The history of JoCAT and ANZJAT

In 2007 Tarquam Mckenna took over as editor and saw five issues to completion and the journal evolve, gaining respected recognition within the arts therapy and allied health industries and beyond. Under Tarquam’s stewardship, ANZJAT attained an ‘A’ journal ranking from Excellence in Research Australia (ERA). His last issue, volume 6, number 1, was a bumper one featuring nine articles.

In 2012 Sheridan Linnell took over as editor, inviting Toril Pursell to be a co-editor and together they published four issues. This included an article in the 2014 issue by Nadia Balatti and Patricia Fenner entitled ‘Taking a closer look: A review of ANZJAT publication 2006–2011’. Their findings offered “a new lens for reflecting on the development of arts therapy practice and research in the Australia/New Zealand region over these years”. Their study explored “the need for more systematic approaches to research, an expanded range of research skills, a regionally-specific research agenda, and an arts therapy-specific evaluation strategy” (p.15).

Additions to the team were made when Toril resigned, with Catherine Camden Pratt joining in 2016 followed by Stacey Bush and Deborah Green in 2017. Since then, the team has been a stable one, producing another three issues of ANZJAT and seeing through the transition of the journal into its present form as JoCAT.

With a change in the funding model encompassing robust ongoing financial support from the professional association and a partnership with the School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, ANZACATA’s journal went fully digital and open access and changed its name to the Journal of Creative Arts Therapies, increasing to two issues per year. The first issue of JoCAT was published in December 2020. It was decided to continue the indexing from ANZJAT so this issue was volume 15, number 1.

The ANZACATA-JoCAT Author Support Bursary programme was introduced in 2021. Each year two bursaries are awarded to provide mentorship to authors whose submissions show great potential and require some assistance to develop them to the journal’s standard for publication. The programme is designed to provide mentorship/assistance to new, Indigenous and/or diverse authors, and to encourage a variety of voices and perspectives from the ANZACATA membership while acknowledging the international positioning of the journal.

More developments have been made in recent years, including indexing with EBSCO and DOAJ, and the launch of a new website where new content is prepublished throughout the year, culminating with the complete issues published in July and December. Our journal continues to grow both in the amount and range of content published. And its readership continues to increase steadily and its reach widening, last count to well over 100 countries.