Resilient Retreat

On a Wednesday in October, the in-person calendar at Resilient Retreat opens with essential oil yoga at 9:30 in the morning. By 11:00 a teaching artist from the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation is leading a 90-minute art journaling workshop with no rules. Two days later, a sound bath fills the evening. All of it is free, and all of it is meant for people carrying the weight of trauma.

The organization was incorporated as a Florida nonprofit on August 10, 2018, with founder Sidney Turner, Ph.D., behind it. IRS tax-exempt status followed on March 19, 2019. That same year the retreat was gifted 84 acres on Fruitville Road, and the stated vision was a respite where survivors and helping professionals from across the United States could come for trauma retreats. Day programs began in 2019. Ground was broken on the center in 2020, and it was completed in 2022, the year overnight retreats began.

The 18,000-square-foot Retreat Center sleeps up to 30 people for retreats of one to three days. Treatment rooms flank a community kitchen, a great room and a dining room. Outside are porches, loggias, walking paths, a community garden and a meditation pond. A separate 5,000-square-foot community center has two flexible rooms for 15 to 30 people, used for support groups, movement, art and meditation.

The programs serve two groups: adult survivors of abuse, and professionals who witness trauma at work, such as advocates, counselors, police, firefighters and teachers. Offerings include equine therapy, neurofeedback, nutrition, massage, yoga and peer support, with more than 30 programs a month online and in person. Each is built around three kinds of strength: regulatory, interpersonal and meaning-making. Overnight retreats have a deliberate on-ramp. Participants join a waitlist, attend at least five programs, and then meet by Zoom with the Clinical Director. An advisory council of survivors and first responders, called Voices, guides the work.