Creative Arts Therapist - San Mateo Medical Center (Open & Promotional)

Posting number: F029U

Department: San Mateo Medical Center

Job classification: Creative Arts Therapist

Posting type: Open & Promotional

Categories: Health Services, Customer Service

Summary

San Mateo County Health is seeking a qualified and compassionate Creative Arts and Recreation Therapist to develop, coordinate, and deliver evidence-based creative arts therapy services for patients across a variety of healthcare settings. This position provides therapeutic interventions that support patients' emotional, cognitive, physical, and social well-being through music and other creative arts modalities as part of an interdisciplinary treatment team.

The Creative Arts and Recreation Therapist will assess patient needs, develop individualized treatment plans, facilitate therapeutic group and individual sessions, and contribute to comprehensive patient care. This role serves diverse patient populations ranging from acute care, behavioral health, long-term care, and specialty treatment settings including inpatient and outpatient.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will have a minimum of two years of experience providing music therapy, creative arts therapy, or recreation therapy services to individuals across the lifespan in healthcare or therapeutic settings. They will demonstrate the ability to assess patients’ physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral needs and to develop, implement, and evaluate individualized therapeutic treatment plans. Experience working across a range of environments, including acute care, behavioral health, psychiatric care, intensive care, and long-term care settings, is highly desirable.

The successful candidate will be skilled in facilitating both individual and group therapeutic interventions and will possess strong clinical judgment, assessment, documentation, communication, and interdisciplinary collaboration skills. Experience working with individuals with dementia, cognitive impairments, or behavioral health challenges is strongly preferred.

Candidates must be eligible for certification, registration, or membership with a recognized professional association in Music Therapy, Creative Arts Therapy, or Recreation Therapy. A master’s degree in Music Therapy, Creative Arts Therapy, Recreation Therapy, or a closely related field is preferred. Certification as a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) and other advanced specialty certifications are considered highly desirable.

NOTE: The eligible list generated from this recruitment may be used to fill future extra-help, term, unclassified, and regular classified vacancies.

Examples of duties

• Evaluate needs and interests of patients; define creative arts therapy goals; and plan individual therapy programs.
• Participate in multi-disciplinary meetings, case conferences and unit rounds to discuss patients' progress and coordinate creative arts therapy with other services.
• Supervise and conduct a variety of individual and group therapeutic activities.
• Lead adult therapy groups.
• Keep records and prepare reports.
• Order supplies and equipment.
• Supervise creative arts therapy interns.
• Perform related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Principles, procedures, techniques, trends and literature of rehabilitation services.
• Special techniques of creative arts therapies, including those relating to mental disabilities.
• Scope and activities of private and public health and welfare agencies.
• Characteristics of mental, emotional and developmental disorders.
• Current trends in mental health, public health, and public welfare.
• Federal and state programs in mental health, public health, and public welfare.
• Creative arts therapy materials, tools and processes used in providing therapy services to psychiatric, physically disabled and geriatric patients.
• Physical and psychological problems of geriatric, physically disabled, psychiatric and medical patients.
• Behavioral disorders and theories of group management.

• Establish and maintain the confidence and cooperation of persons in therapy.
• Secure accurate clinical data and record such data systematically.
• Work with patients with communications dysfunctions.
• Write clear, accurate and concise reports.
• Interpret statistical data.
• Superv