Our retreats offer a free, intimate, immersive experience to connect families touched by childhood cancer and child loss.

At our in-person retreats for both survivor and bereaved families, we offer the opportunity to heal through joyful, mindful experiences, integrated therapies, and peer connections. Our retreats include support for children with cancer and their parents and siblings, as well as bereaved parents and siblings.

Our ‘Positively Healing’ retreats are for families that have a child surviving cancer with no evidence of disease or stable tumors. We do not accept children during the frontline course of treatment as we do not have medical staff onsite. These retreats are always full of happiness, relaxation, and deep connections. Joyful is a word you would use to describe them.

Our ‘Open to Healing’ bereavement retreats are for families that have lost their child to cancer or similar chronic illness. We share our children’s stories, and give strategies for moving forward in grief, while at the same time being sensitive to the fact that everyone’s process and timeline is different. Empathy is a word you would use to describe these retreats.

Our ‘Forever Healing’ Grief Retreats are for bereaved parents only and take place over a weekend. These are helpful to those that lost an only child or whose surviving children are over 18. While we cannot always accept families back to our family retreats due to lack of space and funds, this is a good way for parents that met previously to come together again. Connection is a word you could use to describe these retreats.

What’s in a retreat?

Rett’s Roost provides multiple retreats a year, of varying lengths, both for families dealing with life after a child’s cancer treatment and bereaved families grieving the loss of a young child and sibling to cancer. These signature, in-person, multi-family retreats include therapeutic and healing services for parents and children in a beautiful, peaceful location (currently in Maine or Massachusetts). Each year, we host 20-25 families at 4-5 retreats from April through November. We keep our retreats small and intimate (3-8 families) so that our families feel seen, heard, and engaged.

At our retreats, families take time to honor their experience; share and listen to one another; learn practical self-care techniques to help mitigate the emotional burden families of childhood cancer all carry; and initiate valuable, long-lasting peer connections. Parents can participate in individual talk therapy sessions; relax through therapeutic massage and energy work; try out helpful strategies for anxiety and grief; and take time to rest and rejuvenate with nature walks and restorative yoga. The children are supported with joyful and therapeutic activities like mindful martial arts and kids yoga, STEM-based magic activities, animal interactions, nature-based learning, journaling, and art/music therapy.

We also provide takeaways for families including several art projects, a collaborative song, professional family photos, and a care package of thoughtful gifts. After our retreats, we conduct virtual monthly support groups— both for parents of survivors and those who are grieving.

The Chakrabarti-Ruget Family holding a picture of Sajni who died of DIPG in 2017

2024 Retreats