This course will introduce students to applications of the arts in health and wellness contexts. Topics may include arts-based treatments for mental health, dementia, caring for long-term illness, the nature of formal therapy techniques (art, drama, and music), community-building/healing and activism through the arts, and/or the arts as a means of processing trauma. This course will also introduce students to ethical and anti-oppressive practices within healthcare and wellness work.

This course will provide a general, multidisciplinary introduction into the intersection of social and physical factors that affect human health and wellbeing. Students will explore how to reason in conditions of uncertainty, to examine arguments, to embrace contingencies, and to explore the historical roots by which public trust and systems of authority - institutional, governmental, and societal - have been established. Students will engage in the analysis of ethics, history, rhetoric, folklore, and the power of storytelling as they connect to self-expression and the nature of health.

This course presents an overview of qualitative and quantitative research, current methodologies, and how they apply to uses of the creative arts in health and wellness contexts. Students develop critical reading skills and explore ethical issues involved in research. Lectures will focus on important concepts and ideas related to methods, while seminars will allow for the practical application of the subjects being learned.

This course will provide an introduction to the various creative arts mediums (art, drama, and music). Students will explore connections between these artistic practices and studies of human behaviour, including physical, psychological, neurophysiological and social aspects of both making and interacting with these art forms. Lectures will focus on both historical and contemporary approaches to this field of inquiry.

This course will cover the basic concepts of ethics, professional practice, and the standards and requirements for research as established by both professional mental health and creative arts therapies associations. Multi-cultural awareness and diversity issues will be interwoven with the ethical and practical dimensions of creative arts practices. Particular emphasis will be placed on confidentiality dilemmas in health research, dual-role relationships, and the personal and professional development of students' identities as ethically-minded health and wellness practitioners.

This variable content explores unique challenges, frameworks, and areas of development addressed in research connecting the creative arts with health and wellness. Topics covered might include: anti-oppressive practices and power structures in therapeutic work, new multi-modal approaches to health and wellness practices, reading qualitative and quantitative data sets, and/or supporting equity-seeking populations through arts-based wellness interventions, among others.

In this course, students will study the technicalities and business elements of healthcare practices related to creative arts through the exploration of past and present certification procedures, governing boards, and professional regulations. With direct supervision by an accredited professional in a given therapeutic field - art, drama, or music - students will discuss the complexities of the Canadian healthcare system (private, public, and not-for-profit) and explore how to design programming and sustain the business elements of an arts-based clinical practice.

This capstone course will provide students the opportunity to apply what they have learned throughout their degree to tackle practical problems about which they are curious. Coursework will include weekly seminar meetings to discuss assigned readings and the completion of a major project either completed by a solo researcher or in a small team of students. Seminars will occur in the first half of each weekly meeting, followed by an opportunity for teams to work on their projects and consult with the instructor.