Weekend Retreat |
 Please join Dr. Adrienne Smaller, Dr. Jonathan Swift, advocate Kathleen Casparino, attorney Andrew Feinstein, and artist Elizabeth Bochain for a Weekend Retreat for Parents of Children with Disabilities. This Weekend Retreat aims to provide relaxation, reflection, and personal growth for parents facing the extraordinary stresses of raising a child with a physical, cognitive, or emotional disability. The goal is that each participant emerges from the Weekend Retreat stronger, more relaxed, and better able to support and advocate for his or her child.
Parents of children with disabilities face powerful stresses and emotions. These stresses and emotions often get in the way of being the best parent and best advocate for your child. This retreat will inform you about supports available, help you to come to terms with your emotions, and offer you some techniques to relax. Most importantly, it will provide you with a relaxing and inspiring weekend with parents in similar circumstances.
- The fee includes everything: the program, all meals, snacks, wine, beer, liquor, art supplies, and entertainment.
- Stipends may be available. If you need a stipend to attend, please call Kathleen Casparino at 203-779-5050.
- The retreat is for adults only.
- The kitchen at the Guest House Center can accommodate dietary restriction/preferences. Email requests to educationorganizer@yahoo.com.
- The Guest House Center is a lovely country inn. See, www.guesthousecenter.org.
- Participants agree to keep personal information shared during the sessions confidential.
- The retreat leaders will not provide mental health or legal services. No health insurance benefits are available.
We will register participants on a first-come, first-served basis. The organizers reserve the right to cancel the Retreat due to lack of participation or other unforeseen circumstances. If we cancel, you will get a complete refund. If you cancel after April 15, 2010, we will refund all but a $100 processing fee.
Click Here to View Tentative Schedule of Events |
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| Pricing |
| Single Occupancy |
Double Occupancy |
$550 (must register before 2/15/2010)
$575 (registration after 2/15/2010) |
$450 per person (must register before 2/15/2010)
$475 (registration after 2/15/2010) |
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| To register online, click here. |
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To register by mail, click here.
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We will register participants on a first-come, first-served basis. The organizers reserve the right to cancel the Retreat due to lack of participation or other unforeseen circumstances. If we cancel, you will get a complete refund. If you cancel after April 14, 2010, we will refund all but a $100 processing fee.
To reserve your spot, you can mail a check of $100 to: Education Organizer, LLC 86 Denison Avenue, Mystic, CT 06355 with this form (ms word). |
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| Biography of Retreat Leaders |
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| Dr. Adrienne Smaller |
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Dr. Jonathan Swift |
| Dr. Adrienne Smaller is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at The Yale Child Study Center. She has a private practice in Madison, CT, where she specializes in child and adolescent psychotherapy and developmental disorders. Dr. Smaller received her BS, MA, and Ph.D. from New York University. She completed her clinical training at The Yale Child Study Center. Dr. Smaller has consulted to schools, child care centers, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Yale Children's Psychiatric Inpatient Service School. She is known throughout the state of Connecticut for her advocacy work for children with disabilities. Dr. Smaller has been married for 27 years to Dr. Jonathan Swift, and they have two children, 23, and 20 years old. |
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Dr. Jonathan Swift is a clinical social worker and therapist and is the owner, along with his wife Dr. Adrienne Smaller, of the The Franklin Group for Psychotherapy, LLC, in Madison, Connecticut. Dr. Swift has extensive clinical experience, and has been working for many years in individual, group and couples psychotherapy with children, adolescents and adults. He has a strong background in a variety of modalities including supervision, group and couples work, varieties of brief treatment, bereavement related to people and companion animals, specific disorders including anxiety, depression, collaborative parenting particularly related to divorce and its impact on children, adult and child ADHD and Asperger Syndrome, opposition and defiance, difficult to reach adolescents, treatment of children ages six and above and divorce mediation. He received his Ph.D. in psychotherapy from NYU. |
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| Elizabeth Bochain |
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Sandra Swift Parrino |
| Elizabeth Bochain is an artist who lives in Mystic. Until 2006, she ran the gifted program in the Colchester Public Schools. She holds a B.A. from Skidmore College and a M.A.T. from Connecticut College. |
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Sandra Swift Parrino is the parent of a son with a disability. She was Chairperson of the National Council on Disability and the driving force behind the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signed into law in July, 1990. She subsequently led the National Council on Disability in writing the Disabilities Prevention Act. Ms. Parrino has represented the US in many countries including the United Nations, has led US delegations to China and Russia to review their disability policies and programs. Ms. Parrino received a BA degree in History from Briarcliff College and the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from St. John’s University in New York City. Currently, she is CEO of the Western Strategy Group (WSG), a government affairs, public policy, and business investment consulting firm with offices in New York and Washington, D.C. WSG consultants have served in key Washington leadership roles as highly respected Members of Congress, as chief strategists as advisors to Presidents. She and her husband, a rheumatologist, have three adult sons who live close by in New York. |
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