About US
Mission
To provide a dynamic solution for mental health programs, so that the restorative nature of the creative arts cultivates stability within individuals and communities.
Vision
To elevate and stabilize individual’s lives by recognizing the value of who they are and the gifts they bring to society.
Who We Are
We are a team of licensed psychotherapists and board-certified creative arts therapists. CARTSS is a 100% woman-owned small business.
Who We Serve
We partner with hospitals and community organizations to serve people of all ages and genders coping with:
Mental illness
Personality disorders
Intellectual disabilities
Eating disorders
Substance abuse disorders
Trauma
Aging
Brain injury
What We Do
CARTSS offers a shift within the mental health industry away from single-focused programming to multi-specialized, creative-based programming. We provide a team of therapists with a full range of evidenced-based therapies to programs whose funding generally only allows for 1-2 in-house therapists.
Your patients will have regular, reliable group therapy sessions with our therapists board-certified in:
As an integral part of your multidisciplinary treatment team, we provide:
Activity Therapy Assessments
Short- and long-term therapeutic goal-setting
Pyschosocials
Group therapy and individual therapy
Multidisciplinary treatment planning
Group documentation
Stability That Benefits Everybody
The stability we bring is one of our clients’ favorite aspects of working with CARTSS. It’s why it's not uncommon for organizations to renew contracts with us for decades.
Reliable, expert group therapy not only helps your patients to invest more fully in their health, but also benefits your in-house patient care providers by reducing burnout, turnover, and costly recruiting and onboarding expenses.
Our goal for therapy is to reconnect people with the beautiful essence of their personhood- something that often gets lost in trauma, mental illness, or substance addiction.
Why We Do What We Do
While medication and traditional forms of talk therapy can address the symptoms, we’ve witnessed creative arts therapies treat the cause and heal the full person- over and over again, for more than 30 years. The results are powerful- for the individual, their caretakers, and their broader communities.
When patients have access to this level of healing, they regain hope, interpersonal connection, and are more willing to cooperate with their healthcare providers. This, in turn, makes hospitals and clinics much safer and less stressful places to work.
Everyone should have access to the incredible healing power of the creative arts.
Our Story
As a young single mother, Alison Salter had been laid off three times in one year- despite being a skilled therapist. So, in 1987, she began providing contracted creative arts therapy services as a solution to the unstable work environment of mental health programs in Southern California.
As the popularity of her services grew, she built a talented team of board-certified creative arts therapists. Blessed with job security, a workplace that understands and values the evidenced-based efficacy of creative arts therapy, and collaborative, supportive colleagues, the CARTSS team is going strong.
Salter formally launched CARTSS in March 2020, and continues to grow her team.