Sept. 16, 2026
Announcing the AATA2026 Keynote!
By Dr. Liz Hlavek, AATA2026 Conference Committee Chair
I am delighted to announce that Dr. Veronica Carey will deliver the AATA2026 keynote plenary, The Art of Standing Together: Collective Strength for Creative Practice and Leadership, on Oct. 15 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
As the mental health landscape changes rapidly—often in ways that challenge art therapy—Dr. Carey’s keynote could not be more timely. Her session speaks directly to weighty questions so many of us carry in this work:
How do we protect our own well-being while caring for others? How do we make sure our clients’ outcomes reflect the full power of what we do? And how do we ensure art therapy is recognized, funded, and understood across the broader mental health field?
Through collective care, shared advocacy, and art-based leadership strategies, Dr. Carey will demonstrate how unity can support clinician well-being, improve client outcomes, and strengthen our field’s visibility at this critical moment. She will invite art therapy professionals, students, and other mental health colleagues alike to lead with connection, courage, and a shared sense of purpose.
The Conference Committee and I are especially excited about this keynote because it combines research-informed, analytics-based insight with the creative engagement that defines our profession. Dr. Carey brings a rare combination of academic leadership and on-the-ground advocacy to this conversation. She serves as Assistant Dean for Culture, Climate, and Belonging at Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions, chairs the university’s Board of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Human Development and Counseling Department. Beyond academia, she chairs the Academy for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association and serves as Vice President of Caravan of Life, a behavioral health NGO based in Pakistan. She is the author of Frame Your Degree: How to Avoid Pain While Seeking a College Degree, and has led seminars on student academic culture, health disparities, and strategies for minimizing racism in organizational structures around the world — including in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Cameroon, Ghana, Milan, Karachi, and Singapore. In 2023, she delivered a TEDx Talk, Pain, Pain Go Away, on the endurance factors students face while pursuing a college degree.
Our theme this year is Rooted and Rising — and I can’t think of a better expression of it than our keynote plenary. Wherever we may stand in this field, I hope this AATA2026 experience will help us to grow stronger by growing together.