AATA2024: Ask Me Anything - Virtual Session

Carolyn Brown Treadon (she/her) is the current Conference Program Chair and Coordinator for the Graduate Art Therapy Program at Pennsylvania Western University. She has been a part of the Conference Committee for the past 10 years and is in her final term.

Carolyn is a Registered and Board Certified art therapist (ATR-BC), and an Art Therapy Certified Supervisor (ATCS). Before entering academia, Carolyn provided art therapy services in alternative schools and outpatient settings.  She served as the clinical supervisor of a community-based mental health clinic. During that time, she had the privilege of supervising art therapy interns as well as interns from other disciplines.

Her published research includes topics on utilizing art museums in the therapeutic process and using the art therapy process to alter individual's perceptions and attitudes. She continues to explore how using resources such as the museum and other experience-based practices can be utilized to further students' knowledge acquisition during their training to become art therapists. 

As an artist, Carolyn likes to explore the layering of traditional and non-traditional materials, painting, and building.

Raquel Farrell-Kirk has 20 years of experience as an art therapist and has worked in diverse settings, from inpatient psychiatric hospitals to outpatient substance abuse. Most recently she spent two years serving as the lead therapist for the Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded Healing with Art program serving the cities of Coral Springs and Parkland after the Parkland school shooting. Raquel currently sees individual clients via telehealth and works with arts organizations to support the design, facilitation, and evaluation of art therapy programs aimed at supporting the communities they serve.


Specialties: Raquel specializes in art therapy for those living with dementia and for children and teens with ADHD, Autism, and related diagnoses, as well as art therapy programming for arts organizations seeking to develop community outreach programs.