Biography: Cheryl McLean M.A

Cheryl McLean M.A. is a passionate advocate for the creative arts in research and practice. She has over 25 years experience in communications in its many and diverse forms, including strategic marketing and communications planning, magazine and internet publishing, adult education and training as well as writing, acting and performing original research based “ethnodrama.” After graduating from The University
of Western Ontario (BA, Faculty of Social Sciences) and attending a graduate course in Magazine Publishing (UWO, Graduate School of Journalism, taught by Doreen McKenzie-Sanders of The Business Quarterly) she began a career in communications and sales promotion eventually teaching Communications in Adult Education and Training for over ten years. She wrote essays and editorials published in regional and national Canadian newspapers dealing with issues related to “modern living, change and survival” and, during this time, launched several regional performing arts and theatre companies producing and directing community theatre. In 2001 she returned to graduate school in Montreal at Concordia University (Faculty of Fine Art), Creative Arts Therapies with an interest in arts informed research, drama, ethnodrama and gerontology and studied as a therapist and actor (naturalistic approaches, Stanislavski, “The Fictional Family”) and worked in projects for two years with
Dr. Muriel Gold formerly the Artistic Director of The Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Montreal. Her work has also been influenced by narrative and qualitative approaches, particularly writings by Dr. Norman K. Denzin, Professor of Sociology, Institute of Communication Research, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, (Performance Ethnography, Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture 2003,Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications).

A researcher and educator in The Creative Arts Therapies in Canada, as well as a therapist, dramatist and actor, Cheryl has performed health based research for hundreds of academics and health and social service professionals at universities, health organizations, medical schools and national conferences in Canada and the U.S. including;
The National Association of Drama Therapy
Conference, Rhode Island, The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario, London and McGill Interdisciplinary Geriatric Seminar, McGill University Medical School, Montreal.

Cheryl McLean worked in gerontology and mental health as a group therapist from 200l to 2003 with Maimonides Jewish Geriatric Hospital and The Rene Cassin Institute of Social Gerontology of Quebec
and wrote the original script for the ethnodrama “Remember Me for Birds” a solo performance about aging, mental health and autonomy based on clients’ true stories. She is actively developing educational programming using arts informed methods and training educators and health professionals as well as applying drama and performance in group work to provide personal support for professional caregivers. Continuing her work in strategic communications planning and transferring arts research into knowledge and practice, she is Founder, Publisher
and Editor of CCAHTE, the interdisciplinary journal of The Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education, distributed to subscribers and leading universities
and health organizations across Canada in the U.S. and U.K. She is a frequent lecturer and presenter at universities and health conferences speaking about progressive developments in the creative arts in research, action and practice in health, training
and education.