Kate Shannon, LCPC, LCAT, MT-BC is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, and Board Certified Music Therapist. She’s n. Kate specializes in working with children, tweens, teens, and adults with anxiety, relational stress, and trauma. She uses expressive modalities, geek therapy, EMDR, CBT, and mindfulness-based approaches. Learn more about her openings at her private practice website here.

Hi! I’m Kate!

Supporting mental health through music, creativity, relationship, play, and the arts is one of my greatest joys. While providing therapy services is my calling, I am also passionate about creating resources for therapists looking to support their clients through creative modalities.

I believe that every adult has the opportunity to make a child feel heard, validated, and supported, no matter what goals they are working towards. I created Creative Therapy Umbrella to support other therapists who want guidance with creativity and mental health in their practice!


About Creative Therapy Umbrella

Creative Therapy Umbrella serves therapists, practitioners, educators, and counselors looking to support children, tweens, and teen through creativity. We felt there was a lack of online support, both resource and community-based, that provided materials for therapists in need.

We believe that creativity and self-expressive can be wonderful vehicles for change and healing. When we can access and support creativity in our clients, we can foster individualized change from the inside out. Through creative arts such as play, music, art, dance, theater, poetry, nature, movement, games, geek-topics, and more, we can meet clients where they are at.

If you are a therapist, counselor, practitioner or educator looking for inspiration or resources, then you’ve found your people!

Here are some of the things we offer in our corner of the web!

Mission Statement

The mission of Creative Therapy Umbrella is to help therapists support the well-being and mental health of infants, children, teens, and young adults through the creative arts. This site provides resources, educational opportunities, and continuous connection for therapists looking to support their client’s in non-traditional ways within their scope of practice. We aim to honor every human as their unique selves and give therapists the tools to do just that.


Our Values

Here at Creative Therapy Umbrella, we stand alongside marginalized community members. We stand against oppression of any kind including and not limited to: racism, ageism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, antisemitism, and sizeism. We are dedicated to using our platform to lift marginalized voices in the community and do better.

As part of our action plan, we donate to organizations quarterly that are focused on social justice within the mental health and creative arts fields. We also mute our social media and our podcast quarterly to uplift marginalized voices and identities.


How It All Started…

My career has focused on supporting children, teens, and young adults of all ability levels through music, creativity, and play.  Most of my experience lies in supporting the emotional well-being, quality of life, and mental health of children with anxiety, trauma, and developmental disabilities.

When I was working with children in palliative care as a music therapist, I found myself completely stuck in trying to support the mental health needs of my clients. Things like anxiety, depression, end-of-life concerns, grief, emotional expression, regulation, and other issues were pervasive within their needs and concerns. I felt somewhat ill-prepared to support these various mental health concerns and wanted to move beyond the simple idea of “teaching” coping skills. But I had no where to go and only a few solid people to lean on. 

This led me to pursue additional education and after years of learning, growing, studying, supervision, and testing, I become a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. I then created The Umbrella Community — a resource space for therapists wanting to learn about child mental health, creativity, expressive therapies, and more!


Fun Facts

When I’m not reading the next therapy related book or putting out another episode of the podcast, I am finding ways to create at home! Here are a few fun facts about me:

My latest rotation of hobbies includes riding my bike, yoga, hiking, knitting, playing video games, collecting tiny things, and trying not to kill my newest plant.

I play DND almost every weekend with a super-duper bunch of friends. This is one of my most creative outlets and I love it!

My primary instrument was the flute, but I feel most connected to the bass guitar. I love finding a funky groove, learning how to play it by ear, and then convincing my music friends to jam along!

I have an amazing husband, a spunky cat, and a crazy dog who endlessly support me on my creative endeavors. I am so thankful for my family!

 I LOOOVE learning! And food. I really love food.