(Re)Centering Belonging

Drop-In Group for Racialized / BIPOC Art Therapists in Canada

Please note that the final (Re)Centering Belonging group of 2025 was held on Tuesday, November 25, 2025.

More information will be shared with membership and existing BIPOC group participants on updates to our community gatherings in the new year.

Any questions can be sent to admin@canadianarttherapy.org

(Re)Centering Belonging is a community of racialized/BIPOC art therapists reclaiming space for belonging, healing, and authenticity. We are practitioners who hold for others, creating a sanctuary for ourselves—a place just to be. Guided by the collective wisdom of our lived experiences and ancestral knowledge, this space is dedicated to:

  • Honouring racialized/BIPOC Voices: We center and amplify the often-overlooked stories of racialized/BIPOC practitioners, weaving our lived experiences and practice into the fabric of art therapy.

  • Building Community and Care: Through mutual support, witnessing and shared truths, we break the isolation of our work and affirm each other’s journeys.

  • Decolonizing Therapeutic Spaces: We co-create spaces that nurture coming back to our humanity as underrepresented and marginalized peoples, and integrate culturally rooted healing for the collective liberation of BIPOC communities, both as practitioners and clients.

  • Healing Through Ancestral Wisdom: Recognizing that healing exists beyond traditional or established art therapy conventions and protocols, we draw on our cultural practices and lineages to nurture collective resilience.

  • Fostering Anti-Racist Practices: We unearth and dismantle interpersonal and systemic racism within our field, grounding our practices in anti-oppressive knowledge.

“By releasing the burdens of representing, defending, and explaining lived experiences, we have felt free to attend, listen, and witness for each other.

— Goerdt et al., 2022, p. 106

The Root of Our Vision

Rooted Storytellers is more than a collective; it is a movement. We are reshaping the landscape of creative arts therapy, primarily in Canada, by building a space where BIPOC voices, histories, and healing methods are precious. Here, we release, grieve, and heal—unfiltered and unapologetic—envisioning a future where BIPOC art therapists can exist fully and freely in their power.

Intent of Collective Initiative:

  • Create and cultivate a place of belonging to be for practitioners and healers who are expected to hold for others while controlling their own release.

  • Centered and sustained by a collective of racialized/BIPOC art therapists for and with BIPOC art therapists.

  • A safe space for sharing lived experiences as BIPOC practitioners who have remained unexpressed, unwitnessed, or invalidated.

  • A space for learning/unlearning and grief.

  • Nurturing and sharing ways of knowing, healing, and practicing.

  • Addressing ruptures within our communities by facilitating conversation and inviting healing practices.