Kate Aitchison

Kate completed her PhD through The University of Melbourne in 2024. Her research focused on adolescents' lived experiences of multidisciplinary mental health assessment including resource-oriented music therapy assessment. Kate's publications and presentations have highlighted the importance of collaborative and therapeutic approaches to assessment in mental health, and specifically music therapy mental health practice. Kate has published four peer-reviewed articles based on her PhD studies and presented research findings at the World Congress of Music Therapy, Vancouver, Canada, and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference at the Gold Coast, Queensland. Kate also has two clinical practice publications, one sole-authored book chapter on therapeutic songwriting, and one article on post-meal, resource-oriented music therapy groups for adolescents recovering from eating disorders. Kate's publications have been used to establish a new music therapy position within an eating disorders service in Canberra Health Services.

Kate previously held an advanced project coordinator role within Queensland Health, leading workforce development projects for the music therapy profession specific group. This role included authoring a scoping review of meta-analyses and systematic reviews of music therapy evidence. The scoping review led to develpment of a toolkit of resources such as evidence summaries, case studies, and proforma PowerPoint presentations to support music therapy advocacy within Queensland Health. The toolkit has been used to establish two independent student placements, one in Townsville and one in Brisbane, and to provide education sessions in services where music therapy is not yet offered.