AT The Bus
Juli Beattie is the Founder and Director of AT The Bus, a school-based programme of art as therapy to support the education, mental health and wellbeing of children and young people aged 7-18 in Oxfordshire.
Training and Consultancy
Juli Beattie works as a consultant, offering advice and training to organisations working with children and young people with complex needs. Juli also offers team building workshops for professionals to enhance group working and wellbeing.
Therapy in a Box
Therapy in a Box is a therapeutic education box, devised by Juli, which can be used in schools, hospitals and in refugee camps.
The Art Room
Juli founded The Art Room, a national charity offering art as therapeutic intervention to children and young people across the UK, in 2002. She stepped down in 2016 to write and to work on setting up AT The Bus charity.
Schools
Juli has taught in mainstream and Montessori schools, and has run workshops in schools including Northern House School in Oxford and The Mulberry Bush School, a residential school for children aged 5-12 years.
Hospitals
Juli has worked with children at Great Ormond Street and other hospitals.
BIOGRAPHY
Juli Beattie, a therapeutic educator, was born in Hungary and came to England as a child refugee in 1956. Trained as a teacher, she has spent over 40 years working in mainstream and specialist schools and hospitals, including Great Ormond Street.
In 2002, having devised a unique methodology which combined education and therapy through art, she founded The Art Room charity. This offered a therapeutic intervention to children with complex needs; designed to support their mental wellbeing in school, to prevent their exclusion from mainstream education and to enhance their self-esteem and independence. After 15 years directing the charity and expanding its reach so that it became a national charity with HRH Duchess of Cambridge as its Royal Patron, Juli stepped down in December 2016.
Juli's interests are predominantly in mental health, education, and the therapeutic power of art. In 2016, she was awarded an OBE in recognition of her contribution to education and the welfare of young people, and has won the Champion of Women Award for her work. Juli has trained teachers, practitioners and others working with children and young people to develop their therapeutic skills. She is a Visiting Fellow of Bath Spa University.
Juli is a Consultant to The Heart Association charity in Switzerland which uses The Beattie Methodology to support children and young people. She is also a Senior Advisor to The Dipex Charity.
In 2018 Juli and a group of other professionals set up the charity
AT The Bus, a school based program offering art as therapy. Group sessions take place during the school day in a purposely designed therapeutic studio space in a double decker bus located on school grounds.
AT The Bus runs Inset Training on The Beattie Methodology to support professionals working with young people. Juli is currently working with the AT The Bus team on a training manual, to support teachers and other professionals using this therapeutic intervention in schools.