What to expect during your stay
The Steward House is more than a place to escape and relax. Your stay will be a period of intensive, focused attention centered around stabilizing and strengthening your mental health. It’s a time of stabilization and self-renewal, of hard work and dedication to your health. Each therapy appointment and required treatment activity in your individualized plan has a dedicated purpose.
Explore The Steward House and the Silver Hill Hospital campus.
The Steward House is located on a picturesque, 44-acre wooded campus in New Canaan, CT. You will live alongside other executives and professionals in a stately 8-bedroom home with private bedrooms and bathrooms, an in-house chef, technology access, recreation center, and a nearby gym, pool, and wellness center.
Explore The Steward House
Get a feel for our accommodations and campus with our virtual tour.
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A steward is someone who has significant responsibility for the well being, livelihood, health and success of other people. So, we like to say when people walk through the door, the focus is entirely on you for the time that you're with us. It's a much smaller number of treatment programs which are more focused on providing an intensive level of professional treatment in a comfortable surrounding. We see ourselves as stepping into the role of stewarding the stewards, our patients, back to a position of being able to return to work and to family.
Confidentiality
Your confidentiality is of paramount concern at The Steward House, particularly given the high visibility of those in leadership positions. Before we share any of your information with outside service providers, family members, or employment-related contacts, we obtain a signed release from you outlining the specific people and information to be shared. Exploring treatment in the company of a small group of peers with a similarly strong need for confidentiality promotes further discretion.
Admissions
Your treatment begins with a comprehensive psychosocial assessment that drives the development of your individualized treatment plan and your 4-6-week schedule of therapeutic activities focused on self-management and career or transition planning.
It will be a time of personal renewal and your chance to reclaim and repair what has been lost or damaged.
Typical day
While each patient receives an individualized treatment plan and schedules can vary, you can expect to follow a predictable schedule of morning, afternoon, evening, and weekend activities during your 4-6-week stay.
Each weekday starts with a breakfast and includes both structured activities and free time, both individually and as part of a peer group.
Weekends are less structured and include educational, self-help, and wellness groups, chapel services, and ask you clinical team about visitation. You can spend your free time in any number of ways, whether working out at the gym on campus, reading or journaling.
A Typical Day at The Steward House
Petra Pilgrim, M.D., Director of The Steward House explains what a typical day at The Steward House looks like.
Connectivity
Soon after admission, we evaluate the pros and cons of you maintaining some level of connectivity, whether through phone, email or videoconferencing. Our decision takes into account your current stability, level of stress, work commitments, and your ability to remain focused on your treatment. We will reevaluate, as necessary, throughout your treatment.
Communications
We understand the concern of completely disconnecting for 4 to 6 weeks.
For the first week of your treatment, we typically limit outside communication to immediate family only. This first week is a critical time of transition as your symptoms stabilize and you acclimate to your new environment and the program.
For the remainder of your time, you will have access to your devices during limited hours each day. This access is a privilege that is exceptional to Steward House guests. If it becomes 'treatment-interfering,' we will make adjustments to the privilege.
Your time at Silver Hill is precious and our goal is for you is to experience it wholly and openly.
Family Involvement
Throughout your treatment, we encourage active involvement with your family and loved ones. Along with your individual and group therapy, your treatment might include weekend family education as well as couple’s therapy if clinically indicated. As an important support network, family provides a critical foundation for you to rely upon during treatment, your transition back home, and beyond.
Going off-campus
After 14 days in The Steward House program, individuals receive a day pass for a leave with family, friends, or a hired companion. Day passes must be used on a weekend day. After 21 days at The Steward House, individuals receive an overnight pass, also to be used on the weekend with accompaniment.
All passes are approved by the clinical team.
Progress Updates
With appropriate signed releases of information, program treating clinicians can speak with concerned family members, community providers, employers, and licensing/regulatory agencies on a weekly basis to provide progress updates and coordinate discharge planning and resumption of activities in the community.