Art therapy from around the world: school-based and trauma-focused approaches

It is with great honour to start the new year as the Deputy Editor for the International Journal of Art Therapy (IJAT), stepping up from my previous role as an Early Career Research Editor. In line with IJAT’s new aims and scopes (IJAT Aims & Scope), I am committed to contribute to the timely and rigorous peer-reviewed publication of original, ethical, and high quality research, practice and opinion articles. I am also especially interested in the review and publication of codesigned research and practice, the inclusion of service user and lived experience perspectives in all aspects of the journal’s work. The first issue of 2022 is focused on two key areas of research and practice: working with service users with experiences of trauma, and school-based art therapy. Two of these studies were conducted in Israel (Kaspy et al., 2021; Regev, 2021), one in Tanzania (Luzzatto et al., 2021) and one was a systematic review which included 44 international studies (Bowen-Salter et al., 2021). The four articles are summarised below, highlighting the key implications for future research, policy, and practice.