Seminars & Webinars
Free 60-minute educational presentations for families – delivered at disability organizations, hospital systems, and community groups.
Confirmed for 2026
Upcoming Presentations
The presentation program is ongoing – new dates are added as River’s partnerships with organizations develop. Here is where you can join us next:
LifeWorks
September 29, 2026
Massachusetts
Registration details for this event are coming soon.
SmileMass
October 13, 2026
Massachusetts
Registration details for this event are coming soon.
The Presentation
Not a Pitch. A Diagnostic.
The Missing Piece – Why Most Families Have Parts of a Plan but Not a Plan is River’s 60-minute educational presentation for families navigating special needs planning.
The hour is teaching, not selling. Most of the presentation is straight educational content – a clear look at where most families’ plans fall short, what a complete plan actually covers, and what lifetime care really costs. By the end, you will know where your own plan stands and what to ask next.
The Eight Gaps
Most Families Have Parts of a Plan.
Not a Plan.
The heart of the presentation. Each of these is a real planning failure we see again and again – and each one is fixable once it is visible.
The SNT Exists — but Nothing Connects to It
The Special Needs Trust is only a container. Without the proper estate wiring routing assets into it, the trust sits empty — and the plan built around it never activates.
Retirement Accounts Pointing the Wrong Way
Retirement accounts naming the wrong beneficiary can send a direct inheritance to your loved one — disrupting benefits and triggering taxes at the same time.
Life Insurance Sized to a Round Number
Coverage is often chosen as a comfortable round figure rather than calculated against the actual lifetime care funding need.
No Tax Strategy for Trust Distributions
A pre-tax-heavy retirement portfolio with no strategy for how trust distributions will be taxed can quietly hand a large share of the plan to taxes.
No ABLE Account
One of the most underutilized planning tools available — and one many families have simply never been introduced to.
No Letter of Intent
Without a Letter of Intent, the trustee has no guidance on who the person actually is — their routines, their preferences, and what a good life looks like for them.
The Sibling’s Role Is Undefined
A brother or sister is quietly expected to manage care one day — without a defined role, a plan, or any preparation for what that means.
Benefits Never Stress-Tested
Eligibility has never been pressure-checked. Higher-income families often assume SSI is irrelevant to them — and miss everything that depends on it.
What to Expect — 60 Minutes, Start to Finish
Every presentation follows the same framework — educational first, with River introduced only at the end:
- Opening (5 min) — a personal story and the frame for the hour
- The Eight Gaps (12 min) — the planning failures most families never see
- What a Complete Plan Covers (18 min) — the standard every family can measure against
- The Lifetime Number (10 min) — making the real cost of lifetime care concrete
- Who We Are and How This Works (5 min) — where River fits, and what happens next
- Q&A (10 min) — your questions, answered directly
Two Ways to Find the Missing Piece
The free consultation is a gap audit, not a sales conversation. We will look at what you have, show you exactly what is missing or misaligned, and tell you where you stand.
Not ready to talk yet? The free Lifetime Needs Assessment is a lower-commitment first step that produces a personalized gap analysis for your family.