marries her art therapy work with seniors and her passion for painting, as Lori tells us:
This project strives to bring exposure to the natural world, art appreciation and expression to a population of our society which has been shut out of these experiences. Seniors living in long term care facilities are being housed in institutions which are divorced from the natural world in which many residents spent most of their lives. Their exposure to art and artistic expression is limited or lacking entirely. The purpose of this project is to build an opportunity for these residents to witness and interact with the natural world through an ever-changing art exhibition of my landscape paintings which will be accessible to all the residents of the Bay St. George Long Term Care Facility. The exhibition will also include 3 monthly art making workshops. The project would culminate in an artist talk and reception where residents and family members would be invited.
Over a period of twelve weeks, I will produce and deliver six new paintings that will be exhibited at the BSG Long Term Care home. The exhibition will grow biweekly, offering a new “art experience”, and building on the previous images. The paintings which will make up this exhibition will be ink and watercolour works based on my explorations of Newfoundland. The work will bring the “Outside In” for a valued population who no longer have access to the natural world or a gallery/museum experience. This series of workshops and exhibition will bring these missing experiences to the residents.
I am very excited to get started on this in the new year!
-Lori
November 2019:
TATI wishes to congratulate TATI Grad Shelley Long, DTATI, on her new position. Here is her description:
I’ve been hired as an Art Care facilitator at St. Martha’s hospital in my hometown of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. It is a part time position (20 hrs per week) and I will be working with patients in various units such as geriatric, PCU, mental health and oncology. I will be working along side a music therapist as well.
I’ve been hired through a wonderful non-profit organization called Arts Health Antigonish. A bit about AHA from their website:
Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!) is a collaboration between artists, educators and health care workers which began at the Sustainable Antigonish (SA) Roundtable in January 2013. There was recognition by those at the table of a need to acknowledge, value and respect the immense contribution of the cultural sector to community vitality, vibrancy and health. Afterwards, several champions of health care and the arts came together to establish a working group, leading to an inspiring new community partnership – AHA! The mission of AHA! is to foster creative expression for community health. I am beyond excited to return to Nova Scotia and become a part of the AHA team!
–Shelley
Congratulations Shelley! They are lucky to have you!!
September 2019:
Congratulations to TATI Graduate, Sarah Hughes recently earned her Master’s of Science in Child Life and accepted a Child Life Specialist position at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, Alberta. Through education and creative modalities, Sarah supports the developmental and psychosocial needs of infants and children requiring complex medical support for cardiology and respiratory conditions.
Congratulations Sarah for realizing your long held dream of working with children in a children’s hospital!
The TATI community wishes to congratulate Anna Portoraro, MA, DTATI, RP in her new full-time position at Bellwood Health Services in Toronto. She was hired as Counsellor & Art Therapist at the beginning of March 2019.
Congrats on your brilliant career, Anna!
We’d like to congratulate Tania Iskiw, DTATI who has been hired for a one year contract working at the Toronto YWCA Breakthrough Program exploring creative resources alongside women who have experienced violence.
Congratulations Tania! (Posted March 2019)
The TATI community would like to congratulate TATI graduate Jacqueline Compton, DTATI, RCAT, RP who has just accepted her new position as Director, Counselling Services at the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic—Congratulations, Jacquie on this wonderful career achievement!(posted February 2019)
See link to Queens University Wellness Centre Art Hives and Art Therapy services which TATI student Harper Johnston is involved in developing. She was incorrectly identified as a “certified art therapist” through no fault of her own but she will soon be graduating Here is the link to the Gazette on-line newspaper, the faculty and staff newspaper, for Queen’s U. https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/
TATI Grad, Samantha Binder, DTATI just obtained a position as Art Therapist at Mackenzie Health Hospital working in dementia and complex care, and stroke. She will be working 6 hours a week with dementia and complex care and 3 hours a week with stroke survivors. Congratulations Sammy!! (posted Feb. 2019)
Congratulations to Nicole Markowitz, DTATI, RP (Q) who got the job at Rosalie Hall in Toronto as a Mental Health Therapist – Infant and Young Parent Focused!!
Way to go, Nicole!! (posted Jan. 2019)
Congratulations to Rebecca Epp, DTATI, Cand, who has just been hired by Tanis Dick & Associates Art Therapy & Counselling Services Ltd. in Winnipeg! Rebecca will be providing art therapy services, working with children in care and their families. (posted Jan. 2019)
Your colleague and TATI graduate Martine Guay would like to share with you her recently published article (in Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association). We in the TATI community congratulate you, Martine, on this outstanding and very important research and article!
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/AhDPKCItcBCeIgPRictS/full
TATI wishes to congratulate Dean Davis, DTATI, Cand. who has impressed the Health and Wellness Centre at OCADU so much that they have offered her a contract to continue the Art Therapy services she developed there as part of her practicum and Major Project this past year. Congratulations Dean!! (posted December 2018)
We’d like to congratulate Claire Nicholls, DTATI who will be joining the Art Therapy team at Youthdale in their Intensive Extended Day Program, a voluntary day treatment program specifically designed for youth (16 to 19 years old) whose lives have been affected by mental health issues. She will be providing 4 hours weekly of Art Therapy services to this program.
Congratulations Claire!
TATI wishes to congratulate Amy Burdick, DTATI (Thesis pending) who has been offered a full-time contract position with the Child and Youth Mental Health team at Simcoe Muskoka Family Connexions. This is a wonderful opportunity to welcome Art Therapy to a government funded agency within Muskoka—way to go Amy!!(posted December 4, 2018)
TATI wishes to congratulate Tania Iskiw, DTATI, on two accounts, obtaining a position at Red Door Family Shelter and on opening her Private Practice-Congratulations Tania!!
Tania Iskiw has been hired at Red Door Family Shelter to provide trauma-informed group art therapy for women and children. Weekly groups focus on the ways in which individuals experience the world through five sense perception, body sensation, movement, emotion and cognition. Using the arts, Tania works with these experiences to uncover creative and embodied resources, strengthen community supports and celebrate resiliency.
Tania Iskiw has also opened her private practice. She specializes in visual art and music-making approaches combined with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), sensorimotor psychotherapy and mindfulness. She also continues to provide individual and group consultation for registration with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario.
To refer clients and/or schedule an appointment for intakes or consultation, please contact Tania at: mindfulartpsychotherapy@gmail.com or 647 804 4406. Her office is located at 526 Bathurst Street (Unit 1) and is open from 4-8pm on Wednesdays to Fridays.
Recently TATI grad Emily Whelan, DTATI, was hired to provide art therapy services to northern and remote indigenous communities. Now the same agency has hired a second TATI graduate, Jessie Buchanan, DTATI, to work with Emily on the same project. Here is an update from Jessie on their work:
“I hope this email finds you well! I just wanted to let you know that Emily Whelan and I are now working together at a new mental health organization Anderson Therapy Services (Dundas, Ont)! We have both been hired full time to create and deliver an art therapy program that services northern and remote, indigenous communities. In this role, we deliver art therapy services in our communities via teleconference (zoom, which is like Skype) and we occasionally visit our communities in person. We are creating a program that uses art assessments and treatment plans but using the medicine wheel as a template and guide. “
Grace Chiu, DTATI, RP, (May 2009 cohort) has updated us with her news, ” After I completed the MA program at Waterloo, I continued my studies in Clinical Pastoral Education. I am working at the Scarborough Hospital as a Spiritual Care Practitioner and also have a private practice offering Art Therapy and Psychotherapy. ” Great to hear Grace!!
We congratulate Sharon Trottier, DTATI who recently contributed as both a Lead artist and Art Therapist in the Personal Narratives Exhibit . The exhibit ran till August 17, 2018 and more info can be viewed at:
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8753854-stories-of-migration-settlement-and-resilience/
TATI sends out congratulations to Christina Lee, DTATI who just graduated in June and who has accepted a full-time 1-year contract at Dr. Jay’s Children’s Grief Centre in Toronto as a Grief and Bereavement Counselor.
Congratulations Christina! We are all so proud of you! (posted July 2018)
TATI wishes to congratulate Emily Whelan, DTATI on her new positionwhich sounds very exciting:
The position is as a full time art therapist working with children and youth in northern Ontario communities. This position involves on site work within fly-in communities, as well as art therapy through assistive technology (video art therapy). The agency is Anderson Speech Language Pathologists, who are currently going through a marketing shift to include mental health and other health services within their team. They have been providing speech language pathology services to remote fly in communities within Ontario for over 12 years. The communities have requested Art Therapy services, which prompted Anderson Speech to develop this program.
Congratulations Emily!(Posted July 2018)
ON JULY 9, 2018 TATI CELEBRATED 50 YEARS WITH A SPECIAL GALA EVENT WHICH INCLUDED FOOD, DRINKS, GUEST SPEAKERS AND A WONDERFUL ART EXHIBIT.
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