Hello Friends, Students & Colleagues,
I wanted to take a moment to update you on some exciting new changes for Manual Therapy Seminars and also to inform you about some changes in store for our clinical arm, Integrative Wellness & Physical Therapy.
When we started Manual Therapy Seminars several years ago, our mission was to offer a variety of live courses in Integrative Manual Therapy for the beginning learner as well as our community of advanced IMT practitioners. As we got started with scheduling courses, we discovered that it was becoming increasingly difficult for people to travel to courses as often as they used to and of course, as often as they wished. We found that while the information learned in IMT courses was exciting and beneficial, our offerings were limited because of these individual student challenges.
So we began to offer some online education, primarily to our advanced students, by professionally videotaping our live courses, and we received fabulous feedback. Many of our advanced IMT students and colleagues commented on how wonderful the online interface was and how special it was to be able to access the learning from the convenience of their own homes. So, it got us to thinking… What about creating an online IMT certification program?
We frequently receive inquiries from beginning learners on how to proceed… what are their options for learning IMT through Manual Therapy Seminars? And while IMT is such a hands-on approach and therefore, would require some on-site support in the form of lab-intensive courses, particularly at the beginning level, there was A LOT we could offer by way of online videos of IMT lectures and demonstrations and discussions.
So, we have decided to create an online IMT certification program. Currently, the development is in its initial phase. We have tasked ourselves with a very large project, but also very exciting in its possibilities! As we know more, we will share more; so stay tuned!
Also, important to note that we are continuing to offer live courses around the country and possibly internationally in the near future. As the online certification program manifests, there will be a live component that will be essential to the success of the learner so that they get ample opportunity for supervised lab-style learning.
For our advanced students, we hope that the latter portions of the certification program that will include online advanced IMT courses will be a great option for convenience. Certainly, our current online advanced courses that we have to offer have been a great success and they will continue to be available as well.
We are also excited to mention our upcoming live advanced course this Spring in Connecticut: Advanced Infectious Disorders. This course is part of a new series of courses developed by Lissa Wheeler & Kris Albrecht, both long time IMT practitioners that worked with Sharon extensively for many years. This course is a 3 day lab-intensive course on April 27-29, 2018, and offers entirely new IMT for infection and pathogens, including Epstein Barr Virus and Lyme Disease. If you are interested in registering or for more information about the course, you can browse our current offerings for Live Seminars here and our Online Courses here.
Lastly, I wanted to take a moment to share with you some upcoming changes for our clinical arm, Integrative Wellness & Physical Therapy, in Bloomfield CT. I opened this center about 4 years ago, after closing our 30 year business, Regional Physical Therapy, which was started by my mother, Sharon Weiselfish-Giammatteo and her partner, Carol Gordon. Many practitioners from our Regional Physical Therapy team traveled over with me to this new business. Both businesses were very successful, but as all of us know, there have been many changes in our health care economy by way of health care regulations and insurance reimbursements and so on. It has become increasingly difficult to maintain this type of large scale center and continue to offer the type of care we wish to offer.
Because of these changes, I have decided to close Integrative Wellness & Physical Therapy on June 1st, 2018. It was a very hard decision for me because it has been so lovely to work with such a remarkable team of IMT practitioners for so long. Also, for most of my adult life, I have felt a great sense of responsibility for this wonderful team, in managing the ‘family business’ and it is time for me to step aside and let go of this burden that has brought me countless blessings over the years. I am looking forward to these changes.
Following the closure of this center, myself and my fellow colleagues from Integrative Wellness will continue to treat clients but in separate locations. We will make sure this information is available to anyone that is interested. As for me, by closing this center, it also allows me more time to focus on the development of our exciting online IMT Certification program. I welcome all of the changes and look forward to further growth in the education of IMT! So, once again, stay tuned!!!
Yours in good health,
Ayelet Connell, PhD,
President
