This question was emailed to me, and posted with the permission of the author, Miles. I hope this helps any student art therapists who want to gain experience practicing in venues that may not have an art therapist on staff.
Hi Liz,
I am looking for info on art therapists who work in the juvenile detention centers. I need to do practicum hours for MAAT. Can you help?
Hi Miles,
Off the top of my head, you have a few options. First, you can post a request for an art therapy supervisor who works in a juvenile detention center on the Art Therapy Alliance’s message board on LinkedIn. If you haven’t checked it out, it’s a very active board with many people from around the globe. Hopefully someone can help you out.
Secondly, I’m wondering why you need to work with an art therapist directly in that setting? In my program we were encouraged to go to facilities that didn’t offer art therapy and offer to design a program from scratch (for free, since your labor is free…the only thing they would need to pay for is art supplies). In this case, students would recieve supervision from an off site art therapist, as well as a licensed therapist on site. Which means that you’d have to find a facility that has a therapist willing to supervise you, as well as find an off site art therapist, which = lots of supervision. But in that setting, it’s probably very useful to have lots of supervision. Have you talked to your program director about this possibility?
The other thing that’s great about starting your own art therapy program in grad school is that if you prove yourself to be an asset to the team, you may be offered a permanent position after you finish your internship.
I hope this helps!
Warm Regards,
– Liz