Gary’s Services…

Please note the following:

1. About personal email requests for advice.
2. Counseling services provided by a Registered Social Worker (RSW) can be claimed as a medical expense for tax purposes in Canada.
3. If you are in crisis and need immediate support, please contact your family doctor or go to your nearest emergency room.
4. Statement on Domestic Violence and Power Imbalances

Counseling:

1. Counseling:  Issues may include, but are not limited to:
   1. marriage/intimate relationship
   2. child/adolescent behavior
   3. academic performance (ADD/ADHD, LD)
   4. parenting
   5. communication
   6. pre-marital counseling
   7. relationships – common-law, family, stepfamily
   8. abuse/domestic violence (physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, psychological – past or present, child or adult, survivor or witness)
   9. depression, anxiety, anger, mood
   10. young offender
   11. adjustment to change
   12. alcohol/drug abuse
   13. aging / managing aging kin
2. Coping with Dementia
3. Cyber-Bullying
4. Distance Counseling: Counseling via SKYPE…
5. Workshops / Public speaking / Keynote: – PowerPoint presentations, recordings, lists of prior presentations, reviews.

 

Help for Separated Parents: 

 Each service is very different and all are designed to help you stay out of court or get out of court…  Please explore each thoroughly.

1. Counselling: Specifically regarding children of separated parents
2. Pre-Separation Consultation, Thinking of Children: Figure out what to tell your children and start planning your separation
3. Closed Single Session Consultation – 1 three-hour meeting to review your situation and discuss options, particularly useful if other negotiations have stalled.
4. Mediation: Resolving on-going parenting after separation or divorce
5. Lawyer Assisted Mediation – sometimes the presence of the lawyer can faciliate the process….
6. Closed Custody/Access Single Session Impartial Consultation: Help in a single day to resolve as many parenting matters a possible and perhaps all parenting matters with lawyer support.
7. Clinical Evaluative Consultation: Child Custody and/or Access assessment without court….
8. Voice of the Child: When parents want a neutral person to interview their children to hear their thoughts, views and preferences, you need a voice of the child interview…
9. Separation Coach: Learn strategies to manage with the other parent.
10. Mediation, Assessment or Court Coach: Strategies to do your best with either process
11. Parenting through Parental Alienation: Managing relationships in view of contact refusal
12. Dating After Divorce – How will your kids respond? How about your former partner?
13. Grey Divorce: Person’s over 55 are a growing demographic of divorcing couples….
14. Assessment Critiques: When you think the assessment doesn’t measure up…
15. Case Consultation – for the self-represented parent or their lawyer.
16. Collaborative Family Practice: Support to facilitate the separation/divorce process..
17. Screening for Arbitration
18. Not sure? Please call to chat: 905 628-4847

 

Support for the Service Provider:

1. Brief Consultation for Clinicians 
2. Supervision/Support for Clinicians  
3. Brief Consultation for Family Lawyers 
4. Clinical Consultation for Agency Based Workers in the Context of Child Protection or Mental Health
5. Building your clinical, clinical-legal or family law peacekeeping practice

 

About Gary:

At 61 years of age, Gary Direnfeld is a social worker with more than 35 years of experience working with parents, teens and young children. With a private practice located in Dundas and Georgina, Ontario, he provides counseling, mediation and assessment services on most matters of family life.

Courts in Ontario, consider Gary an expert on social work, marital and family therapy, child development, parent-child relations, custody and access recommendations, and an expert at critiquing the assessments of other assessors. He has a weekly parenting column in his city’s daily newspaper and has hosted 65 episodes of a reality television show working with newlywed couples.

Gary presents himself as an advocate for the well-being of children and to this end he has lectured and given workshops on the impact of domestic violence as well as parental separation and divorce issues on children throughout Canada and into the United States.

• Court recognized expert in social work, marital therapy, child development and custody and access matters;
• First Social Worker to sit on the Ontario Collaborative Law Federation, Board of Directors;
• Canada’s most recognizable social worker thanks to 65 episode reality series, Newlywed/Nearly Dead;
• Parenting columnist – Hamilton Spectator newspaper – with more that 350 columns representing all matters of family life;
• Hundreds of guest appearances on  radio and television shows as guest expert on family matters;
• Presenter/Speaker throughout Canada and the US.
• Member of the panel for Mandatory Information Program – Hamilton Unified Family Court.
• Marriage Rescue Before it’s too late
• Parenting Column – Hamilton Spectator
• Newlywed, Nearly Dead – TV Show

Have your parenting questions answered by Gary in the Hamilton Spectator. Send your parenting question to: question@yoursocialworker.com  (50 words or less)

Resume: PDF version

Gary’s parenting column

Gary’s television show

See how Gary rates

See Gary’s listings on Google.com

See Gary’s listings on Yahoo.com

See Gary in the news Google News Search

See Gary’s dog

See Gary’s skydiving adventure (youtube video)

See Gary’s Skydiving Adventure (in pictures)

Cook Gary’s best personal recipes

Family photos

Favourite song

Favourite sign

Favourite stress reliever

Favourite aging humour

Favourite Hamilton Restaurant 

Favourite Birthday Song 1

Birthday Song 2

 

Contact Information:

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW

Interaction Consultants

20 Suter Crescent,

Dundas, ON, Canada L9H 6R5

Tel: (905) 628-4847

Email: gary@yoursocialworker.com

Please note, people regularly come great distances to see me. If you are considering driving more than two or three hours, please let me know so I can set an appointment to accommodate your drive.