Tending Our Fire: Resilience & Regeneration

March 20 – 22, 2027 | Evanston, IL | In-Person & Virtual

Our annual conference affords professionals and students an opportunity to learn about clinical work, research, training, advocacy, and representation within art, dance/movement, drama, and music therapies. ICAT creates opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and provides attendees with new perspectives, practical approaches, meaningful connections, and renewed possibilities for developing a sustainable clinical practice.

CALL FOR PAPERS NOW OPEN!

Questions? Email us at conference@itachicago.org.

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Conference Overview

Those who care for others carry a great deal. Creative arts therapists, healthcare and mental health professionals, and community practitioners work every day to foster healing, connection, and belonging while navigating burnout, increasing barriers to care, systemic oppression, and the evolving needs of the communities they serve.

Tending Our Fire: Resilience & Regeneration invites us to consider the many forms fire can take. Fire can represent warmth and creativity, anger and urgency, exhaustion and burnout, or renewal and transformation. It can illuminate and sustain, but it also requires care. How do we tend what keeps going without allowing it to consume us? How do we care for ourselves and one another while challenging the systems that make care harder to give and receive?

At ICAT 2027, ITA becomes a hearth for connection, community, learning, and renewal. Together we will explore creative, embodied, anti-carceral, culturally responsive, and liberatory approaches across healthcare, educational, and community settings, and we will experience how creative arts therapies can brighten our work as we carry our fire forward.

Early Registration opens mid-December 2026. Want to stay informed? Join our email list HERE.

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Call for Papers: Share Your Work at ICAT 2027

ITA invites practitioners, researchers, educators, students, community leaders, and other professionals to submit proposals for Tending Our Fire: Resilience & Regeneration, the 11th Annual Integrated Creative Arts Therapy conference. We are seeking workshops, lectures, panels, performances, and discussions that explore how creative, embodied, and interdisciplinary practices can foster resilience, strengthen communities, challenge barriers to care, and support more equitable and sustainable approaches to practice.

We especially welcome proposals exploring anti-oppressive, liberatory, and culturally responsive frameworks; practitioner sustainability and resilience; advocacy; strengths-based and embodied approaches; and innovative models for access, funding, and professional growth.

Accepted presenters receive complimentary registration for the day of their presentation and discounted registration for the full ICAT 2027 conference.

Proposal Deadline: Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 11:59 PM CST

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Event Details