About Connections
Dr. Ray Castellino and midwife Mary Jackson offer support to parents and their babies from the prenatal period to around 6-9 months outside the womb. They are focusing on this time period because they feel the work is most effective at the very beginning of life.
They also see families with older children - from infancy to teens - and work with adults offering private sessions to those wishing to explore early imprinting with a focus on deepening current relationships. Most of the information on this page is about their work with pregnancy/newborns. For information on working with adults, see the process workshop page. They can work in a private setting as well as in process workshops with adults and couples.
Ray and Mary also each have a private practice for both in-person and phone support:
- Ray works in Santa Barbara seeing families with children of all ages and adults. He offers phone support to families and adults not able to come to in-person sessions. He can use Skype or iChat or both as well as regular telephone. For more on Ray's private practice, please see Private Sessions with Ray elsewhere in this site.
- Mary has a midwifery practice and supports families not in her practice through the childbearing process. For more on Mary's private practice, please see www.birthinconnection.com.
About Mary and Ray
Mary Jackson L.M., R.N., RCST® is a midwife with more than 30 years experience. She is a leader in her field and has delivered over
2000 babies in the Santa Barbara, Ventura, South Coast area. She is currently co-leading the Castellino Prenatal and Birth Training with Ray.
She is a Craniosacral Therapist. She is a frequent guest speaker for the College of Midwives in Salt Lake City, the California Association
of Midwives and the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. Mary is married and the mother of a son in college and a teenage daughter.
Dr. Ray Castellino, D.C., R.P.P., R.P.E., RCST® is the director of Castellino Prenatal and Birth Trainings; Co-founder and Clinic Director of BEBA
(Building and Enhancing Bonding and Attachment) a non-profit research clinic for babies, children and families. He is an internationally
known trainer, clinical researcher and author in the field of prenatal and birth therapy for families with infants and children, and for
adults. See his websites for Castellino Training and
BEBA. He is adjunct faculty at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. He is a frequent
presenter for the Association of Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health international congresses, the Craniosacral Association of North
America and the California Association of Midwives. He has designed and teaches a two-year training program for health care professionals
that he began in 1995. The Castellino Training is now in it's 9th cycle. In addition, he is a photographer who specializes in birth, infant
and family photography. Ray is married and the father of two. His son is in his early 40s and his daughter in her early 30s.
Mary Jackson and Ray Castellino have joined forces to present a program to prepare couples for conception, birth, and to support families during birth and the postpartum period. Their goal is to support babies and their families to have the best possible beginning with no interventions and the highest degree of connection, love and bonding. They are experts in the field of newborn self-attachment, and have developed a new approach to establish breastfeeding and resolve breastfeeding challenges. Together they have almost 70 years of experience.
Services Offered
All clients in Mary's midwifery practice are offered 3 sessions with Mary and Ray (2 sessions prior to the birth and one after) as part of the midwifery package. The charge for this is included in Mary's regular midwifery fee. Most in person visits include Craniosacral Therapy and different forms of gentle bodywork as well as opportunity to explore emotional issues. The prenatal sessions take place in Santa Barbara on Ontare Road. The post birth sessions happen at home if during the first few weeks, or at Ontare if later. Postnatal sessions concentrate on breastfeeding, sleep, etc. as needed. Sessions vary in length from 50 minutes to 2 hours. Ray will attend the births that Mary midwifes if the clients request it and his schedule allows. The fee for that would be additional to Mary's midwifery fee and would depend on what he does/how long he's present. This is usually worked out with clients after the birth since it is impossible to know his level of participation ahead of time.
Clients do not need to be part of Mary Jackson's midwifery practice to have Mary and Ray for prenatal and post birth sessions. Fees for this are outlined below.
Mary's and Ray's services include:
- Craniosacral therapy
- Pre conception coaching
- Prenatal coaching
- Midwifery with Ray assisting
- Home visits right after baby is born
- Post natal visits
- New parent telephone support for families with infants 3 months and younger
- Photographic and video services of these events for families
- Private work with adults similar to a process workshop session. Sessions are usually 1.5-3 hours long.
Services include support for:
- Preparation for Conception
- The prenatal period
- Developing and using effective communication skills with medical practitioners so that clients can get what they need for themselves and their babies from their health care providers.
- Preparation for Birth
- Preparation for Vaginal Birth After Caesarian Section (VBAC)
- Labor support at home, birth center or hospital
- Resolving cranial molding and other physiological imprints from birth in the infant
- Establishing healthy easy breastfeeding habits
- Structural realignment for mom and dad
- Recovering from challenging births
- Newborn constipation
- Preventing or recovering from post partum depression
- Parents and babies with sleeping challenges
- Feeding challenges
- Families preparing for and recovering from infant surgery
- Families experiencing infant hospitalizations
- Post NICU recovery
- Recovering from breast feeding difficulties
- Establishing breast feeding even after several weeks
- Exploring early imprinting with adult clients
- Coming into / deepening relationship as adults
Educational Services:
- Ray and Mary are available to jointly and individually give presentations. Joint presentations are available through About Connections.
- Products for sale - educational videos and slide shows.
DVD Videos and Slideshows:
- Family Products:
- DVD video slideshows of prenatal, birth and postnatal visits
- DVD ROM files of photos for reproduction
- Birth videos
- Educational Products:
- DVD videos
- DVD video slideshows
Logistical Information
Cost
The cost of both private in-person and phone sessions is determined by the number of minutes of the actual session. Sessions are typically one to one and a half hours long. Longer sessions are possible to arrange.
The cost of sessions with Mary and Ray together if paid by check or cash is $6.00/min which works out to $360 per hour. So a session with Mary and Ray typically costs $450 (75 min)-$540 (90 min). There is an extra charge for home visits and for using a credit card. Checks are made separately to Mary Jackson and Raymond Castellino. Payment is due at the end of the session, so please bring 2 checks with you. Ray, but not Mary, can accept credit cards for an additional 5%. If you plan to use a credit card for paying Ray, please bring a check for Mary and talk to Sandra ahead of time if you want to know the breakdown of charges. Please note, we charge a $25 fee for all returned checks, even if they clear upon redepositing. Please make sure you have adequate funds in your account to cover your checks. Thank you.
Booking an Appointment
Sandra books appointments for both Ray alone and for Ray and Mary. Mary can be contacted directly for sessions with her alone. If Mary is called to a birth during an appointed time, you can choose to reschedule or to see Ray alone. They often work together because they feel they are more effective as a team in certain situations. Ray's practice is about 1/2 with Mary and 1/2 alone.
- To make an appointment in Santa Barbara or Ojai with Mary and Ray, please call Sandra Castellino at 805 687-2897.
- To make an appointment with Mary alone, call her at 805 649-3063.
Timing
We book sessions in Santa Barbara and Ojai for Ray and Mary together. Ray works alone at times that are worked out with the client and sometimes include Saturdays.
Locations
There are 2 locations:
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in Santa Barbara at 1105 N Ontare Road, Santa Barbara, 93105.
The house is on the left side of the road coming up the hill, just past Claremont. The right side is a no parking zone. Please turn around at the next intersection (Corto Camino Ontare). Please do NOT turn around in the neighbor's driveway. Drive back down, past the neighbor with a stuccoed 3.5 foot fence in front of their house and park in front of the house or in the driveway. It is important not to park in front of the neighbor's house. If you have trouble finding parking in front of our house, please let Sandra know and we can rearrange cars to find you an appropriate spot.
Printable directions to our site in Santa Barbara are available here.
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in Ojai at 609 Blanche Street, Ojai, CA 93023.
Printable directions to our site in Ojai are available here.
Forms
Once you've made an appointment, please fill in the forms below.
We prefer to receive these forms before you come to the appointment. You can mail, deliver, fax, or email them. The normal procedure is to email a copy of all your forms to Sandra who will print them for Mary and Ray. Sandra's fax is 805 687-4719. In case Sandra is out of town and cannot receive & transmite faxes, you can fax directly to Mary at 805 649-5418. The address for emailing them is Sandra@CastellinoTraining.com. If you email it, please email a MS Word document, not scanned images, and please bold your answers so we can tell them apart from the questions more easily. We cannot accept forms in word processing formats other than MS Word (e.g. WordPerfect, MS Works, Pages, or AppleWorks). If you cannot send them in advance because you are coming soon after you call, you can bring them with you to the appointment. Ray and Mary will read them before seeing you.
Please fill in and return:
- 1 form for each parent:
- 1 form for each child, including any children born to either parent and the preborn child in the womb (for a child in the womb, please fill in the conception, discovery and prenatal part of the form):
Or if you are not coming with children (either present or expected), please fill in and return:
- 1 form for each adult:
If you are in partnership with someone who is not the parent, please fill in forms for both the parent and the partner.
If you are adopting, please fill in parent forms for yourselves, the adopting parent(s) as well as forms for the birth parents. If you don't have much information, please fill in what you know. You may also write answers to questions not included such as why you adopted, what you explored before, your experience with the adopting agency.