Biography

Heather Spooner, MA, ATR-BC, is an Associate Scholar with the Center for Arts in Medicine and faculty in the center's graduate programs. Heather is the Clinical Lead for Telehealth and Disaster Response for the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in support of Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network. She is a board-certified art therapist who earned a BA in Art with a minor in Psychology from the University of Tampa and an MA in Art Therapy from Marywood University. Heather was part of the team that founded the Rural Veterans Telerehabilitation Initiative Creative Arts Therapy Project (RVTRI CAT) in partnership with UF, the North Florida/South Georgia VA Health System and the VA Office of Rural Health in 2014. The network of VA sites offers creative arts therapies programs, primarily through telehealth, for rural Veterans. Through her role with HJF, Heather provides leadership support for telehealth programs across the network and is the lead for Creative Forces' pilot programming on the role of the arts and creative arts therapies in disaster response. Heather is currently engaged in art therapy research projects related to the neurophysiological response to art therapy for Veterans with PTSD and manualization of an art therapy telehealth protocol. 

Heather has worked at the intersections of art therapy and arts in health throughout her career and has applied the arts to health with people of all ages and in a variety of settings including healthcare facilities, museums, community outreach and veterans’ health. She previously taught art therapy at the University of Tampa and spearheaded the formation of Florida’s arts in health network, Arts for Health Florida.