Virtual Parent Groups in English
Join us!
Friends is really excited to offer Virtual Parent Groups in English. For the Spanish Parent Group, please click here. This is a space for parents, guardians, and relatives to connect, share ideas and concerns, and learn helpful strategies to best support their young person who stutters.
You are welcome to email the facilitator directly with any topics you may be interested in discussing. Their email addresses can be found in their biographies below, as well as in your Zoom confirmation email.
Upcoming dates: Saturdays at 12:00 PM Eastern on 12/14/24, 1/11/25, and 2/8/25
Sign Up Here: Friends Parent Group Registration Form
Note to SLPs and graduate students: Thanks for your interest in stuttering support groups! Groups play an important role in normalizing stuttering and fostering acceptance, growth, and resilience. We are grateful to so many therapists for spreading the word about our no-cost virtual groups. If you are looking to attend a group, please note that we do not offer opportunities to observe or participate in these peer support groups. For SLP educational and training opportunities, please see our one-day conferences and annual convention. We also recommend visiting our YouTube channel to watch panels of young people who stutter, parents, adults who stutter, and presentations by fellow SLPs. Join our mailing list below to get the latest updates about upcoming CEU and training opportunities.
Group Summary
At this month’s parent group we talked about how to best manage our emotions and subsequent body language when listening to our child speak. We discussed how intimidating stuttering can be, and how our fear can sometimes cause us to tense up and hold our breath while our children are stuck. We learned a couple inconspicuous
— Adannaya Brown on facilitating the November 9th Parent Group
Parent Group Facilitators
Adannaya Brown (she/her) is a parent of a person who stutters, dedicated advocate, friend, and student of the stuttering community. A relentless chaser of joy, her favorite pastimes are reading, dancing, and staring at the sky. She lives with her husband, four children, and two dogs in Aurora, Colorado. Email Adannaya
Jason Cassell, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist who has been in practice since 1999. He is board certified in clinical social work, and has advanced training in psychoanalysis, trauma, and mindfulness. He is in private practice in New York City where he treats men, women, adolescents, and couples, including many patients who stutter. He helps his clients process and work through their feelings of shame, fear, and pain. In the past he has conducted workshops for speech therapists on counseling techniques at Friends, the National Stuttering Association, the American Institute for Stuttering, and New York University. His wife Kristel is a person who stutters and he has been a part of the stuttering community for the last 10 years. Email Jason
Tricia Zebrowski, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is Professor Emerita at the University of Iowa, and a speech-language pathologist specializing in stuttering. Her clinical, research and teaching expertise is stuttering intervention, with a special focus on teenagers who stutter. For over 20 years, Tricia directed UISpeaks for Teens, a residential therapy program for teens who stutter. Her most recent work attempts to uncover the ways of thinking that facilitate teenagers’ decisions about their stuttering. Email Tricia
Alexander Burday is a person who stutters and a speech-language pathologist. I am a deeply curious person and have used this curiosity to deeply explore a variety of fields of study and practices. My interests have taken me down the rabbit hole of study as well as to participation in a variety of groups and experiences. From joining and exploring menswork groups, martial arts, chiropractic, sitting in ceremonies of breath work, heart rate variability training, Kundalini Yoga, Qi Gong, and different forms of meditation to studying the autonomic nervous system, neuroscience, trauma, polyvagal theory, somatic experiencing, and embodiment, I believe that I have found many exceptional ways to support my practice as an SLP. I treat my own experience as a person who stutters as a meticulous experiment with which I am constantly feeling into how my mind and body respond. My work in private practice has allowed me to explore more of these modalities with my clients and it is affording all of us involved some truly amazing experiences. Email Alexander
We are John & Erin Samenuk. Our son is a young adult who stutters. In July 2015, we attended our first Friends conference. It was transformative in our understanding of stuttering. We, along with our family, have returned to five more conferences. Each time we have become even more rooted in this strong and supportive community of Friends. We look forward to supporting other parents on their own journey. Email John & Erin
Cheryl Goettsche, MS, CCC-SLP is a parent of a young man who stutters. This led her to becoming a speech-language pathologist and discovering Friends. She teaches undergraduate and graduate students at SUNY New Paltz and CUNY Lehman. Cheryl also supervises undergraduate clinicians at the on-campus speech and hearing center. She has worked in a variety of settings including preschool, hospital and telepractice. Email Cheryl