KATA’s mission is to serve its members and the general public by providing standards of professional competence, and developing and promoting knowledge in, and of, the field of art therapy.
KATA’s mission is to serve and educate the state of Kansas and the Kansas City Metro area. KATA was founded in 1972 and has been a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization since 1986.
Kansas Art Therapy Pioneers
Charles Anderson, ATR-BC
Charles Anderson, ATR-BC, as a pioneer of the art therapy field, witnessed the profession take root and grow. Retired at 77. Anderson held many leadership positions in the AATA. He was the founding Chair of AATA’s Mosaic Committee (1990-94), was selected as a committee member on the first AATA Ethics Review Board and served two terms on the committee to review questions for the ATCB Certification Exam. The AATA awarded Anderson the Distinguished Clinician Award (2000) and the Multicultural Leadership Award (2008) in recognition of his contributions.
Mr. Anderson started his career in 1962 at Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and was drafted a year later. He served two years (1963-65) at Fort Wainwright in Fair Banks, Alaska and then an additional two years in the Reserves (1965-67). His college classes at Washburn University pursing a BFA qualified him for the military assignment as a Recreation Specialist at the arts and crafts shop. He also coordinated the arts and crafts shops of the missile sites. His duties were to teach photo dark room procedures, ceramics, and jewelry making. Much of the jewelry work included lapidary work with Alaskan jades mined nearby. After discharge, he served in the Army Reserves and was assigned to a General Hospital Unit as an Occupational Therapist Assistant (there was no designation as art therapist in the military) and worked with people who were injured in Vietnam and suffered severe disturbances. He additionally had a private contract to teach painting and art history to for the Officers’ Wives Organization. After his service, Anderson completed his BFA from Washburn University (1970).
He worked at Menninger Clinic together with Bob Ault, HLM, ATR-BC and Don Jones, HLM, ATR, AATA Past President (1975-79), who introduced Anderson to art therapy. In 1974, Anderson received his ATR through the Grandfather Clause, on the basis of the number of years he had been using the creative process in his therapy before official training was available for registration. In 1992, the Menninger Children’s hospital hired him as a registered art therapist to start their first art therapy program. Anderson took the ATCB exam and received his Board Certification in 1996.
Anderson has 41 years of employment at Menninger’s (1962-2003, with a military leave 1963- 65) and clinical experience in art therapy in a range of settings, including the Adult Short Term Diagnostic and Treatment, the Adult Long Term unit, the Dual Diagnosis Treatment unit, the Children and Adolescent unit, and the Adult Professional Crisis unit. In addition to supervising student art therapy interns, Mr. Anderson was an adjunct instructor at Emporia State University, Avila University, and Washburn University, covering coursework including introduction to art therapy and the creative arts therapies, and cultural diversity and multicultural issues in art therapy.