Each year The Journal of Creative Arts Therapies (JoCAT) awards two bursaries to provide mentorship to authors whose submissions show great potential and require some assistance to develop them to the journal’s standard for publication.

The Bursary program is designed to:
• Provide mentorship/assistance to new, Indigenous and/or diverse authors
• Promote a variety of voices and perspectives from the ANZACATA region while acknowledging the international positioning of the journal

Eligibility
Recipients must be current members (in any ANZACATA membership category).

Available bursaries
Two bursaries are funded each year by ANZACATA.

Value
The bursary is valued up to AU$1,000

The bursary may:
• Cover the cost of a JoCAT-assigned mentor and/or specialist copyeditor to work with the author with the editing process; or
• Be a direct grant to the author to engage their own assistance with the editing process.

Application process
• A bursary may be awarded directly to an author who already has submitted an article that needs further development, and whom the JoCAT editorial team has identified as a suitable recipient within the scope of the bursary.
• Applicants can submit an application using the form on the JoCAT website – click button below
• Applications can be made at any time. Self-nominated applicants are encouraged to submit before end of May or beginning of November of each year.

Selection process
The bursaries are awarded at the discretion of the JoCAT editorial team.

Promotion
JoCAT and ANZACATA will announce the successful authors in their respective e-newsletters and on their social media pages.

The successful authors will need to provide:
• A brief bio including any previous publications(no more than 100 words); and
• A recent photo.

For further queries, contact Vic Segedin – coordinator@jocat-online.org

Recipients

2022

Amy Bell for her article ‘Story-telling + the art of comics in visual and written expression: Recovery with narrative art’, published in JoCAT 17(1), August 2022.

In her ethnographic study Amy Bell investigates how creating autobiographical cartoons and comics could have application within formal art therapy settings. She uses a semi-autobiographical character, Daisy, as a device to process her own experiences with therapeutic outcomes, becoming curious about other cartoonists’ relationships with their characters as a healing and self-regulation process.

Mandy Jay for her article ‘Spiritual care in art therapy: What happens when the therapist and client are of different religions?’, published in JoCAT 18(2), November 2023.

Using an heuristic process of inquiry, Mandy Jay examines whether a participant’s religious/spiritual needs can be fulfilled if these beliefs are different to those of the art therapist. The research inquiry explored whether a Buddhist participant could find spiritual support participating in a Christian contemplative art group.

2021

Kit Ping Wong 黃潔冰 for her article ‘Theory to practice: A critical exploration of therapeutic relationship in art therapy with a traumatised child’, published in JoCAT 16(2), December 2021.

Dr Kit Ping Wong is a Hong Kong art therapist and early career researcher who works primarily in Cantonese with children, young people and their families and with older adults experiencing mild dementia. Dr Wong's article appears in JoCAT in December 2021. Based on her PhD research, the article will be Kit Ping's first publication.

Dr Kit Ping Wong is grateful for the acknowledgement of her work but decided that she would like to 're-donate' the bursary so that it can be given to another new author. We have presented Dr Wong with a certificate of acknowledgement and thanks. Kit Ping's generosity enables us to present the first ANZACATA-JoCAT Author Support Bursary to be shared by a team of four art therapists from Singapore and India:

Yoko Choi Chi Mei, Roshni Bhatia, Boo Xu Ning and Lee Shulian, whose article, ‘Project Memories: A community-based arts project from an art therapy perspective in Singapore’, published in JoCAT 16(1), August 2021.