Creative Arts Therapist - San Mateo Medical Center (Open & Promotional)

San Mateo County Health is seeking a qualified and compassionate Creative Arts and Recreation Therapist to develop, coordinate, and deliver evidence-based creative arts therapy services for patients across a variety of healthcare settings. This position provides therapeutic interventions that support patients' emotional, cognitive, physical, and social well-being through music and other creative arts modalities as part of an interdisciplinary treatment team.

The Creative Arts and Recreation Therapist will assess patient needs, develop individualized treatment plans, facilitate therapeutic group and individual sessions, and contribute to comprehensive patient care. This role serves diverse patient populations ranging from acute care, behavioral health, long-term care, and specialty treatment settings including inpatient and outpatient.

The current vacancy is a regular/full-time position.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will have a minimum of two years of experience providing music therapy, creative arts therapy, or recreation therapy services to individuals across the lifespan in healthcare or therapeutic settings. They will demonstrate the ability to assess patients’ physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral needs and to develop, implement, and evaluate individualized therapeutic treatment plans. Experience working across a range of environments, including acute care, behavioral health, psychiatric care, intensive care, and long-term care settings, is highly desirable.

The successful candidate will be skilled in facilitating both individual and group therapeutic interventions and will possess strong clinical judgment, assessment, documentation, communication, and interdisciplinary collaboration skills. Experience working with individuals with dementia, cognitive impairments, or behavioral health challenges is strongly preferred.

Candidates must be eligible for certification, registration, or membership with a recognized professional association in Music Therapy, Creative Arts Therapy, or Recreation Therapy. A master’s degree in Music Therapy, Creative Arts Therapy, Recreation Therapy, or a closely related field is preferred. Certification as a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist (CTRS) and other advanced specialty certifications are considered highly desirable.

NOTE: The eligible list generated from this recruitment may be used to fill future extra-help, term, unclassified, and regular classified vacancies.