​Hello, I'm Sally, passionate about living a creative life through my art and work as an art therapist. Creativity brings with it so many benefits; expression, freedom, perspective, mental calm, joy and comfort and provides us with a fresh and empowered lens on life.

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As a registered Art Therapist (AThR) I specialise in art psychotherapy and have additional training in play based therapies such as Theraplay®, Synergetic Play Therapy and Sandplay therapy. I have over 10 years experience designing and facilitating art therapy services for councils, schools, not for profits and community centres. Having returned to the coast in 2018, after being interstate and overseas for many years, I am excited to be in private practice working in the way that feels most authentic to me.

 

I am experienced in providing art therapy to:

• Children and adolescents, experiencing a wide range of issues related to anxiety, depression, autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, developmental delay, grief and loss, trauma, chronic illness, FAS, school issues, mutism, bullying, intellectual disability, brain injury, out of home care (foster care, kinship care, residential homes)

• Families, strengthening attachment bonds and processing trauma, related to separation, grief, loss, parenting stress.

• Adults, managing symptoms related to mental illness, stress and anxiety, PTSD, C-PTSD, brain injury, chronic pain, disability, complex needs and neurological conditions.

My therapeutic approach is gentle, collaborative and relationship focussed, and is informed by evidence from neuroscience, attachment and trauma research. I am a professional member of the Australian and New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association (ANZACATA) and the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT), and having spent many years in Scotland, a former member of the UK's Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
 

I am passionate about collaborating with other practitioners and artists and bringing the arts into the local community. I maintain my own art practice, currently using painting as a form of meditation, around caring for my two young boys. When I'm not working I am happiest at the beach, on top of a hill or surrounded by trees. 

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QUALIFICATIONS

• MA Art Therapy, La Trobe University, Melbourne 2011 

• BA Visual Arts, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, (Printmaking, Textiles, Anthropology) 2008

• Cert. Fine Art, Queensland College of Art 2000

 

TRAINING

• First Aid Training, St John Ambulance QLD, July 2023

• Not Another Icebreaker - Engaging Activities for Starting Groups, Sydney Centre for Creative Change, May 2023

• Preparing Parents for Child Counselling Workshop, March 2023

• Bessel van der Kolk Workshop Brisbane, Compass Seminars, February 2023

• Art Therapy Supervision Skills for Health Professionals, La Trobe University, November 2022

• Child Development and it's significance in Art Therapy across the Life Cycle, BAAT, October 2022 

• Autism Fundamentals, Dr Belinda Radcliffe online, January 2022

• Trauma and Dissociation, Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors (now Carolyn Spring), Scotland

• Mentalisation based art psychotherapy, NHS London

• Synergetic Play Therapy, Synergetic Play Therapy Institute Colorado

• Life Story work, Richard Rose, Aberdeen

• Attachment and out of home care, Scottish Attachment in Action

• Parent-child Dyadic Art Psychotherapy, Mary-Rose Brady, BAAT UK

• Theraplay Level One, Compass Seminars Gold Coast 

• Guided Drawing, Institute of Sensorimotor Art Therapy

• Gestalt Sandplay Therapy, Gestalt Art Therapy Insitute Brisbane

• Child-centred Sandplay, Relationships Scotland

• Roots of Empathy (Canada)

• Storytelling workshops for at risk families, Action for Children UK

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